Commercial-Scale Algae Production Incubator Beginning October 1, 2010

The National Algae Association is starting a new algae production incubator to help lower the costs and risks as scale-up build-outs begin in the algae production industry.

"This will provide algaepreneurs an opportunity to scale-up on acreage" according to NAA Executive Director Barry Cohen, "and will provide the long-needed opportunity to allow universities to move the technologies they developed using Department of Energy grant funds into the market".

Algaepreneurs, colleges and universities interested in scaling-up commercial-scale technologies (i.e., growing, harvesting and extraction methods and processes) will have the opportunity to join the new algae production incubator program. Acreage, water, research services, lab space, benchmarking and management services will be made available to assist in lowering start-up costs and risks of commercial scale-up issues. Clusters of algae producers will share equipment and research services. The NAA also aims to serve algae production start-ups with services linked to investors, lenders, lawyers, accountants and other professionals. An advisory board of business leaders, water process engineering firms and algae researchers will determine suitability for the program.

"When a senior-level administrator at a university that has received millions of dollars to develop technologies announces that there has been enough research and that it is time to commercialize these technologies, NAA knows it is on the right track…[the] only way we will ever know if the billions of dollars spent over the last 50+ years in research is good is to move it out of the labs and into commercial applications. NAA has created a network of willing collaborators who are ready to make the move" says Cohen.