A bid to clean the air with algae
Howard Co. startup is trying to prove that its algae bioreactors are an answer to greenhouse-gas pollution
By Jamie Smith Hopkins, The Baltimore Sun12:08 PM EDT, August 4, 2013
The 10-foot-tall cylinders glow neon yellow and orange, looking like something out of a futuristic dance club. They're actually an experiment with global implications — an effort to see how well algae can wipe out pollution belched by power plants.
The Howard County startup running these bioreactors hasn't hit on an entirely new idea. The U.S. Department of Energy started funding projects related to algae and power plants at least 35 years ago, but the focus largely has been on growing algae for fuel.
HY-TEKBio's aim is emissions reduction, an area getting increasing interest from both companies and countries that see potential in algae. HY-TEK's leaders say algae products — such as biofuel, pharmaceutical ingredients and nutritional supplements — would be secondary, a way to help make the main goal cost-effective.
