#172 - Algae and the human right to clean air

On July 28 last year, the United Nations General Assembly came together and passed a historic resolution, declaring that everyone on the planet has a right to a healthy environment that has access to both clean air and water, as well as a stable climate. While not legally binding, the decision will be critical in protecting people from environmentally destructive policies, at a time when 99% of the world's population breathes air that exceeds the World Health Organization's air quality limits. The announcement will also be a boost to several projects that use algae to capture carbon and improve air quality. You are listening to Fink Sustainability. I'm Andrew Herlinger. I don't think there's anything more important at the moment to be honest, I think the last three years of bushfire, global pandemic and flooding have shown us the extent of climate change and the disruption that it can cause socially and economically. Australia's air quality is generally among some of the cleanest in the world, with the nation ranking 9 out of 177 countries measured by the World Health Organization in their 2021 report. This is not a big surprise, as most Oceana countries record good air quality figures because of the lack of land borders and proximity to the ocean. At the same time though, Australia is very susceptible to extreme pollution spikes, which are caused by short-term disasters such as bushfires and dust storms. Australia is also higher than the recommended air quality levels being set by the World Health Organization, with climate change causing some areas to be considered very polluted. Climate change and air pollution are not recently discovered issues. For the past few decades, short-term climate pollutants like fossil fuels have harmed almost everyone on Earth, with many people developing irreversible health conditions and some people even dying. Climate change has also caused significant damage to the environment, with rising sea levels, warmer temperatures and more frequent natural disasters being some of the biggest changes driven by this problem. It is these reasons why academics have had to start finding solutions. As citizens and governments begin to formally acknowledge the impact of climate change on human well-being, researchers got their heads down and started to work together on finding ways in which they could reduce carbon emissions, was one of the most recent ideas being the use of algae. I think 10 years ago, if you told someone that there were researchers looking at algae for all these different types of applications, it probably would come across as quite a bizarre thing to be spending a lot of time researching in. When I first started in this field a lot of time, when I told people, "Oh, we're working with algae," they were kind of like, "Oh, there's stuff in my pool that I want to get rid of." Alex Thompson is an industry engagement manager for the climate change cluster. Together with her team, she has transformed algae and algae biotechnology into a cross-disciplinary research strength at the University of Technology Sydney. The ramifications of this are significant. Since there are now chemists, engineers, designers and innovation experts who are working to harness these aquatic plants for their benefits. I think as time has gone on, and we've seen a lot of companies engage in this space, young Henry's. We have large-scale algae bioreactors in their brewery caption carbon, different companies that are using it in different food products and developing new types of plastics and things that are already on the market. People have sort of come around to it in the sense that this really could be an amazing way that we not only use it to mitigate climate change through carbon capture, but also the development of new products. I think people have really kind of come around to it and it's been a fantastic way of engaging people to talk about it, but also a way of potentially pushing that idea out and really making impact and making impact on things like climate change. Algae is a photosynthetic organism that grows in water. Like many of its plant's descendants, algae produces valuable carbon-based compounds within its cells through photosynthesis. The difference with algae from other plants though is that there is this ability to make useful compounds and materials without a carbon footprint. As Dr. Thompson rightly notes, the prospect of being able to produce materials that absorb carbon dioxide is an exciting and necessary development given that our rapidly warming world is clashing with our swelling population size. But as we kind of understand that one of the few ways forward that we have to help mitigate the impact of climate change is to start to capture some of this carbon from the atmosphere. So, one of the best ways that we already know that captures carbon is plant through photosynthesis. So when we look around the world for different ways that we can capture carbon, nature's kind of already given us one and that's photosynthesis through plants. So there are a whole bunch of carbon capture technologies that already exist that use different types of man-made technologies and different types of gas capture and things like that. But using photosynthesis is one of the, I guess, the most, you know, already elegantly designed for lack of a better word ways that we can capture carbon. So if we're able to really kind of harness photosynthesis and use that to capture carbon, we can do that really, really