There are days when everything goes right.
All your affairs are in order,
life's carefree and in harmony.
But aren't we ignoring something?
In fact, for decades we've been ignoring
some really big problems.
Global warming. Rising sea level. Famine.
Plastic in the oceans.
Deforestation. Loss of biodiversity. Disease.
The list of horrors is endless.
And no one has been able
to come up with a practical master plan
for saving our beautiful planet.
MASTER PLAN
But what if
there was a solution for all these concerns?
And what if the answer
is algae?
Let's begin by taking a deep breath.
At least half the oxygen
in our lungs right now
was produced by algae.
Thanks to cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae,
we can survive on the Earth.
They were the first living beings
that were able to split water molecules
and produce oxygen.
That's an incredible innovation
because it required a specific enzyme
that was able to do it,
and that was cyanobacteria.
And this blue-green algae can now be found
as chloroplasts
in what we call plants.
ANTJE BOETIUS MARINE BIOLOGIST
You could say that algae radically pushed through their agenda
billions of years ago.
The atmosphere consisted of gases such as methane,
ammonia and nitrogen.
And I'm sure it stank of ammonia.
VICTOR SMETACEK MARINE BIOLOGIST
Because the creatures at the time couldn't use the oxygen
produced by the algae,
90 per cent of species disappeared,
making room for new life.
For us, for example.
Though microalgae are tiny,
and macroalgae also seem rather harmless,
algae are powerful.
And now that humans are running
life on this wonderful planet over a cliff,
they might be able to help us again.
I'm sure we can save the world
with algae because, in the past,
algae have repeatedly changed the climate. And now,
if we use it correctly,
they might be able
to do it again.
The energy we use every day
was originally produced by algae.
Fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum
come from plants, such as algae.
Millions of years ago, they stored energy from the sun.
As a result we can now drive cars,
take hot showers,
and make many nice things in factories.
But this energy will be used up sooner or later,
and we've blown all its carbon
into the atmosphere as CO2.
That's why our planet is getting warmer.
We can't let that happen, we must stop it!
I'm extremely concerned about
the condition of the Earth.
THOMAS BRÜCK BIOCHEMIST
I have two children,
and I want to leave them
a world they can live in.
The planet where we live is changing fast.
And we aren't changing fast enough.
These scientists still believe
we can preserve the Earth for humans.
With the help of algae.
An important part is played by brown algae,
or diatoms,
which oceanographers hold in high regard.
These tiny things are somehow magical.
When I was a child
and first saw the drawings of Ernst Haeckel,
who discovered them,
and my father gave me a small microscope,
I saw these drops
of ocean water
for the first time
and thought they were incredibly beautiful.
They have transparent shells. And I looked at them
and was surprised such beautiful things live in the ocean.
FAVOURITE ALGAE
Her favourite kind of algae is the diatom Melosira artica,
which she observed under the Arctic ice.
You can't see it from above. The shell looks white,
but when you look at it through a camera,
you can see that everything is green and animals are hiding in it.
They're single-celled, but live in colonies.
They form huge threads that can measure metres
and produce a lot of slime,
which they use to protect themselves and attach to things.
Microalgae can form large groups
that aren't tiny at all.
These colonies can even be seen from space.
And all they do the whole day
is capture the sun's energy.
That's right: photosynthesis.
You could call it
the world's most climate-friendly method of producing energy.
When doing this they capture carbon,
which stays on the ocean floor for thousands of years.
When you picture the ocean's surface,
there are waves on top.
The top floor is flooded with sunlight.
In the Southern Ocean, that could be
200 metres deep. It's extremely clean, clear water.
And in the Arctic Ocean,
it's only a few metres deep and extremely cloudy.
And that's where algae grows.
They need sunlight for photosynthesis
and to have the energy
to extract CO2 from the ocean and form biomass.
This then provides food for many other creatures,
such as tiny copepods in the Arctic Ocean,
which eat algae and are then eaten by herring
and cod.
Or krill in the Southern Ocean, which move in schools, or whales,
which ingest the krill and turn them into biomass.
When they die
and excrete what they've eaten,
lumps are formed,
also known as marine snows,
which fall onto the ocean floor.
And then the carbon is removed from the atmosphere for millennia.
The biological pump
is the name given to this cycle.
If it didn't exist,
there'd be twice as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
That's what's really on the ocean floor.
What I like about the deep sea
is that it feels
incredibly soft and smooth.
When you taste it,
it's extremely salty.
And what's really funny is that
tonnes of this clay mud from the deep sea
are used for cosmetic purposes.
It's good for the skin, creates oxygen,
and captures CO2 that could harm the climate.
Actually algae have been helping us for ever.
And we don't even have to pay them taxes for doing it.
It might be time to come up with new ideas,
rather than just burning what's now coal and petroleum.
Why don't we make use of new algae
and the energy they've stored?
The photosynthetic efficiency of microalgae is four times
that of terrestrial plants,
and they grow about ten times
as fast as any terrestrial plant,
meaning they're very efficient at converting CO2
to biomass and valuable materials.
