I recently stumbled upon this fascinating technology and was just curious what you guys thought of it.
Its the idea that growing algae on the exhaust pipes from power station would essentially be recycling. This of course would be done via photosynthesis from the carbon dioxide being emitted from the stations. Accordingly it would produce oil(this may sound ludicrous but apparently some algae store there food as oil), which would then be turned into bio diesel). There were even some studies that suggested that this could reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power stations by 75 percent.

This sounds like a great novelty to have and it would combat global warming but how plausible is it. What would be the cost of it? Is it efficient? Does it work? There is still a vast amount ambiguity surrounding it but nevertheless it could be one of the many solutions to help reduce the green house gases.

 Gum in the dyke it may be . To follow through with your metaphor; many pieces of gum may save the town from flood until the new dam is built. To do nothing we will surely drown.

I have not encountered this particular solution you refer to.  I have a couple of thoughts about it though.

Power plant exhaust is so voluminous that the algae tanks would need to be huge in order to capture more than a tiny amount of the emitted carbon.

What would you do with the algae after it has grown but before it has begun to decay and re-release the carbon back into the atmosphere? Any solution would need to sequester the algae away without contact with the atmosphere for thousands of years.

Perhaps you are referring to the proposal by some “carbon credit” companies to fertilize the (southern) oceans with iron to stimulate plankton growth that in theory will sink to the bottom of the deep ocean taking the carbon with it…(example=Planktos). Several papers have appeared in the scientific journals over the last several years about this possibility. Most of them have dismissed it as impractical. It seems most of the plankton is consumed before it sinks and it never reaches the bottom.  It would be nice if it works but unfortunately it does not seem as probable as the company hype about it implies. I see Planktos is trying to sell carbon credits for $5/ton; this is dirt cheap.

No one solution will solve the problem. A combination of solutions should reduce the anticipated damage though.

2 things that come to my mind:

- why not just plant trees to use the CO2? They are much easier to grow than algae.

- at least for human consumption, CO2 must be biogenic (produced by living organisms = not a byproduct of chemical process or burning). The reason is that abiogenic CO2 is accompanied by several other harmful chemicals. Removing these chemicals might not be (just guessing) economical or environmentally friendly.