Algae: the green gold of the future?

In our search for green innovations, we don’t always have to look abroad. Interesting green projects also arise in Belgium. A week ago, Humo presented in an article four Belgian ‘ecopioneers’. One project in particular caught my interest: the transformation of algae (yes, algae) into green substitutes.

Apparently, algae can be used in a lot of applications. Two of them can have a big environmental impact. First of all, it is possible to make biofuel with algae. Currently, most research is conducted in the private sector, but experiments show that using algae to produce biodiesel may be the only viable method by which we can produce enough fuel to replace world diesel usage. Secondly, algae contain a lot of omega 3, which we need to live healthy and which we normally get out of fish. As a result, getting our recommended quantity out of algae instead of out of fish would be a solution for the overfishing.

And what’s the role of Belgium in this story? Well, Proviron, a Belgian chemical company, has developed an efficient and simple method to grow microalgae, the ProviAPT photobioreactor. I won't explain the technical details, but I can tell you this. As it is very expensive to grow algae, this new technique is a real breakthrough.

What do you think? I don’t assume a lot off you will have a problem to use biodiesel, but are you ecological-minded enough to replace your weekly amount of fish by algae?

By Elien Lefevere