The algae is BIOLUMINSCENT… the “lamps” require zero power to operate, and only their creation consumes any significant resources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinoflagellate#Bioluminescence

France has had some ‘come to jeebus’ experiences when they found themselves buying solar-electricity from Germany during the recent cold snap. And when they’ve had to shut reactors down in heat waves because there was not adequate cooling water.

Of course, having a reactor blow up in your neighborhood and then watching a bunch of them go sour in a very technologically advanced country has made the French start to think that maybe they don’t love nuclear as much as they used to.

Can you imagine loosing truffles to drifting radioactive crap?

Quel désastre !

I cleaned what the snails didn’t get with a single edge razor blade.

These folks need to be inventing a blade that is easy to use on a curved surface….

As with whales, you lose significant energy at each level of the food chain but they are much easier to harvest and can make up for efficiency in collection area and energy density. Too bad they take longer to grow and would never be able to meet demand (whales and snails both).

France derives ~75% of its electricity from nuclear sources so it might actually work out as a rapid reduction method in the future after they have cut out the ~12% fossil fuel in their electric mix and switched to electric transport.

Here’s what I want to know, how does his algae strain and growing/harvesting technique stand up against all the others out there? All algae fixates carbon. And it has to be harvested, and buried, or probably better, used by people, because it will be used by something else and release the carbon back out anyway.