Author: Carrie Cox

A new report is required reading for those serious about developing new algae technologies, products, and ultimately deploying algae agriculture to create a more productive and sustainable economy.

The Algae Interagency Working Group (AWG) is a collection of federal agencies coordinating a range of activities on algae R&D supported by the United States government. They operate within the Biomass Research and Development (BR&D) Board,  which coordinates research and development activities concerning biobased fuels, products, and power across federal agencies.

BR&D’s new report, the Federal Activities Report on the Bioeconomy: Algae, contains a wealth of information on the breadth and scope of federal resources available to researchers and companies seeking to understand and use algae for the benefit of the bioeconomy.

Details include a number of new sources of funding that are available, clarity on regulatory issues facing those developing new products, and information on how stakeholders can engage with the AWG moving forward.

Download the report from the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

A number of federal officials will be making presentations at this year’s virtual Algae Biomass Summit. They will be on hand to discuss federal programs that can support algae, as well as commercialization projects.

Some of the Summit sessions with speakers from federal agencies include: 

• Managing Carbon Dioxide Utilization for Algae R&D on Thursday, August 20, 2020
• Macroalgae Biomass: A Sustainable Feedstock for Food, Feed, Fuels and Chemicals on Tuesday, August 25, 2020
• Managing Production Risk Through Crop Insurance on Tuesday, September 1, 2020
• The Food and Feed Keynote and Plenary Panel on Tuesday, September 8, 2020
• The Ecosystems Services Keynote and Plenary Panel on Wednesday, September 9
• The Biofuels and Biomaterials Keynote and Plenary Panel on Thursday, September 10
• The ABC’s: Algae, Biofuels and Cars panel  on Thursday, September 17

See the Summit agenda for full details.

Register for the Summit today and access these and dozens of other presentations. All Summit content will be recorded for later viewing, and the Summit’s mobile app offers uniques opportunities to engage and collaborate with attendees.

ABO is putting its weight behind establishing an Algae Center of Excellence to create connections between industry partners, academic institutions, and government agencies to accelerate commercialization of algae products and services. 

As a follow up to the significant win for the algae industry in the 2018 Agriculture Improvement Act (Farm Bill), where algae is included as a crop, members from ABO’s Future of Algae for Food and Feed and their stakeholders have laid out the next steps in launching an industry wide Algae Center of Excellence.

The purpose of the Algae Center of Excellence (ACE) is to accelerate development, scale up, and commercialization of innovative, sustainable and eco-restorative solutions for the production of food, feed and bioproducts from algae.  The 2018 Farm Bill included an Algae Agriculture Research Program in its “High Priority Research and Extension Initiatives” to address challenges in commercial-scale algae production and to support development of algae-based agriculture solutions. The ACE aims to facilitate efforts among the scientific and business disciplines to tackle the significant research objectives and commercial deployment challenges that cannot be addressed by any one discipline alone.

The ACE proposal highlights the need to collaborate and advance the industry in a way that will break through the current barriers in global growth. In particular the proposal identifies 12 proposed activities within the Algae Center of Excellence that be showcased as areas for development. These are:

1. Road mapping to identify new research directions and technologies
2. Develop multi revenue streams from biomass for improved economic viability
3. Food and Feed application development
4. Bioproduct application development
5. Biofertilizer/soil Amendment and biostimulants application for soil and plant health 
6. Restorative and eco-industrial rural development
7. Develop agronomic strategies for algal production
8. Develop a genetic toolbox and metabolic engineering techniques for commercially relevant organisms 
9. Develop metabolic engineering techniques for improved industrial characteristics 
10. Optimize economically viable harvesting, processing, and storing technologies 
11. Life Cycle and Technoeconomic Analysis of algal production 
12. Support consumer research and marketing

The Algae Center of Excellence will include a Steering Committee, Technical Advisory board, and Industry partners that will all work to ensure that the objectives of the Center are relevant to commercialization and will result in growth of the industry as a whole. For further detail on ACE and the full proposal click here.

Currently, members are looking to build upon this vision and are looking for partners who are motivated to help launch the Center. For more information or questions about ACE please reach out to Algae for Food and Feed committee member Jesse Traller, jessetraller@globalgae.com.

