Re: [DIYbio] Re: Off-grid Algae Storage?

Hmm, let's make this more pithy, opinionated, and obnoxious:

Any engineering system for stable algal production converges toward (a bad) lichen

10 Jun 2022, 08:54 by diy...@googlegroups.com:

What we're always chasing is the photosynthetic efficiency that some algae boast, which can be a few % above that of vascular plants. But with that advantage, there's still a reason nonvascular algae generally tend to grow diffusely over the surfaces of nutrient/competition poor areas (absent human pollution or destruction).

I'm not keen to speculate, I'm just saying that their more advanced photosynthesis has had plenty of time to translate into more competition with other autotrophs in their niche, but vascular plants still dominate full-sun environments. If I had to guess offhand, I'd say that they simply bottleneck out somewhere else in their metabolism, indeed I think our failures so far suggest several bottlenecks. Working around this looks like a technical house of cards.

There _is_ a niche where cyanobacteria's advanced photosynthesis and occasional nitrogen fixing advantage thrive on land: lichen.

Makes me wonder whether we should be investigating lichen farming as an alternative to vat-grown cyanobacteria. Shade-tolerance and low nutrient requirements mean they might work as a sub-solar-pv "crop" if they could be made to produce something useful. The trouble is that they tend to grow slowly (but can one "fertilise" the fungal symbiotes?), but once grown they are a stable natural organism that can compete for its own welfare.

Imagine growing them in clear tubes that are ventilated, and occasionally liquid-flushed to collect some desired exudate. Oil seems like a poor candidate in this case though for lots of reasons (energetic and purely technical) - for "pharming" though it could be interesting.