Riggs Eckelberry, President & CEO of OriginOil

Q: In an industry that is relying heavily on investments and financing, what does it signal for OriginOil, as well as the entire algae industry, that an algae company has received payment for its products/services?

A: We need real world commerce in algae to show the way toward its ultimate large scale adoption. In our case, our first commercial event showed us that the real driver for algae infrastructure development is bio-capture of CO2. We had always considered the carbon angle to be secondary for algae operators; but we have learned many fossil fuel users actually have an existential need to do something about all that carbon dioxide; and algae turns out to be the cheapest, and likely the most effective way to go about it.

Bio-capture is how algae will get built out, and products is how it will become profitable. It’s ironic that we are actually helping the fossil fuel sector by mitigating their emissions – but now we know it’s our driver, we can execute.

We wouldn’t have focused on this area if it hadn’t been for our first commercial business. So it’s more than a good thing, it’s everything.

Riggs Eckelberry
President & CEO, OriginOil
www.originoil.com