Green Earth Institute (GEI), an investee of PIEF, was selected as a project implementer taking a part of the biorefinery field for the Creation of Macroalgae That Fix Carbon Dioxide at High Speed Through Functional Improvement and Development of Technology for Its Utilization, a part of Moonshot Research and Development Program, Realization of sustainable resource circulation to recover the global environment by 2050, conducted by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development (NEDO). This project was proposed by the four entities; Kyoto University, Mie University,  Kansai Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd., and GEI, led by Mitsuyoshi Ueda, a specially-appointed professor of Kyoto University as the project manager.

This R&D project aims to realize sustainable resource circulation by maximizing macroalgae’s capacity, which has CO2 fixation power that is 10 times greaterthan land plants, to increase the CO2 fixation rate, and to convert grown macroalgae into useful materials. In this project, GEI will work to find and scale up the optimal conditions for the process of saccharifying macroalgae and producing ethanol. The ethanol will become a raw material for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as blue carbon ethanol.

Japan, with many steep landforms, faces the challenge of a limited amount of land-based biomass that can be acquired at a low cost. Under these circumstances, macroalgae can use the vast area of sea around Japan and it contains a powerful CO2 fixation capacity, this great potential can compensate for this challenge. Through this project, GEI aims to demonstrate the feasibility of macroalgae as a biomass resource, as well as a path to a large supply of SAF.

For more information, please visit the websites:
Green Earth Institute PressRelease