Author: Carrie Cox

There is no question that global food security is among the major challenges this generation must face sooner rather than later. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently mapped out the problem in a speech in Italy: world food production must increase by 60% before 2050; food is not produced where it is most needed; nearly one-third of world fish stocks are over-exploited; extreme weather made worse by climate change is degrading agricultural zones around the world.

These pressures make it clear we not only need more food—we need better food.

Algae: the sustainable crop

Algae, among the most efficient photosynthetic organisms on the planet, are fast becoming one of those more perfect foods.  Algae are more nutritious, grow faster, grow almost anywhere, use less water and have lower carbon footprints than any other crop.

Algae can be cultivated for human food, and they can also be grown as a feed supplement for animals and fish. In the case of feeds alone:

• They have less than 10% the carbon footprint of conventional feeds
• They use less than 10% if the land requirements of traditional feeds
• They have less than 20% the water impact of traditional feeds

At the recent Algae Biomass Summit in Washington, DC hundreds of technology innovators discussed the benefits that large-scale algae production could bring to the world’s food system. Martin Sabarsky, CEO of Cellana, presented this slide at the Summit that compares algae’s resource impact with other agricultural products:

See that “CCU” in algae’s box under the carbon emissions column? That’s Carbon Capture and Utilization; unlike other agricultural activities, algae can be consumers of carbon emissions, and so their net impact on the climate problem can actually be positive.

Algae cultivation is superior on every other mark as well.

Algae in your supermarket

Algae are also positioned to succeed in the marketplace.

Studies have already shown that feeds based on algae can meet and exceed the performance of traditional feed formulations.

For human consumption, new algae products are hitting shelves that don’t look at all like the kelp chips you find in the supermarket–although those have health benefits far superior to the spinach and kale you might be buying now.

Solazyme recently introduced an algae-derived cooking oil with a mild flavor profile, high cooking temperature and an insanely high ratio of monounsaturated fats (those are the hearty-healthy kind most of us need to eat more of).

Dr. Peter Licari, Chief Technology Officer at Solazyme offered this comparison of the company’s algae-derived AlgaWise Ultra Omega-9 oil to other cooking oils:

Solazyme is introducing a range of other algae-derived food products, including algae based flours, and their cookies get rave reviews.

Many other members of the Algae Biomass Organization are developing solutions to food security challenges. This includes algae-derived foods, nutritional supplements, soaps, fertilizers and water treatment systems.

Bottom line: New technologies are being developed that could make algae part of a second green revolution.

Algae have a role to play in our food future. The question is, how soon can we make it happen?

The algae industry can seem pretty complicated sometimes, so it  helps when you can find a well-researched summary that breaks down the latest developments and potentials. David Babson, senior fuels engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists offers exactly that in his recently posted impressions of Algae Week in Washington, DC.

From September 29-October 2, 2015 a number of algae workshops and meetings were held in the nation’s capital alongside the largest conference of algae leaders in the world, the Algae Biomass Summit. Babson was able to attend many of the sessions, and writes in his “5 Takeaways From Algae Week in Washington” about the diversity of problems algae cultivation can solve, the thousands of products that can be made with algae and the range of technologies being deployed by innovative entrepreneurs.

It’s a great read, and you may want to bookmark the post for anytime you need to give someone a quick education on the diversity and great potential of the algae industry.

Read the Union of Concerned Scientists blog post here.

ABO is eagerly anticipating the upcoming Algae Europe 2015 Conference, which will be held in Lisbon, Portugal from December 1-3, 2015.

In case you’re not familiar with this prestigious conference, Algae Europe is a unique networking and communication exchange opportunity, where academia and industry professionals can discuss the evolution of the Algae Biomass sector worldwide and understand the role of European players. There are several projects in Europe, from lab scale to demonstration plants and commercial facilities, all of which are aimed at accelerating the commercialization of algal products.

Furthermore, since algae can help address several of the EU’s policy objectives for sustainable biofuels and biochemicals, this event might be the launching pad for European support that will lead to commercial algo-biorefineries operating in the EU.

To learn more about Algae Europe 2015, check out their website at www.algaecongress.com. If you want to get involved, the time is now! The deadline for abstracts submissions is October 30^th.

Last week at the 2015 Algae Biomass Summit, Solazyme‘s Chief Technology Officer Dr. Peter Licari announced to hundreds of algae industry leaders that the company is launching Thrive, the first culinary oil derived from algae to hit consumer markets.

Thrive takes advantage of the unique properties of algae to make a cooking oil with some impressive characteristics:

• A clean, neutral taste
• An unusually high smoke point
• Zero trans fat and very low saturated fat
• Suitability for all types of cooking

Thrive is also made of more than 90% heart-healthy monosaturated fats. In fact, one tablespoon of Thrive contains the same amount of the these good fats as you would find in one whole avocado.