quickly and in a way that essentially has an environmentally family and result, algae is a great way to do that because it captures carbon really fast because it grows really, really fast. Algae already holds an advantage over other plant forms due to the investment that has gone into researching it. This research is justified as well when considering other plant forms and how they would be less effective if utilized in the same way. So when we think about things like trees, you know, a lot of trees grow quite slowly, that carbon's done for a really long time, but if we're wanting to capture carbon really rapidly, we have to look at something that grows really rapidly as well and that's what algae does really, really well. So we're able to capture carbon really, really quickly compared to a lot of other traditionally biological methods. I think that's a really good point as well because I think some people don't understand why algae is actually differentiated from other sources and it's that speed that it can grow and capture the carbon that makes it sort of stand out compared to other forms of carbon capture. Yeah, exactly. So when you grow algae in its kind of optimal environment, it can double in size, or double in biomass essentially, the number of cells that it has every single day. So when we kind of, you know, put it in systems like green gene, you can actually grow really, really fast and capture that carbon really, really fast. Given that algae holds an advantage over other carbon capture plant forms, it seems fitting that algae biotechnology is one of the big projects that the UTS climate change cluster are pushing forward with. Researchers at UTS, so I work with the researchers here, and we're able to kind of turn it into tools that we can kind of utilize it to do something called direct air capture of carbon, which means that we can kind of put it inside things or grow it on scale so it's able to draw a lot of carbon from the atmosphere and then turn that into algae biomass. So one of the technologies in particular that UTS is working on is something called the green genie technology, and that's essentially a highly optimized shipping container filled with algae that we've kind of been able to optimize to capture as much carbon as possible, and then turn that carbon into algae biomass so that photosynthesis sizes, it grows, turns into biomass, and then we can then turn that green stuff that comes off the end, the algae biomass into different bioproducts to hold that carbon for a long period of time. The green genie is a new innovation leap forward that repurposes wastewater and carbon emissions into algae biomass that is then transformed into commercial products. According to Dr. Alex Thompson, the green genie can utilize the photosynthetic abilities of algae to trap carbon at a rate of 20 times the efficiency of previous platforms. These figures blow other platforms out of the water, especially the production of products that rely on fossil fuels. It even makes the idea of producing products with fossil fuels sound inefficient. Traditionally when we're making products that are maybe fossil-based and so when I say fossil-based, I mean traditionally made from things like crude oil or things like that. There can be quite harmful practices that go into extracting those, but then also when those products start to break down, they can be quite detrimental to the atmosphere because they release carbon dioxide, but they can also turn into things like microplastics bits and pieces like that. Essentially, you're kind of propelling climate change by pooling carbon that's been compressed of the earth, turn into fossil fuels, and then bring it onto the surface that then breaks down into carbon dioxide. If we're able to make products that essentially are made by pooling carbon from the atmosphere, turning that then into algae biomass and then turning that into a bio-based product, we're kind of eliminating a lot of those practices that release carbon, so we're not pooling it out of the earth, we're not kind of adding additional carbon to the atmosphere, we're kind of producing a bit more of a circular model where the carbon is just recycled from the atmosphere. We can also turn into things that might be compostable, so they're not necessarily turning into things like microplastics and bits and pieces like that. We can also turn them into more environmentally friendly products, things that don't necessarily use harmful chemicals and things in the extraction process. So really the focus is making algae-based bio products is to make the end products a lot more environmentally sustainable, but also make products that ultimately use a whole lot less carbon dioxide or hold the carbon dioxide for a long period of time. Due to its size and technology, the green genie can be integrated into various industrial processes and can fit inside a standard 6-meters shipping container. This means that they can be used for power generation, waste incineration and brewing. They can even be harvested and used for biofuel production, chemicals, bioplastics and fertilizer. As a result, the green genie is a leading project and it fits in with some of the other projects that will be striving for clean air and a reduction in carbon emissions. Yeah, so the green genie is really a bit of a scale solution to doing things like carbon capture. It's definitely a very exciting technology and one that we hope offers a different option to some of the other conventional carbon capture