Friday, August 29, 2014

Cattle feed as a "new" application for algae?

BiofuelsDigest has a post on August 28 Algae to be used for cattle feed in Australia which begins



In Australia, algae may have a new application: cattle feed. Research sponsored by Meat and Livestock Australia and conducted by the University of Queensland was unveiled last week, debuting an on-farm algae growing prototype in Queensland.


How "new" this application may be is open to question.

Contemplate text in US 3,951,805 (issued in 1976): The ultimate aim is primarily to remove the algae and the fibrous material as an entity from the machine and to utilize the removed materials as an entity for cattle feed. The inventor Joseph Dodd was from Werribee, Victoria 3030, Australia .

More recently, contemplate the work of a company once known as PetroAlgae; from Biodiesel Magazine in 2012:


Melbourne, Fla.-based PetroAlgae Inc. has changed its name to Parabel Inc. According to information released by the company, the new name better reflects its strategic changes and commercial milestones.

“In the past year, the company has significantly accelerated its commercialization as a result of key strategic changes,” said Anthony Tiarks, CEO of Parabel. “We have developed a scalable and flexible customer licensee model, and our technology is now being implemented at pilot scale around the world. Our priority is to facilitate the commercial-scale production of animal feed and potentially human food ingredients, using nongenetically modified and nonalgae microcrops. We believe it is the right time for these important developments and achievements to be given expression through a new name.”

Information issued by Parabel noted that its proprietary technology addresses global demand for new sources of feed, food and fuel. According to the company, its open-pond bioreactor technology enables customer licensees to grow, harvest, and process locally available, aquatic microcrops. Biorefining Magazine’s prior coverage of the company notes that the Parabel’s technology is used to cultivate microcrops from the Lemnaceae family, including duckweed.



Along this line note US Patent 8,679,352 (priority to US provisional patent application 61/314,736, filed on Mar. 17, 2010 ) :

Dried duckweed can be a good cattle feed. It can contain 25-45% protein (depending on the growth conditions), 4.4% fat, and 8-10% fiber, measured by dry weight.

Contemplate also text from US Patent 8,343,753 : For example, in some embodiments, when used as animal feed (e.g., cattle feed, dairy feed, aqua feed, poultry feed), the one or more PUFAs produced by the microalgae can be incorporated into the flesh or other products of animals including, but not limited to, livestock, poultry, cattle, and fish. The PUFAs also can be used for pharmaceutical or nutritional purposes and industrial applications.

And then there is US Patent 8,747,916, titled Selecting, producing, and feeding whole algae as a feed supplement for cattle and bison to produce meat high in omega 3's for human health which includes the text

It is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved method and system to create and use an algae based food supplement for but not limited to beef cattle.

**Sadly, the entry on the August 28 post on BiofuelsDigest contains the following oxymoronic text:


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