It is well known that many strains of algae are capable of growing in wastewater and by doing so providing a form of treatment. Outdoor pro­ductivities are, however, difficult to find in the literature as most studies are performed in the laboratory and therefore conditions are less realis­tic. Likely strains to dominate in specific scenarios and locations are not known and therefore it is hard to speculate what type of strain would be dominant. It is therefore also difficult to know what harvesting technique would be most appropriate for the strain cultivated and how much energy could be expected to be recovered from conversion to biodiesel, bioetha­nol, biogas or from combustion.

Each of the processes studied have been tested and are considered practically viable. Each of the harvesting methods considered are cur­rently used for harvesting algal biomass regardless of their energy use and overall viability. Conversion techniques have been shown to be feasible, again regardless of how viable they are in real situations. What are missing are pilot-scale studies of the whole system to give valuable information about applicability to different situations.