systems that are out there on the market. One of the other really exciting things that we're doing with the algae research here at UCS is we've just launched a new facility called the algae phonomics facility. So the first one is called anywhere in the world. It's an automated essentially facility using robots, artificial intelligence, machine learning and what it's able to do is we take cells such as micro-algae cells and we're able to manipulate them to essentially rapidly evolve those cells. So we can then use them and identify different traits that those cells might have. Maybe one has more oil, one has more pigment, one might have more protein or something like that. And then work with a partner or a commercial partner to say, "Hey, let's identify one that suits your needs." So that might be one that has more protein in it. And then work out exactly the growth conditions that we can kind of grow that cell in it within a really kind of finite I guess way. So exactly what conditions does it need to grow really optimally? And then we can then have a cell that we can grow on scale for something like food production or things like that. So it's a really, really exciting facility. And as I said, the first of its kind anywhere in the world, we're hoping it'll have really big impact on all sorts of new things from future food to agriculture to developing new things like new plastics and fuels because we're able to really precisely understand what traits would be really beneficial in commercial applications and research applications and then exactly how we grow them to really rapidly progress the development of new products. Given its wide range of uses, it is expected that the green genie could take off at industry if its production succeeds at being affordable and scalable. Dr. Thompson is quietly confident this will happen. A pilot version of the green genie is even accessible at the university of technology Sydney, which makes it easier for the faculty to comprehend the value of their research plus it helps in their data collection and technology development and even offers the environment the benefits that nature typically offers every human being. Yeah, that's correct. So that's exactly why we've got it sitting on campus not only so the researchers can get into it and access it and track it and work on it really easily, but also so people can actually see it and see the type of impact that algae can have on carbon capture. But also how the things that green genie can do because it has a real suite of environmental benefits, including you know, treating wastewater, capturing different types of gas products and things like that. And of course there's that a benefit of being able to make bio products from the algae biomass or the green stuff that comes out the end as well. The green genie is not the only project that seeks to improve air quality for human well-being. Professor Sarah Wilkinson from the School of Built Environment at UTS is another working with algae to reduce air pollution with her research being heavily focused on using glupy green algae growing inside triple-pained windows to heat a building and supply its hot water needs. This futuristic sounding idea is in fact a reality in Germany. We all recognize trees and plants as nature to have algae on buildings is something that's very, very new and so I think we're going to need to sort of educate and inform people about what this technology is and what it does and as I say with my experience I had a complete change of opinions of what algae did and was by being educated by people that knew a lot about it and I thought what a positive organism it is. The technology works when the sun hits the panels and heats up the algae in a liquid solution, causing photosynthesis and generating heat. This heat is captured and processed by a bioreactor within the building to provide hydraulic heat for radiators under floor heating and hot water. The algae can also be harvested for use in biofuel and pharmaceutical production as protein supplements just like it was in the green genie project. We've just finished actually in the last few months of project with the Western Sydney University and we looked at the social impact of the Green Root at UTS and the results from those surveys found very positive impacts from the users and they enjoyed the ability to get onto the alumni Green Root and the peace and quiet that it offers the ability to connect with friends in that space to use the seating and the other facilities around there was highly valued so it's definitely a good investment because it makes people want to stay on campus a bit more. In its positive outlook, Professor Sarah Wilkinson has chosen to collaborate with Professor Peter Ralph from the Climate Change Cluster in building a prototype tailored for the Australian environment. While being constructed, the team will additionally conduct experiments to test the types of algae and what their peaks of energy output are. That's absolutely right, I mean those are the bushfires and the pollutants that then get circulated and get drawn into buildings and they're totally mechanically ventilated. The system may not be able to extract all of the pollutants and COVID has been very interesting of course because of the kind of highlighting public health and people's health within buildings even more so and again with these closed buildings that have totally reliant on mechanical systems, what they found was the pollutants were able to be transmitted from one part of