Discovering viable pathways for sustainable fuel and food production. In July 2015, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) awarded $5.2 million in funding to the Marine Algae Industrialization Consortium (MAGIC), led by Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, to research and develop applied technologies that can reduce the cost of biofuels derived from marine microalgae. [Continue Reading]

Produced industrially, tiny algae can reduce carbon emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere. In 2010, estimated greenhouse gas emissions from human activities totaled nearly 46 billion metric tons worldwide (PDF Download), a 35 percent increase from 1990. Steadily building up in the atmosphere, they cause dangerous interference with the climate. [Continue Reading]

Marine microalgae feed fish as an alternative to fishmeal−to ensure that fish feed us. Aquaculture has been growing at an annual average rate of 5.8 percent since 2005, but with world population numbers likely to balloon to over 9 billion by 2050, demand will increase. Feed for farmed fish species has become a problem. [Continue Reading]

The science for biofuel production speeds up with a quick, inexpensive tool. Through our oceans drift tiny microalgae with huge potential for the world. With cells rich in oil, growing fast, they potentially offer a valuable source for biofuels. But, as is true for any other organisms, along with proteins, carbohydrates and nucleic acids, oil [Continue Reading]

According to a report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (PDF Download) in 2011, the world’s rising population will call for 70 percent more food production globally by 2050. Yet an expansion of conventional agriculture is not the answer. Conventional agriculture uses 70 percent of water withdrawn from aquifers, streams and [Continue Reading]

The world is currently on track to miss its target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C relative to pre-industrial levels, a goal set in the December 2015 Paris Climate Accord. To avoid catastrophic global climate change, society must start to significantly cut its greenhouse gas emissions. World population numbers are expected to jump from today’s [Continue Reading]

Worldwide, aquaculture is rapidly expanding, and, with it, the need for fish food. But fishmeal, traditionally sourced from marine fisheries, risks depleting the fisheries, comes in limited supplies, and is expensive.  “During the 2010–30 period, prices are expected to rise by 90 percent,” says a December 2013 report by The World Bank, Fish to 2030 [Continue Reading]

Can we use defatted marine green microalgae (DGA) to produce healthier animal feeds and human foods? With more than twenty studies published since 2010, a research team led by Xin Gen Lei, Professor of Molecular Nutrition in the Department of Animal Science at Cornell University, has a response. “We can make it happen,” Lei says. [Continue Reading]