History of Algae

For decades, people have been working to bring algae into food, feed, and fuel markets. Until now, all attempts have not come close to the goal of achieving economical algae production for these commodities. This is because an order of magnitude improvement in cost and energy use is needed, so success requires dozens of innovations and major breakthroughs throughout the entire process. Algae companies who originally tried to do fuel have pivoted to high value products because they do not have the technology to economically produce commodities such as fuel and feed.

The challenges were daunting:

Obtain high photobioreactor productivities in a low-cost open raceway system.
Maintain culture stability in open, outdoor systems.
Develop a reliable microalgae harvest system to concentrate from dilute raceways to an algal paste and produce clean water for recycle back to the raceways.
Supply CO2 to the raceways from the atmosphere or flue gas for less than $30/ton.
Reduce energy use by 10-fold each for inoculum, cultivation, harvesting, drying, and extraction.
Develop scalable technology for harvesting and large raceways.

Global Algae was founded in 2013 to harness the unparalleled productivity of algae to provide food and fuel for the world, dramatically improving the environment, economy, and quality of life for all people. The company recognized that to achieve this vision, radical advances were necessary in every step of the algae production process. Therefore, the company has focused its efforts over the past seven years on research and development to lower the cost and energy use in algae farming. As a result of $35,000,000 in research and development funding, Global Algae has achieved eleven major breakthroughs and numerous other innovations in algae cultivation, harvesting, and processing. Global Algae has obtained $22,000,000 in funding for continued research and development. Another $10,000,000 in funding has been secured for the first step of the scale up process!

All of the challenges to economical algae production for feed, food, fuel, and polymers have been overcome, so algae technology is NOW ready to save the world. We are actively looking for partners for the following products: SAF, alternative protein, & omega-3s.