As the biological and chemical technologies in algae biofuels production, engineering design, siting and resources are playing some dominant role in successfully developing and scaling locally. The southwest region in U.S. has been identified by DoE and the USDA as the most suitable area for developing algal biofuel production due to several merits like the high level of solar radiation, large arid land not good for food production. Among this region, Southern Nevada has unique advantage to grow microalgae biomass, which is the large amount of CO2 emission from about 16 power plants in Clark County to support the world famous entertainment city, Las Vegas. The intensive CO2 emission provides plenty of carbon sources for microalgae cultivation. In addition, millions of tourists from all over the world visiting Las Vegas generate lots of wastewater to be treated in Las Vegas valley. Including the local residents, there are about 100 million gallons wastewater generated per day in the Clark County. Together with CO2, wastewater provides sufficient inorganic components (or nutrient) for large scale microalgae cultivation.
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