The Algae Summit, Groups to Know, Slides to See, and the Megatrends

September 20, 2019

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... We’ve managed to get a hold of three presentations that really were the bomb at ABS 2019. Jonathan Male, director of the Bioenergy Technologies Office and one of the original Pyromaniax himself, gave this one on the algae R&D priorities and actions for fuels and the by-products that bring down the fuel’s costs.

Vidar Gundersen, the Global Sustainability Director at BioMar gave this stunner on Algae in Food and Feed Going Mainstream, and you can catch it right here.

Meanwhile, John Litynski, Deputy Director, Advanced Fossil Technology Systems gave this fascinating update on Carbon Capture Program Activities.

Carbon capture, fuels & co-products, food & feed — that really sums up the hot areas for algae commercialization and applied research.

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There were a host of good companies at ABS and we can’t say we visited with all, but here are 5 worth knowing that we got to know well for the first time.

Membranology. ...

AquaFiber. ...

Gross-Wen Technologies. ...

A small gaggle of Icelandic companies. ...

AzCATI. ...

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The Bottom Line

Algae’s been through it, right as the Gartner Curve tells us a boom time of exuberance, a crash with all the excessive pessimism, and now there’s the rising path of enlightenment as we find out what algae is meant to do right now. Which is to bring forth food and feed and nutraceuticals, and as the co-products improve the economics and scale, then the door to the larger commodities such as fuels will come.

The pace depends on the pace of action on carbon, and especially the pace of action on fossil emissions where algae offers a CO2 remediation option that’s second to none. We’ll have to see how oil companies develop their carbon strategy — the more urgency they feel, the better for algae. READ MORE