With more of us looking for alternatives to eating animals, new research has found a surprising environmentally friendly source of protein – algae.
The University of Exeter study has been published in The Journal of Nutrition and is the first of its kind to demonstrate that the ingestion of two of the most commercially available algal species are rich in protein which supports muscle remodeling in young healthy adults.
When you’re working with coproducts like algae-derived pharmaceuticals (see Lumen biotech in Seattle) that sell for 6 figures/kg you’re correct, much more stringent pharma-like ideas do get implemented because the down time is costly. This is seen in indoor reactor setups where you can grow under artificial light year round. Outdoors, the cost to implement more sophisticated systems doesn’t translate in your TEA especially when growing things like protein which is cheap in comparison.
Yeah you are probably right that cost will be the biggest issue when comparing between the two fields of production. Getting a good stable production that is also cheap enough to be viable is always the hurdle