DOE announces new AlgaePrize student competition

January 13, 2022

BY U.S. Department of Energy

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), in collaboration with the Algae Foundation and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, have announced a new AlgaePrize competition for high school through graduate students studying at a U.S.-based high school, college, community college, university, and/or graduate school.

Fast-growing and able to store energy from sunlight, algae can be transformed into a variety of products, such as fuel, food, fertilizer, industrial compounds, and animal feed. In the emerging bioeconomy, algae, a renewable, abundant, and flexible source of energy could replace fossil fuels. During the competition, teams will participate in a nearly 18-month process of pursuing innovative ideas for the development, design, and invention of technologies within the commercial algae value chain, exploring novel solutions to algae production, processing, and new product development.

“President Biden’s energy strategy aims to create a safer and more sustainable planet, while ensuring American students and workers have the skills they need for the challenging jobs of today and tomorrow,” said Valerie Sarisky-Reed, director for BETO. “The AlgaePrize competition supports this commitment by providing a channel for developing the nation's science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research and by helping to engage the next generation of green energy workforce.”

Advertisement

Advertisement

Teams will focus their project on the topics of algae production, downstream processing, and/or identification of novel products or tools.

“These students bring new perspectives, new ideas, and new insights to the field of bioenergy,” said President of the Algae Foundation, Ira (Ike) Levine. “By engaging with students, harnessing their ideas, and providing an avenue for discovery, we ultimately pave the way for faster, more efficient algae commercialization, ultimately leading to quicker gigaton-scale CO2 reduction.”

Advertisement

Advertisement

The competition opens Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, and teams of two or more students currently enrolled in a U.S.-based education program must register by March 2, 2022. The grand champion competition winner will receive a total of $20,000 cash prize.

For more information, including media resources, please visit DOE’s AlgaePrize. Prospective students can find competition rules and details here.

 

 

Related Stories

Calumet Inc. on Aug. 8 confirmed its Montana Renewables biorefinery is currently running at full capacity. An initial phase of the company’s MaxSAF initiative remains on track to boost SAF capacity to up to 150 MMgy by mid-2026.

Read More

The USDA maintained its outlook for 2025-’26 soybean oil use in biofuel production in its latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, released Aug. 12. The forecast for soybean oil prices was also unchanged.

Read More

U.S. soybean production for 2025 is forecast at 4.29 billion bushels, down 2% when compared to last year, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service’s latest monthly Crop Production report, released Aug. 12.

Read More

Marathon Petroleum Corp. on Aug. 5 released second quarter financial results, reporting improved EBITDA for its renewable diesel segment. The company primarily attributed the improvement to increased utilization and higher margins.

Read More

Chevron Corp. on Aug. 1 confirmed the company started production at the Geismar renewable diesel plant in Louisiana during the second quarter after completing work to expand plant capacity from 7,000 to 22,000 barrels per day.

Read More

Upcoming Events

Sign up for our e-newsletter!

Advertisement

Advertisement