Blue Marble Energy is honored to be featured in a recent article by The Guardian Unlimited highlighting the companies at the forefront of wild algae movement.
…Last month, a San Francisco “algae summit” drew more than 300 delegates. One participant was Kelly Ogilvie, co-founder of Seattle firm Blue Marble Energy, which plans to harvest wild algae from sewage farms, lakes and rivers, mining ponds and algae blooms caused by pollution. It says its method is “low cost” and “low tech”.
Unlike corn, soya beans, rapeseed and sugar cane – unsustainable monocultures that threaten food production already jeopardised by climate change – algae thrive in shallow, brackish water. Like all plants, they convert sunlight into energy and voraciously consume CO2.
…If the future of biofuels is algae, and I believe it is, you’re never going to get enough volume in bioreactors or ponds,” says Ogilvie. “It has to be something with greater volume.” He says the best approach is to mimic nature by creating algae farms, or by harvesting algae blooms. “Why try to out-engineer nature?” he asks.
“It could be done really cheaply if people would shift their paradigm," says Ogilvie. “There has to be a rethinking of how we interact with the environment. Can you clean up the environment? Can you make money and energy doing so? And can you provide meaningful jobs to the people in the areas where you’re doing it?" The answer must be yes.
