Sustainability Magazine January 2020 | Page 45

Thankfully for algae ’ s dormant potential to save the world , biofuel is far from the only trick in its locker . EcoWatch reported in October 2019 that scientists have successfully produced carbon fibre with algae oil . It seems redundant at this point to explain the benefits of carbon fibre , itself now second to graphene in the rankings of humanity ’ s ultimate materials , but there ’ s more to algal carbon fibre than the incredibly strong and lightweight qualities of its regular forbear . As algae grows , it absorbs a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide which would be released into the atmosphere if burned in an engine as a biofuel . As carbon fibre , however , the algae ’ s carbon dioxide content is trapped within the material . “ You have this very new advanced material where you can actually store atmospheric carbon indefinitely ,” Thomas Brück , Professor at the Technical University of Munich , told EcoWatch . Developing algal carbon fibre at scale would require considerable investment and resources but , as a method of carbon capture that produces oxygen as it grows , bringing the material into the mainstream is a stirring prospect .

The climate crisis poses a major threat to food stocks around the globe , and the food industry is already beset with myriad sustainability challenges . With , vegetarian and vegan meat alternatives requiring significant resources to produce , and the widely documented environmental damage caused by

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