Thoughts on Large Corporations/Small Algae Company Partnerships
I have seen that some are afraid in the alternative energy movement that big name companies getting involved and partnering with smaller renewable energy companies will somehow corrupt or sidetrack overall the movement. With the recent partnering of Algenol and Dow Chemical, I’m sure this sentiment will be echoed somewhere.
However, at least in algae, I don’t see these kinds of partnerships as a corrupting factor. Massive amounts of funds are needed to continue algae research and sometimes these large corporations are the only ones willing to give funding. If $ = advancements, then these companies will most likely lead the pack. While the direct technological advances these partnerships produce might not be available to the entire algae field, they will at least illustrate to other companies what can be accomplished.
In the algae field, proving the economical feasibility of algae biofuel production is still the number one priority. If one of these partnerships brings this about, it will have massive benefits to the entire field. Investors will most likely be more willing to invest in smaller algae companies if they know what can be accomplished.
Unlike other alternative energy operations that require large tracks of land, algae fuels can be grown on the small scale level, thus hindering any large corporation from ever completely cornering the market. Therefore, no matter if a large corporation becomes the first to develop an algae fuel (while somehow tainting the environmental applications of it), other smaller, more environmentally-minded algae companies will still be able to find niche markets and flourish.
In the market that algae biofuels will be catering to, I feel that there will be room for the large corporations as well as the small companies to coexist.
