ABO Blog

An Icelandic student has discovered a novel use for algae: as the base for biodegradable bottles. The bottles consist of algae and water: they are combined, heated, poured into a mold and cooled quickly. When the bottle is emptied, it rots in about a week and could sustainably decompose in soil over time.

The genesis of the project was in fact a homework assignment. Icelandic student Ari Jonsson unveiled the bottle at the DesignMarch 2016 festival in Reykyavik and has been perfecting the design since.

This invention is especially notable in light of what it would replace: plastic. Plastic takes over a thousand years to biodegrade and is a large contributor to waste across the globe. Albeit still in its infancy (it doesn’t yet have a way to cap it), Jonsson’s bottle could help people re-envision portable water. In other words, algae strikes again.

For more details, visit the original article on takepart.

China is the world’s fastest-growing market for the clean-tech industry. Despite latent skepticism, many see much opportunity in China for entrepreneurial activities, but only a few have actually acted on it.

ABO member Accelergy Corp. is one of several algae companies that have decided to act. Based in, Accelergy is working with Chinese partners to develop and deploy its algae-based technology that captures CO2 and converts it into biobased products, most notably a fertilizer. According to the agreement, Accelergy will be leading the international effort to deploy the technology (including facilities in the North America), while SARI will be managing the commercialization in China.

Read more about this and other clean-tech collaborations in China in this Globe and Mail article.

TerraVia and VMG Partners have formed TerraBrands: a venture to bring algae into mainstream food markets. As a recent Fortune article explains, the partnership is very natural. TerraVia has a strong background in the algae-industry and VMG has the capital and experience necessary to break into the target markets.

This isn’t new territory for VMG, which works with other health-focused companies, but it is certainly a new venture for TerraVia. Just this year, TerraVia changed its name from Solazyme and shifted its focus from algae-based biofuels to algae-based food products.

Although TerraVia’s products are relatively new to the space, algae as in ingredient is not new to the food industry. It is a widely-accepted superfood and has made its way into products as popular as Naked Juice.

The future for this new partnership seems bright. As Kara Cissell-Roell of VMG points out, there is a “massive opportunity” in the space and TerraBrands is planning to capitalize on it.

Algae technologies have a unique potential to use the CO­₂ from fossil fuel power plants as they grow, transforming what is now considered a harmful waste gas into a valuable feedstock for countless products.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Fossil Energy is seeking information from industry, academia, research laboratories, and others to learn about specific beneficial carbon use and reuse technology opportunities for the U.S. power generation sector. The Bioenergy Technologies Office is also interested in employing bioenergy feedstocks as carbon utilization technologies.

To complement existing efforts to develop, demonstrate, and deploy carbon capture technologies, DOE is interested in supporting new and innovative approaches to beneficially utilize CO­₂ from fossil fuel power plants. These technologies include biological utilization technologies, such as algae cultivation.

To read the Office of Fossil Energy’s full Request for Information, visit the Fed Connect website.

Deadline for responses in April 25, 2016!

As we noted in a recent post, Carbon Balance and Management journal published a study in late 2015 touting the emissions reduction potential of algae when used as animal feed. The authors highlight the tension between food security and bioenergy production and point to the simple solution of using commercially grown algae as a partial feed substitute. Algae’s land-sparing qualities mean that it could address food scarcity and land issues at the same time.

A key tenet of the study deserves a deeper dive: that on a large scale, the use of algae as animal feed establishes the conditions “for cascading greenhouse emissions savings and a return to preindustrial atmospheric carbon concentrations.”

Yet even at small scales the incorporation of algae into animal feeds could have a significant effect, much more so than marginal improvements in bioenergy production. Table 3 of the study (shown below) charts the projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations in the year 2100 based on the results of the model used in the study. According to the table, if 10% of feeds were algae-based and 25% of emissions were sequestered using CCS, global warming would be limited to 2 degrees. Any further increase in application for either CCS or algae as a feedstock would march towards being a carbon sink.

 

Projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations [ppm] in year 2100 of the simulation

 

Although perhaps a hypothetical analysis like this should be taken with a grain of salt, it is nonetheless a remarkable result that algae and CCS could together act as such a significant pathway towards limiting global emissions. And in many ways an even more remarkable result that an impact could be had with modest introduction of either.

Photo credit: Walsh et al., New Feed Source Key to Ambitious Climate Targets. Carbon Balance and Management. 2015. Table 3.