Texas, NAA's home state, has always been a favorable place for algae farming and biomanufacturi

THE WOODLANDS, Texas - Oct. 12, 2018 - PRLog -- NAA is glad to read that ABO has finally realized the benefits of commercial algae production in Texas. But even in Texas, issues related to persistent contamination issues in raceway ponds have not been resolved. That is why many of NAA's algaepreneurs have moved past growing algae in raceway ponds and addressing contamination issues in non-raceway-pond environments, something that the pond proponents refuse to believe could be done. Unfortunately, the federal funds were depleted chasing the rabbit trail of growing algae in ponds in states they claimed for years had the favorable business climate and growing conditions for algae.

NAA welcomes more commercial production in Texas, but it agrees with the DOE that what works in a lab does not scale.  We would hate to see the reputation of the state in which we are based tarnished by wastimg additional research project funding. After spending over $2.5 billion in federal funds on algae research projects over the last 70 years, NAA agrees with the commercially-minded algae researchers that the time to get out of the labs and into full-scale production is long overdue, but that is not a popular or profitable position for university researchers.  Several university algae research grant recipients admitted years ago that all the technology hurdles had been met and that it should be engineering and scale-up efforts going forward.

Unfortunately, many university algae researchers have spent their careers researching algae without considering any of the needs or requirements of commercial algae production, including attempting to create industrial standards without any of the experience gained by being in commercial production.

NAA and its algaepreneurs are tired of reading stories in pay-to-play publications touting the latest and greatest unproven, unscalable algae technologies developed in the lab, which are as much advertisements as newsworthy articles.  The investment community is only interested in algae technologies that are proven outside the lab, are scalable and have a low CAPEX, a fact that career researchers have no interest in admitting.  High school students can successfully grow algae without spending 70 years in the lab. Everyone wants to see real commercial results.

The National Algae Association, based in The Woodlands, Texas, is the first non-profit algae education and production trade association in the world made up of commercially-minded algae researchers, producers and equipment companies who are building the commercial algae production industry, creating new markets and developing supply channels in the US and throughout the world. We offer an online self-paced Certification Program, an Algae Production Incubator Program and an Algae Biomass Exchange for qualified algae producers and potential off-takers.   For further information contact: barry@nationalalgaeassociation.com