5 Cent a Lb. Sugar Using Cyanobacteria C02+Sunlight+Nutrients

Well, it doesn't appear to be sugar, but Proterro sucrose. I see no reference to suitability for human consumption of the product.

How viable it is will depend on the current price for biofeedstocks that will be replaced, and the costs associated with feedstock conversion to sugars.

Interesting technology, but even their literature doesn't make much of a mention of creating a new foodstuff for human consumption, just as an upstream feedstock for further chemical processing.

We have to remember that to an organic chemist saying something is a "sugar" is just like calling something an "alcohol", it's just that the molecule has a certain number of H, O, and C atoms, and there are many variants based upon exactly how they're arranged. Surely no one would suggest that methyl and ethyl alcohol are interchangeable for human consumption, similarly for Proterro Sugar.

Addressing OP's environmental concerns, this process might be a viable solution to the Greenhouse Gas Problem since one of the required ingredients is lots of CO2, and capturing all that power plant and industrial flue gas then utilizing it to produce "sugar" is mentioned in their literature.

Well, I really was thinking table sugar that could be turned into ethanol more cheaply than from sugar. My bad. Still seems like a lot of potential. Sounds more doable than all the algae to lipids concepts, but maybe not. The scaling up always seems to be the killer.

If we would lift the Cuban embargo and do away with Big Sugar subsidies we'd have 5 cent sugar again...