Facing the energy crisis and climate change, the change of energy structure and the development of renewable energy are imminent. Bioethanol, as the most promising alternative energy, has grown rapidly in decades. Meanwhile, the traditional bioethanol brought many issues such as shortage of food and land which promoted people to find new sustainable development of alternative raw materials. Brown algae has the characteristics of rapid growth, high yield, low cost, simple pretreatment, no effect on food supply and environment. It is expected to become raw material of a new generation of bioethanol. This paper introduced the development and bottleneck of the first and second generation of bioethanol, including the advantages and research progress of the brown algae bioethanol.