Author: Carrie Cox

In collaboration with NRG and Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, the nonprofit XPRIZE has begun accepting applications from individuals and teams with projects that will help turn carbon from a liability into an asset.

In a series of rounds, teams will be whittled down as they attempt to use new technologies to convert CO2 from an actual coal-fired or natural gas plant into valuable products.

Instead of a silver bullet approach, XPRIZE believes in developing an ecosystem of technologies that will work together to mitigate and convert carbon. XPRIZE sees this competition as a chance to prove that carbon technologies can work, be economically viable and, in turn, stimulate further investment into similar innovations.

ABO would love to see algae-based solutions among the winners, so click here to learn more and then register here. Registration closes in April.

Researchers at the University of Melbourne School of Engineering have discovered a new method for delivering much needed pure CO2 to algae with lower costs, boosting the potential for creating biodiesel and other algae biomass products.

CO2 for algae is like spinach for Popeye — a daily dose does a lot to improve growth rates.

Abundant flue gasses from power generation and industrial processes are the best place to source the CO2 because it is being released in a much more concentrated form than the CO2 found in the rest of the atmosphere and using those gasses would mitigate a huge source of climate change.

But there’s a catch. Flue gases often contain other chemicals that are costly to remove. If the algae consume the unpurified form of CO2, they can perish. Popeye would not do well with contaminated greens!

That’s where Professor Sandra Kentish, Head of the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Melbourne and Ph.D. Student Qi Zheng come in.

In their new method, CO2 is absorbed into a liquid and delivered via extremely thin, log straws called hollow fiber membranes, that penetrate the algae beds. Feeding CO2 to algae in this way is not only cheaper, it also increases growth rates.

Read more about their findings here.

A recent article in Nutritional Outlook highlighted the wide variety of uses for algae in the food industry. Algae not only bring a lot of nutritional benefits to the table—most notably omega-3 fatty acids, which play a crucial role in optimizing brain function—but can also substitute for artificial ingredients or act as a protein supplement in food.

This versatility is reflected in the endless uses for algae described in Nutritional Outlook. As Mark Brooks, senior vice president for food ingredients with Solazyme, points out, “algae-based ingredients can be found in food products in more than 10 aisles of the grocery store here in the United States.” And the trend is no different in Europe. To give you a sense of the flexibility of algae, here are just some of the food items in your supermarket that may contain algae:

• Oil (for cooking and baking)
• Cereal and Energy Bars
• Cream Cheese
• ‘Bubbles’ for Bubble Tea
• Brat-Algenwurst (a vegetarian sausage)
• Soy Cakes
• Protein Powder
• Smoothies
• Ice Cream
• Chocolate Bars

Algae is truly remarkable in its ability to address a variety of concerns at once, while simultaneously being flexible in its form and use. In other words, the sky is the limit. Brooks expects to see an increase in algae use in foods in 2016 and we are excited to see the the new products that come along with it.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a new $15 million funding opportunity to develop algae biofuel feedstocks that can replace petroleum feedstocks in downstream refining.

Specifically, the DOE is looking for projects that can produce 3,700 thousand gallons of unrefined algae-based biofuel per acre per year by 2020. Unrefined biofuels, or intermediates, should be ready to sell to refiners who should be able to create ethanol, renewable diesel and jet fuel.

This and other opportunities have been made possible because the Algae Biomass Organization and its members were able to work closely with Congress to secure $30 million in dedicated algae funding at the DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office for 2016. We are now seeing the results of that effort and strongly encourage ABO members to consider an application.

In this funding opportunity, applicants must address one comprehensive topic area with three main priority areas:

1. Strain/productivity improvements.
2. Improvements in pre-processing technologies (harvesting, dewatering, and extraction and/or equivalent processes).
3. Integration of cultivation with pre-processing technologies.

ABO members deserve thanks for supporting the efforts that make opportunities like this possible!

You can learn more about this funding opportunity and application requirements here.

 

 

It’s widely recognized the world is going to have a lot of extra mouths to feed in the coming decades, especially in the developing world, where demand is rising for nutritious and protein-rich food.

To meet this impending swell in demand, innovators are searching for farming technologies that will require the least input and the least arable land. As always, traditional crops will need to produce higher yields than they do today, but they cannot meet this challenge alone.

In the most recent issue of Biomass Magazine ABO’s executive director Matt Carr writes about the global food challenge and how new research can help us provide the food we need without a crippling ecological impact.

“the world doesn’t just need more food—we need better food” –Matt Carr

Algae, for example, can become a key component of food production. Algae can be cultivated with non-potable water, little to no agricultural land, and harvested year round. They can be a source of food for human as well as animals, which means they can help reduce the impact of feeding more and more livestock and fish as global populations grow.

To learn more about how algae can be the missing link in the global food shortage, check out Expanding Food Production and Biomass Benefits in Biomass Magazine.