US (ME): 3,000-square-foot algae greenhouse in the works

For a team of researchers at a Maine laboratory that specializes in the microscopic aspects of the world’s big blue oceans, algae could hold the keys to some of the biggest scientific – and commercial – quests of our age.

Stuff like finding blockbuster cancer drugs, figuring out how to make farm-raised seafood more sustainable and developing naturally growing biofuels capable of offsetting or even replacing our finite supply of fossil fuels.

Bigelow’s National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota already houses the country’s official collection of phytoplankton – a designation that makes it a go-to resource for researchers around the world. But last week, crews began work on a 3,000-square-foot greenhouse that Michael Lomas, head of the marine algae program at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, hopes will allow the center to play an even larger role in a multibillion-dollar commercial industry that, like algae, keeps growing and growing.

“Obviously we have about 3,000 strains of algae here so we are pretty good at growing them,” Lomas said. “So these services we have developed for researchers we are now (shopping) around and offering to companies.”

The 3,000-square-foot greenhouse will allow the center to take on more contract work, providing an additional source of revenue to replace the steadily declining supply of available federal research funding. Lomas said he also hopes the larger-scale facility will become “a flywheel that drives innovation,” working with companies in Maine and around the world. Farming of kelp, seaweed and other macroalgae is a growing industry in Maine.

Read more at The Portland Press Herald