A Good Day for Pond Scum: San Diego’s Emerging Algae-Based Industries Set Heavy Schedule

 the economic proposition that new algae-based technologies represent. “It’s not just a meeting to get together and have a nice time,” Halperin says. “We need to make sure that we’re appropriately establishing the right vision and collectively setting the right action items…There’s just a number of things that we’re ready to get started and to be working on.”

Halperin says he organized the stakeholders meeting to first provide an overview of San Diego’s regional algae initiative, and to revisit the vision and commitment needed to build on the area’s emerging prominence. He also organized a series of short presentations by various leaders as a round up of progress in specific areas. They include:

—A presentation on SD-CAB by scientist Steve Mayfield of The Scripps Research Institute.

—An overview of algae biofuel development efforts among federal agencies by David Hazlebech of General Atomics, the San Diego-based government contractor.

—Algae biofuels development among venture-backed companies and the prospects for private capital in the region.

—How Sempra Energy, the San Diego-based energy conglomerate, views regional plans for an algae-based energy industry.

—An overview of plans to use algae in water remediation plans for the Imperial Valley’s Salton Sea.

—The possible role for integrating algae water remediation technologies in San Diego’s wastewater treatment facilities.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.