A New Wave Of Algae Is Perking Up The Vertical Farming Industry

Microalgae are tiny beings with the potential to solve a world-shaking crisis in land use and biodiversity, caused by the sprawl of conventional agriculture. Algae can be grown indoors, in vertical farms, with opportunities to re-use existing infrastructure. However, that’s the easy part. Getting more people to eat the stuff is the hard part, and the Icelandic firm VAXA Technologies has a solution for that.

Note: I visited the VAXA algae farm earlier this month as part of a technology tour supported by the public-private initiative Green by Iceland. The tour included visits with more than a dozen clean tech firms and facilities, including the “Mammoth” direct air carbon capture system.

The Spirulina Algae Solution

Algae-based biofuel has been a regular feature on the pages of CleanTechnica for 15 years, but we need to do some catch-up on the food systems angle. One main focus of attention is Spirulina, the familiar blue-green algae (more accurately, a type of cyanobacteria) that proliferates on the surface of ponds and lakes with an assist from sunlight, water, carbon dioxide, and a modest helping of nutrients. Under the right conditions, Spirulina also thrives in closed containers called bioreactors, lending itself to indoor cultivation.

“Spirulina is rich in protein, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and has long been touted as a superfood by health enthusiasts,” notes the University of Arizona, where the notable researchers Joel Cuello and Floyd “Ski” Chilton have been working to pump up the nutritional content of Spirulina.

As noted by the University of Arizona, the human body needs a dietary source of nine amino acids, all of which are supplied by Spirulina. “It is also the richest known source of a vital essential fatty acid,” the school adds.

“For a plant-based food, spirulina is simply miraculous,” Chilton emphasizes.

The ultimate aim is of the research project is to drive down the cost of Spirulina-based food, enabling it to be deployed in regions where populations are facing food scarcity or outright starvation. As part of their work, Cuello and Chilton have also been developing new, inexpensive DIY bioreactors that can be operated and maintained by a local workforce.

Scaling Up To Prevent Two Crises

To deploy Spirulina for alleviating food scarcity and famine on a widespread basis, production scale-up is needed alongside cost-cutting. Still, if a complementary goal is to prevent biodiversity loss from the sprawl of livestock farming and conventional food crops, then Spirulina needs to scale far beyond the scope of humanitarian relief, and become a mainstream feature in global food markets.

So far, though, the commercial algae market has been mainly limited to nutritional supplements. There’s a good reason for that. Take a spin around the Intertubes and you’ll find thousands of articles and social media posts dedicated to Spirulina powder, variously describing it as tasting like sulfur, lake water, grass steeped in the ocean, or “bitter fishy seaweed.”

As a more kindly way to put it, one could always say that Spirulina powder “doesn’t always taste the best on its own” or “Spirulina has a distinct taste that you will certainly notice,” which explains why the online discussion is larded with guidance on how to mix the powder with other ingredients that mask its taste.

The VAXA Algae Solution

The taste factor has been an obstacle to mass commercialization, but that obstacle could soon fall. On a visit to VAXA’s indoor Spirulina farm in Iceland earlier this month, I had a chance to taste the pure algae fresh from the bioreactor.

Our guide, VAXA general manager Kristinn Hafliðarsson, rinsed and strained a batch of liquid Spirulina in colander at a sink on factory floor, squeezed off the excess in cheesecloth, and gave us all a teaspoon full of the glistening wet, greenish stuff, unadulterated by any inputs, not even a pinch of salt.

There was no taste at all, and that was the point. VAXA is on a mission to popularize and mainstream Spirulina, both as an improvement for human health and a more sustainable food system for the future. With a neutral taste, the algae can be combined with simple and/or local ingredients as the case may be, or submitted to more elaborate processing for specialty foods.

How To Make Algae Taste Not Like Spirulina

There are a lot of moving parts to VAXA’s Spirulina venture. Regarding the taste — or lack thereof — VAXA attributes that the to the carefully controlled indoor environment, without the need for herbicides, pesticides or antibiotics, along with a low key extraction process that eliminates the need for other chemical inputs.

In terms of preventing agricultural spread, VAXA also states that its algae produces 250 times the yield of soybeans on the same land. Water conservation is another feature of the operation. According to VAXA, soybeans require 200 times more water than its Spirulina.

Improving the operating efficiency of indoor algae cultivation is another key factor. VAXA has solved three foundational engineering problems for indoor aquaculture: Removing excess heat, sourcing carbon dioxide sustainably, and preventing the buildup of biofilm on the interior of bioreactor.

That’s not as easy as it sounds. Hafliðarsson explained that the company learned from trial-and-error early in the development process, before embarking on the large scale venture on display in Iceland.

The Geothermal Energy Connection

The VAXA algae farm also demonstrates how indoor agriculture can integrate with renewable energy to achieve sustainable, low-carbon food systems. Energy consumption is a common stumbling block for other indoor, vertical agriculture ventures. The VAXA facility takes full advantage of its location in the Hellisheiði Geothermal Park, just across the road from the largest geothermal facility in Europe, ON Power’s spectacular Hellisheiði power plant.

The VAXA aquaculture facility is designed as a modular system that can be deployed in a wide variety of locations around the world, but the geothermal connection is particularly interesting because it intersects with new technology developments in the geothermal industry.

Here in the US, for example, new enhanced geothermal systems are providing many more site selection opportunities for geothermal power plants. Conventional geothermal power plants are currently limited to a few scattered locations west of the Rocky Mountains, but the US Geological Survey recently assessed that 135 gigawatts of geothermal energy are potentially accessible in Nevada through next-generation drilling and extraction technologies. A newly released, collaborative study also indicates potential for 163 potentially recoverable megawatts of geothermal energy in New Mexico.

That’s somewhere off in the future, as the US geothermal industry is only just beginning to bring the new technologies into commercial use. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for VAXA products. The company’s Spirulina is already available here in the US under the ÖRLÖ brand.

Photo: The Icelandic firm VAXA Technologies has perfected a modular, sustainable, energy efficient indoor aquaculture system for producing Spirulina algae (original photo by Tina Casey).