As intensifying natural disasters and record-breaking heat waves push nations around the world to move more urgently toward a fossil fuel-free future, finding solutions that can be implemented quickly and make a huge impact have become the focus of many climate strategies. Ontario-based Pond Technologies, Inc.
A Low Cost, Highly Efficient Climate Solution
While other companies offer algae growing solutions to help curb emissions, these largely outdoor operations take up lots of space and only grow algae on the top few inches of water. Being outdoors, the algae is also exposed and vulnerable to contamination, making it difficult to use in any revenue-generating production.
Pond’s growth platform, on the other hand, relies on large containers where algae is grown in multi-level tanks. Emissions from smokestacks are redirected to the container where the naturally carbon-loving algae absorbs it as it grows, acting as a natural filter that then puts out clean, oxygen-rich air. Fitted with lights and sensors, the containers also optimize the growing environment for the algae. The more the algae grow, the more carbon the platform can sequester — all while taking up a fraction of the space and avoiding the maintenance and energy requirements of larger outdoor operations.
In addition to carbon emissions, Pond also offers algae strains that can sequester other harmful air pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Each system can be tailored to the exact mix of gasses produced where the Pond algae platform will be installed.
Pond has already partnered with major players in the oil and gas sector, including CSV Midstream Solutions Corp and a Fortune 500 oil and gas company that will partner with Pond to capture carbon emissions using a unique strain of algae that’s been engineered to produce COVID-19 antigens for use in rapid diagnostics tests.
As more aggressive policies to tackle climate change take effect, demand from oil and gas companies and other high emission industries will drive the carbon capture and utilization market to an estimated $12.3 billion by 2024. Pond’s elegant solution that uses less space, captures more emissions, and produces a revenue-generating product is poised to be at the forefront of that market.
How Pond’s Algae Generates Revenue
Pond doesn’t just build carbon-sequestering algae bioreactors. The company can also deploy a variety of algae species that can be tailored to a wide range of applications. Already considered a superfood, algae is one of the few plant sources of protein that includes all 9 essential amino acids along with a host of potent antioxidants and other essential nutrients. These qualities make it an ideal ingredient in health supplements and other wellness products.
That impressive nutritional profile also makes it a prime candidate for use in animal feed. Until now, the technology to grow algae has been inefficient and expensive, making algae-based animal feed too costly to use in large-scale livestock operations. However, Pond’s innovative platform finally makes the high-protein, nutrient-rich ingredient scalable.
Just this month, Pond announced an agreement valued at over CAD $5 million with Livalta, a subsidiary of Associated British Foods (OTCMKTS: ASBFY), to produce a commercial algae-based animal feed, with the first spirulina for animal feed being grown in 2022.
Beyond its nutritional applications, the protein-rich algae can be used to develop a range of protein-based diagnostics and treatments, including the COVID-19 diagnostics test mentioned earlier. Easier and cheaper to grow than the mammalian cells currently used by biotech companies, Pond’s patented algae strains are a unique solution to the challenges of developing protein-based treatments at scale.
Algae in general is a highly versatile plant that can even be used in producing biofuel alternatives to harmful fossil fuels. It may eventually even replace lithium in batteries. Unrelated to Pond, inventor Adam Freeman eyes Tesla as a potential adopter of his algae-based battery that is approximately 200 times stronger and charges in seconds rather than hours — something that other companies such as Ford, NIO and others might pile in on if successful. The aquatic green of algae could equal a big monetary green of the future.
See the article by Rachael Green here: https://www.benzinga.com/news/21/09/23048703/pond-technologies-uses-algae-to-transform-carbon-emissions-into-profit