Thomas Brück has already been able to make
aircraft fuel from microalgae. It works.
Unfortunately, it's still too expensive. For now.
We don't know enough about breeding algae
for such huge projects.
How much warmth and light do they need?
And what species of algae grows quickest and contains lots of oil?
The goal is to produce as much algae as possible inexpensively.
But a lot of space is needed for that.
Right, scaling is definitely a challenge.
Just think, you'd need a space about
three times
the size of Corsica
to produce all the biokerosene
required in Europe.
Three Corsicas.
Such a large space isn't available.
That alone makes energy from algae prohibitively expensive.
In addition, advanced technology is required
to get at algae's oil.
At present, Europe has 370 facilities for this.
Algae bioreactors like this one.
And open basins like these.
This isn't
a major algae boom. Not at all.
Many projects have been discontinued,
jobs eliminated.
When people are asked what problem is most worrisome,
climate change is number one by far.
But you have other concerns about the future.
The world's food supply is also important.
Disease and the oceans of plastic.
And some of you are worried about wrinkles.
But you know what? Algae could possibly help solve
all these problems.
An incredible number of things can be made with algae biomass.
Plastic for example.
This surfboard is made of algae,
and it's biodegradable.
And medicines.
Researchers are working on agents against tumours and Alzheimer's.
We've already mentioned cosmetics with algae.
Not to forget that algae beer is supposed to be healthy.
They're magical creatures.
But in the past we've been
fairly clueless when it comes to algae.
We know far too little about them.
But all new knowledge or innovations
could take us a bit further.
This scooter
has a carbon material made of algae.
Carbon material is actually a by-product
of our algae kerosene.
Up to 70 per cent of algae's cells
are algae oil, and this algae oil
consists of two parts:
a backbone of glycerol
with three long chains
of fatty acids.
And when I separate
these two components,
I have one part glycerol, which I can use to make carbon fibre.
And I have another part
with long chains of fatty acids, which can be used to make
biokerosene.
And then there are all the good nutrients in the algae.
The French master baker Gerboin is interested in them.
I went to see him and asked,
"Do you know what can be done with algae?
The kind that's green and contains
60 per cent protein and lots of vitamin B?"
He said, "Yes".
For their experiments, they used Thomas Brück's favourite algae,
Chlorella sorokiniana,
a green algae from a lake in Australia.
It produces a huge amount of vitamin B.
Algae's major advantage is that it grows so quickly.
When compared to rapeseed, it's something like this:
On a hectare of rape,
about one tonne of biomass grows per year.
Twenty tonnes could be grown on a hectare
of algae
in the same amount of time.
OK, rapeseed yields more oil than algae,
but algae is still the winner.
To produce a barrel of oil,
planting 1,000 square metres of rape is necessary.
Algae produces one barrel
for every 74 square metres.
That's not enough to satisfy
our energy needs or for algae kerosene.
But what if algae were used as a food?
When it helps with the next big problem:
world hunger?
In 1950, the planet's population was 2.5 billion,
and there were 5,200 square metres of arable land per person.
By 2030, the population will climb
to more than 8.5 billion,
but the amount of arable land per person
will be only 1,900 square metres.
Part of the reason for this are droughts and heatwaves.
Algae could come in handy to ensure
there's enough food for everyone.
I'm convinced that algae could provide
a major portion of
our food supply in the future
because they contain a diverse variety of nutrients.
But microalgae are a little small.
Macroalgae that grow in the sea might be more practical
for feeding the world.
They're also known as seaweed.
They don't use up any farmland at all.
Algae are very interesting
as a foodstuff for humans.
They're full of nutrients we need:
proteins, lipids,
carbohydrates. They're a unique foodstuff, but
are rarely used in Europe. They're a little difficult to produce,
because we aren't familiar with
the proper growing methods.
SYLVAIN HUCHETTE BIOLOGIST
Here in Brittany, Sylvain Huchette grows classic edible macroalgae
such as nori and kombu.
Royal Kombu, also known as sugar kelp, is his favourite.
Though it's difficult for him to choose.
He loves all his algae.
This algae, it's very nice.
Sugar kelp grows on all the world's coasts.
It can grow up to four metres long,
is sweet, and contains up to 15 per cent protein.
This makes it suitable for a vegetarian diet.
Royal Kombu can have
many different textures.
That's why there are so many different ways to prepare it
as a food.
The outer parts here are extremely fine
and easy to chew.
The inner band here,
it's much tougher
and
difficult to cut.
It's more like a vegetable.
Crisper and very interesting.
If people in the future must eat more algae,
the supply from the sea might not be sufficient.
That's why we need to find methods of farming seaweed on a large scale.
Sustainably.
We don't want to repeat the same mistakes made in agriculture
over the past 200 years.
A manifesto has already been written
in which the United Nations outline how
algae could be grown around the world sustainably.
It's called "Seaweed Revolution".
The revolution has begun. We've already started farming
algae. But at present
our participation
in this revolution,
it exists, but is still not enough.
