A 4.34 liter two-stage air-lift photobioreactor incorporating Anabaena variabilis ATCC29413 mutant PK84 was used to study H2 production. Results showed that H2 production increased with increasing light intensity from 47 μE/(m2·s) up to 190 μE/(m2·s), but that further increase of light intensity decreased the H2 production because of the inhibition due to the high pO2. The data also indicated that longer argon gas charge resulted in more H2 produced due to the increase of nitrogenase activities and heterocyst frequency, and that more than 1.3 L net H2 was produced from this computer controlled photobioreactor.