The algae industry's main trade group is applauding a major National Academy of Sciences report from earlier today on algae-based biofuels.

While the report found that current algae-to-fuel technology raises sustainability issues, including the industry's heavy use of water, nutrients and energy, it also found that the industry has the potential for improvement.

The Algae Biomass Organization, which represents all algal-derived commodities, said that the report was clear that those concerns were "not a barrier to future growth."

"ABO does strongly agree with the [report's] conclusion that additional research, development and innovation will continue to improve the sustainability of products derived from algae," the Minnesota-based group said. "We hope that policymakers and others involved in the future of the domestic fuel industry will recognize the [report's] conclusion that sustainability concerns are not a definitive barrier to growth."

The national academy's research body released the 274-page report this morning, which assesses whether the fledgling U.S. algal industry could produce enough fuel to replace 5 percent of all U.S. transportation fuel (Greenwire, Oct. 24).

It found that under current practices and technology, the expansion of the industry posed "unsustainable" demands on resources, including requiring at least 123 billion liters of water to reach the 5 percent level.

But none of those concerns are a "definitive barrier to sustainable development of algal biofuels," the report concludes.

Many of the issues in the report are already being addressed by algal fuel producers and researchers, the Algae Biomass Organization said. The organization noted, for example, that commercial algae producers were using saline or recycled water, rather than fresh water, in many of their applications and that they were piloting technologies to recycle nutrients.

Brent Erickson, executive vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization's Industrial & Environmental Section, also applauded the report.

"Their report correctly concludes that the industry has developed or is developing sustainable strategies to overcome these challenges," he said.

Friends of the Earth, an environmental group that opposes the renewable fuel standard and the expansion of food-based biofuels, had a different interpretation of the report.

The report highlights the "huge environmental risks and unknowns of using algae for biofuels," said Michal Rosenoer, biofuels policy campaigner at FOE.

"Algae production poses a double-edged threat to our water resources, already strained by drought," Rosenoer said. "It requires massive amounts of water for production -- and is genetically engineered to produce oil."