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Abstract
Although biogas production from algae offers higher sunlight to biomass energy conversion
efficiencies its production costs simply cannot compete with terrestrial plants. Unfortunately
terrestrial plant cropping for biogas production is, in its own right, neither particularly
sustainable nor profitable and its ongoing application is only driven by energy security
concerns resulting in taxpayer subsidies. By comparison, scavenging the organic energy
residual/wastes from food production offers a far more profitable and sustainable
proposition and has an energy potential that dwarfs anything biogas production from
dedicated energy crops can realistically offer. Thus researchers wanting to assist
the development of sustainable biogas systems with viable process economics should
forget about terrestrial and algal energy cropping and focus on the realm of scavengers.
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