A real revolution
would mean producing
millions of tonnes of algae.
Only then would there be real change.
But we have a lot to learn about farming seaweed.
Through his experiments,
Sylvain has discovered the season when sugar kelp
has the most nutrients.
And when it grows the slowest.
He also uses many of the results from research performed here.
The Roscoff institute of the Sorbonne,
Europe's hotspot for algae research,
is located just a few kilometres away.
It has one of the largest algae collections
in the world, and international specialists
discover something new every day.
There are still many unanswered questions,
as there are more than 500,000 species of algae.
Just a fraction have been studied,
and algae are completely different from terrestrial plants.
We have many mysteries to unravel
so algae can be farmed profitably around the world.
This algae farm and the lines are so expensive at present
that only top-class restaurants can afford what's produced.
Sylvain can afford to farm them
only because he uses them to feed
certain special connoisseurs.
These ones.
Abalones are gourmets where algae are concerned.
They like the same species
as humans.
Because he makes such a good profit with abalone,
he can grow algae for humans.
Will large-scale algae farming ever work?
You could say we're working toward this goal.
We have methods and techniques
that might be useful for large-scale farming.
But will that really
be sufficient?
It's a complicated question.
So it'll take more time with macroalgae
before they can be produced on an industrial scale
and are able to help feed the world.
What's a little disappointing:
Growing enough algae to make a real change
is still too expensive,
whether microalgae or macroalgae.
We won't be able to save the world with pastries and abalone feed.
We'll have to think bigger for that, much bigger.
A huge part of the planet would have to be
restructured to balance it again.
We've burned about 500 gigatonnes of carbon
in the form of coal, oil and natural gas.
So if we want the climate
to be stable again,
as it was in the past 10,000 years, that amount
would have to be removed.
His plan to save the world:
planting huge jungles of algae
that can capture equally huge amounts of CO2.
In the so-called "deserts of the oceans".
These marine deserts
cover half the Earth's surface.
They're both north and south of the equator.
So they stretch from coast to coast.
They're huge
spinning warm-water lenses that are
transparent because they have no nutrients, and they could be used.
The oceans have different layers,
something like a caffè latte.
The upper layer is warm and low in nutrients,
meaning it isn't at all suitable for farming algae.
That's why Victor Smetacek
wants to pipe nutrient-rich water from the depths.
With huge pipes.
That would be comparable with
the settling of the river valleys, Nile
or Euphrates, Tigris,
Mesopotamia,
where a new system of agriculture was developed
with the aid of irrigation canals.
And that was the beginning of
civilisation on our planet.
And we'll do the same thing in the ocean.
Smetacek wants to make use of lush algae forests
and the captured carbon in them,
for example for producing algae plastic
for the pipes.
Another idea would be compressing the algae
into balls and sinking them into the deep sea.
That would function like
an extremely efficient biological pump.
The water that's pumped up would provide a growing medium
for Smetacek's favourite algae:
sargassum.
This is a brown algae that isn't really popular
because it covers beaches in the Caribbean.
It reproduces at an incredible rate and grows even at warm temperatures.
That's why many experts warn against such experiments.
Some of them fear that the deep sea will change
if large amounts of algae balls are deposited there.
Others think that the sargassum jungle could escape
and harm the coasts.
Therefore, we would develop a new economy
in the ocean,
with regenerative energies.
Because there's unlimited sunlight, and the wind and waves
can also be utilised.
And everything wouldn't be so profit-orientated,
because this is for the good of all humankind.
OK, that sounds almost too good to be true.
But maybe we need lots of imagination
to solve our planet's problems.
The absurd thing is that although we desperately need their help,
we haven't been particularly nice to algae.
Algae need
a cool ocean.
Of all things, her diatoms are the biggest losers there.
Boetius saw that with her favourite algae, Melosira, in the Arctic.
When they aren't doing well, when the water is too warm,
they can't produce oxygen,
become heavy, and sink into the deep sea.
And during the biggest ice melt of all time in 2012,
we found huge lumps of this algae
on the ocean floor.
We discovered
that few deep-sea creatures have any use for them.
The oceans and the algae are in bad shape.
It seems as if algae wouldn't be able to save us.
Sorry, I am very touched by this.
I'm just thinking of my kids and
my past and everything I've done.
Yeah.
Well, it seems that if we don't take care of the algae,
we won't be able to help ourselves.
There are good ideas involving algae, but as for the saving part,
that's up to us.
Unfortunately, this message
is the truth.
The algae revolution, that can't be
an excuse to keep living
the same way as the present.
We must change
and become more moderate.
And we must continue exploring these new technologies.
Algae won't be able to do it alone. I think they have
the potential
to provide a building block,
because they're very efficient at capturing CO2,
but they won't be able to do it alone.
And we need
all sorts of technologies for this,
from physics, chemistry, biology -
it doesn't matter. It's time
to take what we have and put it to use.
It's conceivable. We can do it.
Algae won't save the world for us.
But the more we know about them and the better we treat them,
the better they can help us do the job.