And since Solazyme can modify its oils to meet customized characteristics, the world of cooking oil just got very interesting!

This is the first time an algae-derived cooking oil has been made available, and cooking oils are likely only among the first class of consumer products that will be disrupted by commercial algae cultivation. Algae can replace or augment the fuels we use, the foods we eat, the feeds we use to raise animals, and the materials we use to build things.

Algae are also a raw material that can be produced without freshwater or large tracts of agricultural lands. And since they grow fast we don’t have to wait an entire season for the harvest. Solazyme’s oils can be ready in days instead of months, for example.

Want to get your hands on Thrive? Read more details at FoodNavigator-USA

Congratulations to Solazyme for making this innovative, sustainable and healthy product available!

The 2015 Algae Biomass Summit opened yesterday in front of a packed audience at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC. The first keynote and plenary speakers of the largest algae conference in the world were all in agreement that the industry advancements over the past year were proof that algae’s greatest potential was their ability to impact dozens of markets. The focus of nearly every speaker was how algae has become a technology platform with multiple applications.

“There’s Algae Inside.”

In his opening remarks, ABO executive director Matt Carr listed the benefits of using algae in the production of fuels, foods, medicine and other products, saying that in the future they might all carry the tag line: “there’s algae inside.”

Algae Impacts the Industry, Thanks to ABO and Member Companies

ABO board chair and CEO of Cellana, Martin Sabarsky, echoed Matt’s words, and noted that algae are already impacting several industries. He noted that an impressive set of policy wins accomplished by the Algae Biomass Organization shows how ABO is punching above its weight class. This is largely due to the great potential of the organization’s members, which they’ve demonstrated in their commercial and pre-commerical operations.

A Vision of Innovation

Dr. Peter Licari of Solazyme addressed a packed room of hundreds of attendees as the Summit’s first keynote. He noted that algae, a 1.5 billion year old organism, can help solve many of the challenges in the world today. Because they are among the first organisms to evolve they can produce any type of oil.

The algae fermentation technology used by Solazyme can produce algae independent of the season, or geographic location. This advantage means they can produce a variety oils not available by traditional methods, such as tropical oils in the dead of winter in Iowa.

Industry Advancements Towards Commercialization

At the opening plenary session, moderator Jim Lane of Biofuels Digest pointed out the incredible progress toward commercialization so many companies were making, with many of them producing fuels and other products.

Algae’s potential to consume carbon dioxide was discussed by CEO’s of some of the leading companies in the industry. CEO of Algenol Paul Woods noted that their process can use $2 of CO2 from the flue gas of a power plant to produce up to 7 barrels of fuel. His carbon reduction potential is also impressive; a 2,000-acre Algenol facility is the equivalent of planting 40 million trees.

Executives from Joule Unlimited, LanzaTech, T2Energy, and Global Algae Innovations all agreed that carbon utilization was now a real business opportunity, and costly carbon sequestration options would not be competitive as the algae technology platform goes to commercial scale.

DOE In Support of Algae Technology

The importance of progress in the industry was not lost on Franklin (Lynn) Orr, U.S. Under Secretary for Science and Energy. In his keynote, Secretary Orr noted that the first steam mechanical engines were extremely inefficient, but over decades and centuries the technology has evolved to impact every corner of our lives. Algae can follow a similar path, he noted, and the Department of Energy has been committed to supporting R&D in the industry, and will continue to do so.

Algae Making the World Healthier

In the plenary session on innovations in health and nutrition moderated by Dr. Stephen Mayfield of the California Center for Algae Biotechnology, UC San Diego, a number of leading firms described how their technologies could upend markets for Omega-3 supplements, food pigments, pharmaceutical, nutritional supplements, animal feeds and more. The business and research challenges with any new technology are real, but market drivers as well as the need for a more sustainable way to provide food and medicine to the world mean that the future for algae is bright indeed.

Announcement from XPRIZE

Just before breaking out for the opening evening reception, Summit attendees were treated to a surprise announcement from the XPRIZE Foundation. They’ve launched the $20 Million Carbon XPRIZE, a competition that will incentivize breakthroughs to convert our current liability of CO2 emissions into useful products.

The competition will be structured as a two-track prize, with one track focused on testing technologies at a coal power plant, and the other focused on testing technologies at a natural gas power plant. The winning teams will convert the most CO2 into products with the highest net value and the smallest environmental impact. To learn more about this amazing opportunity, visit the prize website at http://carbon.xprize.org.

If the enthusiasm at the Summit is any indication, algae technologies will be stiff competition to beat for the latest XPRIZE.