![]() “It’s exciting to note that algae derived biodiesel can be used as a replacement for fossil fuels such as diesel which have a much larger carbon footprint.” he notes “Even within our the food systems, the potential ability of algae to replace protein sources such as industrially produced meat means that if humanity switches to algae protein in large numbers, we could have a significant impact on reducing our current carbon greenhouse gas emissions budget. Senior Fellow - Project Drawdown Kevin Bayuk If the EOS algae bioreactor is to be considered a viable climate drawdown solution, much attention needs to be given its entire lifecycle from the creation of the appliances themselves to how the algae is harvested and lastly what actually happens to the algae once it’s outputted.įor algae to be counted as a true carbon sink and drawdown, it needs to be converted into products that will keep it sequestered long-term rather than respired back into the atmosphere such as food and fuel.Īccording to Kevin Bayuk, Senior Research Fellow at Project Drawdown, some exciting possibilities also include replacement impacts vs. Hypergiant wants to release that potential out into the market at large - with the power of collaboration fueling innovation and entrepreneurship. The beauty of algae is its versatility and ability to convert into products ranging from biofuels to bioplastics to food and beauty products. These algae-preneurs could build models small enough to sit on your counter to feed your daily smoothie habit or they could decide to develop the algae supply chain by taking the outputs and converting them into other types of commercially viable products. In democratizing the technology, Hypergiant hopes to inspire a whole new crop of algae-preneurs who will take the designs and run with them. We decided to open-source the algae bioreactor technology as a means of accelerating its innovation and scale.Įxpanding on the idea, Lamm continues “We want to encourage as many use cases as possible, from the hobbyist 3-D printing their own parts in their garage all the way through to commercial construction, where we can put reactors on the tops of big skyscrapers.” While Hypergiant does plan to commercialize the bioreactor and sell installations to interested customers, it also has plans to outsource the design and release it to the maker community.Ī problem as big as climate change needs a concerted and global effort on multiple fronts. The bioreactor has a small and modular design that can be used to connect bio-reactors together creating bio-reactor farms that could be hooked up to large polluters, taking their dirty emissions and converting existing pollution into ecologically useful products such as sneakers! The bio-reactor then creates algae outputs in the form of “carbon hockey pucks”, which can be used as fuel, food, bio-plastic products and more. Project Vesta out of San Francisco is pursuing the unique approach of seeding beaches with olivine rocks and using the wave power of the ocean to accelerate this kind of rock weathering for CO2 removal. Other types of carbon sequestration include transitioning to regenerative farming practices and enhanced weathering which is a process that accelerates the erosion of rocks forming bicarbonate and over time, this bicarbonate washes into the ocean, settling onto the ocean floor where it is permanently stored. ![]() The means of carbon sequestration vary from the often highly touted aim of planting a trillion trees, to direct air capture, which is the process of chemically scrubbing carbon dioxide directly from the air and then storing it either underground or developing products such as bioplastics. The science is clear that we must not only cut our carbon emissions as a means to stop the irreversible harm of climate change and limit global warming but that we also need to take carbon out of the atmosphere to stay within the stated target 1.5 C of the Paris Climate Agreement.
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