the building to another and then Peter's became really aware of the health issues and indoor pollutants and anxious about going into artificially ventilated buildings. As this research goes ahead, Professor Sarah Wilkinson has continued to throw her support behind any campaign for more plant life within buildings including algae. This plea goes back to previous research she did when she found out that plants have positive, physical and psychological outcomes because of the impact that they have on air quality. These positive impacts include a reduction in sick leave, stress and depression as well as increases in work productivity and job satisfaction. Humans with proximity to nature tend to fill better and we did a project with the health faculty at UTF a few years ago looking at the impact of the Horticulture therapy on people with mental health conditions and I worked with a mental health practitioner and academic Fiona or we joined in a Horticulture therapy session and then at the end of the six weeks period, interviewed the participants and us and did they enjoy it, what did they get down of it, what did they like and again it was the proximity to nature, actually working with nature, touching nature, malign nature as well as the social engagement they got through the course with highly beneficial to the health and wellbeing and if you think about it you know when we get free time and holidays typically we go to natural environments whether it's the beach or the mountains to get near to nature. As for other initiatives fighting for clean air it should be noted that Professor Andrew Tovy is heading the operational network of air quality impact resource project also known as Open Air. Launched on the 16th of June last year the Open Air project will see 13 councils collaborate together to measure air quality. The results from this monitoring will have a direct positive effect for councils as the increased levels of data sharing will help to inform their management practices better. It does make a huge difference to people and I think a lot of the councils are realising that. According to Professor Tovy it may even help other UTS projects being conducted. There's a whole range of benefits that come from greening cities and putting more green infrastructure in. There's a general rule of thumb that more plants in cities is always good. There's complications around that. Certain trees can produce biogenic emissions and no zone and things but it's easy to get caught up in that but actually the reality is if we have more trees, more plants, more green walls, all of this in our cities the net effect is beneficial not just to air quality but as you point out to a whole range of other things including mental health and wellbeing. Overall the several UTS projects so the air quality reduction and the recognition of clean air being a human right are priorities. In fact UTS have made it such a priority that they have now begun research into projects that use algae for carbon capture. These things would not have happened if not for the investigations into what algae can do. The facts are in, the facts and the figures are in on this is absolutely no doubt and the WHO World Health Organization has named air quality as the number one threat to human health worldwide. It is the major thing and obviously it has a very tight relationship with climate change and a complex relationship with climate change so in order to engage with and deal with climate problems we often go hand in hand with engaging and dealing with climate change and emissions reduction, greening of cities and a whole gamut of climate action stuff as well. Now algae will be used in the future is difficult to say. Algae still has some limitations and air quality continues to get worse. Intervention will be needed soon though there is at least consensus now on the importance of providing clean air. After all, clean air is a human right at the end of the day. Professor Wilkinson again. Interestingly actually I was having a conversation with somebody this morning who was telling me that this is somebody who works in the fashion industry and the saying that their company are sourcing their wool from a farm in central New South Wales that sees their sheep algae because it means that the sheep, their diet is better and they emit less carbon dioxide which of course is a global greenhouse gas. So that's minimising the contribution to climate change through feeding animals biomass. I think cattle and a consumption of bees is another huge component of contributors to the methane emissions that come from cattle contribute to climate change substantially. Ultimately clean air has finally been acknowledged as a human right. For Australia it is not yet the biggest issue for its government to deal with especially when other nations have much higher air pollution levels. Having said that maintaining good air quality is something Australia needs to do to keep in mind with the climate change targets that they have set themselves by 2050. And with tough El Nino years waiting in the future, it seems that the current investment into algae will be essential once the inevitable record-breaking bushfires and disasters make their return. Clean air is the future, air pollution is the past. This has been a Think Sustainability episode produced by Andrew Herlinger. Special thanks goes to Professor Andrew Tovey, Professor Sarah Wilkinson and Dr Alexandra Thompson for giving up their time to do the interviews. Hope you have a great night.