text: Algae grow much faster than food crops, and can produce hundreds of times more oil per unit area than conventional crops such as rapeseed, palms, soybeans, or jatropha. As algae have a harvesting cycle of 1–10 days, their cultivation permits several harvests in a very short time-frame, a strategy differing from that associated with annual crops. In addition, algae can be grown on land unsuitable for terrestrial crops, including arid land and land with excessively saline soil, minimizing competition with agriculture. Most research on algae cultivation has focused on growing algae in clean but expensive photobioreactors, or in open ponds, which are cheap to maintain but prone to contamination.