ALGAE FERMENTATION:IRISH NATURAL foods entrepreneur Dr Pearse Lyons has bought an algae fermentation plant in the United States for $14 million (€10 million) where he plans to develop products as part of the growing green farming trend.
“We expect incredible opportunities in the areas of food, feed and fuel to arise ,” says Lyons, the founder and president of animal food firm Alltech, which has offices in Dublin and Kentucky, US.
In every process on a green farm, high value fuel or animal feed is produced in such a way that waste and CO2 production is cut dramatically, while creating the maximum opportunities to earn income from farm produce and support employment.
The facility in Winchester, Kentucky had recently been valued at $180m, according to company sources.
“We see playing a major role in human and animal health and nutrition as one of the worlds more renewable food and energy sources,” Lyons says.
Algae are some of the fastest-growing plant organisms in nature and have the ability to convert large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into oxygen. Some leading cleantech companies are running trials that involve feeding huge algae ponds or tanks with CO2 to produce sustainable biofuel.
In Lyonss vision, the CO2 required for heterotrophic algae production (which does not use sunlight to stimulate photosynthesis) would be produced by solid-state fermentation processes, which break down crops such as switchgrass or corn.
This process involves allowing microorganisms, such as fungi, to grow on these crops so that they release nutrients, which in turn can improve animal health on consumption.
Nitrogen, also needed for algae production, would be derived from the waste produced from fish farming, another component of the green farm.
The fish would live in water that can be heated to the optimum temperature for each species using the heat that is the by-product of either the fermentation process or of ethanol fuel production using farm-grown crops.
The algae, depending on its strain, can also be used to produce fish food or in high-value nutritional food for humans.
This makes fish farming more sustainable, particularly as at present farmed fish are fed pellets produced from other fish.
The fish also help to clean the water, as would the presence of certain other types of natural flora and fauna, which would also have a role to play in the green farming process.
Alltech has received government grants of $38m and hopes to expand operations at the new facility by early 2012.
Alltech has 2,300 employees in 120 countries. It expects its revenues to surpass $500 million this year.
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