Our Government Puts a Valuation on Algae

I had some great news in my inbox last week.

The US Algae Market Could be Worth… $175 Billion?

It’s those pesky oil imports. The United States spends about $1 billion a day on foreign oil.

Now, a new DOE study finds that algae could replace 17 percent of that, which makes algae a $62 Billion market in the US alone!

It gets better. DOE’s researchers will now “examine non-freshwater sources like salt water and waste water. They are also researching greenhouse ponds for use in colder climates, as well as economic considerations for algal biofuel production.”

Working out these factors could increase our share of US oil imports to nearly HALF, or $175 Billion. Now that’s not a bad valuation — from our own government.

OriginOil in Washington, DC

Kudos to our Chris Beaven, who recently went to Washington for a legislative blitz organized by our lobbying group, the ABO. (Many thanks to Mary Rosenthal, Executive Director.)

The influential publication, EnergyBiz, quoted Chris at length in “Algae Biofuels Desire Fast Lane“.

Among his many great quotes: “One of the single biggest benefits of algae-based biofuel is that it is the chemical equivalent to petroleum. We are looking to replace petroleum drop for drop.”

Tomorrow, I’m in Washington at the Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference to accept OriginOil’s award as one of the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy.

We owe that award in great part to your strong support, so… thank you.

Our First Distribution Partner

On Friday’s MoneyTV show, I discussed our new agreement with World Water Works.

Like Dolby, which is part of most audio systems, we plan to be part of every algae system that will be built. The World Water Works deal is the first of many such deals to come. It’s a great first step, since we already integrate closely with our new partner.

You can hear more about this exciting development on the TV show.

“Setting a Back Fire”

You could say that fossil fuels are a wildfire on the planet today. It seems there is nothing we can do to resist them.

Here’s an interesting fact: algae represents a tiny part — much less than one percent — of the world’s biomass; yet it absorbs almost HALF of the CO2 in the world! (Source: Download PDF)

What do you do with a wildfire? You set a back fire — literally fighting fire with fire. The back fire is algae, because we can do something about all that CO2.

On this topic, read my new Algae Business column in Algae Industry Magazine. It’s all about the “Killer Application”: algae’s role in capturing CO2.

Have a great week!

Riggs and team

Riggs Eckelberry
President & CEO
OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL)

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