Heard on the Floor at the Algae Biomass Summit
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) On October 23-26 the algae industry gathered in Phoenix, AZ for the Algae Biomass Summit , its annual get together. Gone are the glory days of algae biofuels capturing headlines and promising to save the world from climate change. Over the years some of the early players are gone, others have changed focus and others still are continuing the hard work of addressing the most challenging technical barriers.
Overall the algae industry is alive and kicking. At the ABS it was abundantly clear that, away from the spotlight, the accumulated knowledge of decades of work, talent and dedication is bearing fruits. Industry players – old and new – are selling products, technology and services. Revenues (albeit not in the billions) are being recorded and some folks are … drum roll … grinding out real profits.
The industry’s tag line is less about filling the tanks of our cars and airplanes and more about filling our own tank with sustainable, healthy and natural nutritional ingredients. Water quality and agricultural solutions are the latest (albeit not new) additions to the suite of high value needs algae can address.
And algae biofuels is lurking in the background, waiting for a few more technical breakthroughs to materialize and a more favorable market environment … in the form of high oil prices, more evidence – as though any was needed – that climate change is a dramatic problem that needs to be taken seriously or that drilling miles under the polar ices and blasting our way to more fossil fuels will only delay the inevitable reckoning with the hard fact that we need to find new and sustainable sources of energy, of the renewable kind.
Algae for food and feed – protein, oils and pigments for human nutrition, animal and fish feed – received the most attention. READ MORE
