Looking at Fermentalg and its 4th-gen algae premise and promise

For those who hadn’t heard that there was a third generation of algae technology going round, it might come as a surprise that there’s a fourth.

Let’s go through these, with the caveat that, like children, we are naming these in birth order rather than a ranking based on preference. Something is not necessarily better because it is newer, and vice-versa.

First generation. Those are the raceway ponds — at commercial scale with companies like Earthrise and Cyanotech, and at demo scale with some companies such as Sapphire or Cellana to name a pair. These use photosynthetic algae in an open environment. Capex and opex are is comparatively low, crop protection can be a real beast.

Second generation. These are the closed photobioreactors — Algenol is taking this route and is at demo scale. These generally use photosynthetic algae in a closed environment. Yields are much higher because conditions can be optimized and competitors and predators minimized. But capex can be cruel.

Third generation. These are the fermenters — companies such as DSM Nutritional Lipids and Solazyme are at scale. These generally use heterotrophic algae in a closed environment, which are fed sugars for their energy source, and they make targeted oils. Yields are astronomically higher — but of course free CO2 and sunlight is not being used, so the opex is high and at scale, the capex is daunting.

So, what about this fourth generation?

These are fermenters for mixotrophic algae that add a light source to the fermentation environment — Fementalg is building towards scale with this approach.

What does that mean? Fermentalg explains:

Breeding microalgae in a predominantly-heterotrophic mixotrophic environment is achieved by introducing short bursts of low intensity lighting. As a result, not only do the microalgae feed off organic substrates to create large quantities of biomass just as they would in a heterotrophic environment, but their chloroplasts and other light-capturing organelles (photoreceptors) are also activated. This increases the productivity of each cell as well as allowing the synthesis of all of the molecules that can be metabolized by micro algae.

So what does that mean?

1. Pretty broad target set, with control and scale.

2. High productivity — you get all the hetero and some of the photo.

Not at all bad, as two advantages go. Clearly, Fermentalg continues to be one to watch as they move down the cost curve and towards large volume markets.