Big Players Include Government
Exxon Mobil has had a partnership with an algae biomass producing company, now known as Viridos, since 2009 – a time when the potential of using aquatic microorganisms as a feedstock for biobased products led to several promising startups with big goals, the majority of which were soon struck down by the challenges in achieving economically viable products at large scale. This partnership has made advances toward realizing the vision Exxon and Viridos had of making algae a suitable feedstock for biofuel, a feedstock which is better than soy and other oil crops.
However, this year Exxon has pulled out of the ‘gold rush’, the race in making this happen. Seemingly a huge setback for the company and the industry, resilience prevailed when just a month later Viridos raised $25 million through investments with several other companies interested in microalgal biomass for oil, including Exxon’s competitor Chevron. Exxon meanwhile acknowledged the advances in the field due to Viridos, and of the potential for this to be a reality in the future, it just isn’t ready yet.
Still, Viridos and its new partners are not the only ones that see economic viability within reach; the U.S. Department of Energy BETO (Bioenergy Technologies Office) is also funding to support several programs aiming to make algal biomass specifically for oil scalable, including Viridos, along with Global Algae Innovations, another promising company producing and harvesting biomass. BETO even accepts applications for funding projects to meet certain goals relating to algal productivity and carbon capture.
One note about the stage of development in this field is that most of the advances in production relate to only a few companies or projects with significant funding. With the current direction of research and development in the field, it seems to only get more technically complex and have a higher starting cost to get into being economically viable. When that vision is a reality, will it only be a reality for those who have access to millions of dollars worth of resources, and holding intellectual property on certain processes and engineered strains? Or will this vision be more widespread, and have production of biomass be achievable for anyone. What would it take for algal biomass production to be viable without such resources?