MBD algae technology expanding to cane industry

August 12, 2015
AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com

After successful results in the prawn industry, MBD Energy will test algae for cleaning dirty water in the cane sector

Lara Webster reports for Queensland’s Country Hour that MBD Energy’s algal-based water cleaning technology, being tested over the past year in the local prawn industry, may soon expand to the cane sector. The technology, which uses algae to absorb the nutrients in fish ponds, expel clean water, and at the same time produce large quantities of edible protein, has demonstrated a significant reduction in nutrient run-off.

Those results were the reason MBD Energy’s managing director, Andrew Lawson, said there were opportunities to use the algae in the cane industry, which has been under enormous pressure in Australia to reduce farm run-off.

He said planning was underway with the State and Australian Government to develop a five-hectare trial on a Queensland cane farm. “We’ve modeled 440,000 hectares as being the figure that would clean up half the nitrogen in the cane industry, which is a small amount of land when you consider the large mass of farms, but that’s a fantastic reduction.”

According to Mr. Lawson there has been interest from cane growers, refineries, and industry representatives but nothing would be promised until the system was proven to work as well as it had for prawn farming. “We’ll run this pilot and measure it within an inch of its life but then we’ll be able to say, hand-on-heart, this is a system that’s worthy of replication.”

With demand for protein growing in Asia, especially in India and China, there could be potential to harvest the algae to be sold for food, medicine and fertilizer. Mr. Lawson said the markets in Asia for edible food algae alone were worth around $10 billion.