Abstract
The economic feasibility and technological improvement to produce biodiesel from microalga, Chlorella vulgaris is investigated. The biodiesel would help Malaysia replace diesel with renewable and sustainable energy in the transportation sector. Accordingly, the Malaysian Agriculture and Plantation Greenhouse Gas Model is modified and extended to incorporate algal farms. The model forecasts Malaysia's market prices and quantities of major agricultural commodities between 2024 and 2064. The simulation results indicate that algal biodiesel is not economically feasible. The biodiesel price must be $0.68 per litre or higher for the algal farms to produce biodiesel. The biodiesel price could be lowered to $0.60 per litre if the algal farms experience a one-percent annual boost in either algal harvest yield or productivity gain. The results indicate that harvest yield improvements boost biodiesel production more than productivity improvements. The feasibility depends on algal farms to dry the leftover slurry and sell it to the animal feed markets. At last, the biodiesel offsets CO2 emissions from the transportation sector while the alga consumes the CO2 from the flue gas of coal and natural gas electric power plants, which help Malaysia sequester high levels of CO2.