What makes us tick?
We believe that rapid reversal of the effects of climate change is necessary. IPCC studies show that even if we were to stop all carbon emissions today, the earth may experience a 4 deg C temperature increase by 2100. Therefore, massive carbon drawdown is required. Time is running out to reverse the effects of anthropomorphic climate change, and believe it’s time for solutions, not stop-gap measures.
The solutions must be:
- carbon negative,
- compatible with existing infrastructure; and,
- simple and economically attractive enough to be deployed across the globe.
We believe the technology, expertise, resources, and determination already exist to accomplish this. Algae Systems was formed to demonstrate, scale, and spread the solution from a technology we believe will work.
What is OMEGA?
Algae Systems was formed to commercialize a novel method for growing microalgae as a fuel feedstock. This approach — developed by Algae Systems and a diverse team of scientists and engineers at the NASA Ames Research Center — is called the Algae OMEGA System.
OMEGA is an acronym for Offshore Membrane Enclosure for Growing Algae, which is an elegant, low-tech, inexpensive, and rapidly scalable system for algal cultivation which solves many of the problems – water loss, competition for agricultural land, cooling, contamination, capital requirements – that have so far prevented algae from realizing its potential as a method for growing energy while sequestering carbon.
Algae Systems has incorporated the OMEGA technology into a complex of engineering and scientific technologies – and has applied for its own patents on some of these – that comprise a next-generation integrated biorefinery.
Algae Systems’ sunlight-to-energy technosystem, once deployed, will transform CO2, sewage, and sunlight into mineral-equivalent, market competitive diesel and jet-fuel while requiring no agricultural land or water. In addition, the system can reduce or reverse oceanic eutrophication (“dead zones”) and ultimately produce clean drinking water.
The system and our strategy for its implementation enable widespread and rapid installation in the Developing World that requires inexpensive fuel for existing fleets. This promised to become a highly significant factor in drawing down the gigatons of CO2 that must be removed from the atmosphere, if catastrophic climate change is to be averted.