You can also learn more about this effort at the Algae session at ABLC 2020 on July10 at 11am ET.  And for a broader view of the algae industry, be sure to attend the Annual Algae Biomass Summit, including the annual Algae for Food and Feed meeting, that takes place virtually from August 12-October 2.

ABO’s work to build a supportive regulatory environment that can advance algae technology development saw some encouraging developments this past month, especially on our carbon utilization priorities:

New tax credit guidance for carbon utilization was announced by the Treasury

On the regulatory side, the Internal Revenue Service released a new set of regulations for the Section 45Q tax code that can award a federal investment tax credit of up to $35 per ton for carbon utilization with algae. A 60-day comment period on the regulation is now underway. Read more at K&L Gates’ Global Power Policy & Law blog.

The Senate is exploring carbon markets at the USDA

On the policy side, a bipartisan group of Senators introduced a bill that would put the regulation of agricultural carbon markets in the purview of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The bill is supported by ABO, and would build upon the algae industry’s coordination already underway at USDA in the wake of the most recent Farm Bill. That legislation established algae as an officially recognized agricultural crop in the United States for the time. Read more at the National Law Review.

The Department of Energy awarded up $6 million to advanced algae carbon capture projects

In funding news, ABO’s work to build robust support for cutting-edge research and development funding paid off with an announcement from the Department of Energy that two algae carbon capture projects would receive up to $6,000,000 in funding to move forward. Read about the awardees at Biomass Magazine.

ABO also voiced support for legislation on biofuel tax credits, $26 billion for academic research, and green infrastructure incentives:

• ABO joined a number of other groups asking Congress to extend biofuels tax credits. Read the letter to the House Ways and Means Committee here.
• COVID-19 disruptions threaten research across dozens of scientific fields. ABO supports the Research Investment to Spark the Economy (RISE) Act, which would authorize $26 billion in emergency relief for research universities, independent institutions, and national laboratories to continue working on federally-funded research projects. Read more at Rep. Diana DeGette’s website.
• A bill to expand renewable energy with tax incentives, the Growing Renewable Energy and Efficiency Now (GREEN) Act, also received ABO support. Read about the bill at Rep. Mike Thompson’s website.

ABO’s policy work will be a hot topic of discussion at the virtual Algae Biomass Summit, beginning August 12, 2020. Register for this online event today to get involved.

Algae can be a excellent source of sustainable oils for countless markets: fuel, feed, food, cosmetics and more. On June 29 those studying how oils from algae are making an impact in our lives can discover some of the latest innovations at The American Oil Chemists’ Society’s Annual Meeting & Expo. The event is free to attend will feature presentations and insightful sessions about the latest trends in fats, oils, proteins, surfactants and related materials.

AOCS has been a long-time partner of ABO, having worked closely with our Technical Standard Committee and on other initiatives.

More than 40 virtual exhibitors, including ABO, are also featured during the event. Be sure to check us out!

More information about the 2020 AOCS Annual Meeting can be found here: https://annualmeeting.aocs.org

And don’t forget to explore the full algae opportunity later this Summer at the virtual 2020 Algae Biomass Summit. We will feature deep-dives into market opportunities, technical sessions, career development workshops and more.

In May, the European Commission adopted two new strategies as part of the European Green Deal that proposes ambitious actions and commitments to reduce biodiversity loss and transform the food system to improve human health, planetary sustainability, and the food supply chain. The food system strategy is called Farm to Fork (F2F), and specifically calls out algae as part of the solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve food sustainability. The strategy document can be found here.

Excerpts include:

“[The Commission] will examine EU rules to reduce the dependency on critical feed materials (e.g. soya grown on deforested land) by fostering EU-grown plant proteins as well as alternative feed materials such as insects, marine feed stocks (e.g. algae) and by-products from the bio-economy (e.g. fish waste).” (page 8)

“[The Commission] will also set out well-targeted support for the algae industry, as algae should become an important source of alternative protein for a sustainable food system and global food security.” (page 10)

The inclusion of algae in the EU’s sustainability strategy is a milestone for an industry that has quickly advanced scientific and technical breakthroughs into commercial applications that can improve global food systems. Visit this page for more information about the EU’s F2F strategy.