Foods / Tuesday, 09-Sep-2025

‘It’s a new way to think about food production’—Growing algae on Iceland’s futuristic farm

‘It’s a new way to think about food production’—Growing algae on Iceland’s futuristic farm

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Thousands of tiny red and blue LED lights fuel the microalgae’s growth, in place of sunlight. Credit: Vaxa
Thousands of tiny red and blue LED lights fuel the microalgae’s growth, in place of sunlight. Credit: Vaxa

Under a strange pink-purple glow, illuminated panels buzz and cylindrical columns of water bubble away as a futuristic crop of microalgae grows.

It’s here that Iceland’s Vaxa Technologies has developed a system that harnesses energy and other resources from the nearby power plant to cultivate these tiny aquatic organisms.

“It’s a new way of thinking about food production,” says general manager Kristinn Haflidason as he gives me a tour of the space-age facility.

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About 35 minutes from the capital Reykjavik, the Vaxa site produces the microalgae Nannochloropsis, both as food for people, and for feed in fish and shrimp farming.

“The algae is eating CO2, or turning the CO2 into biomass,” explains Mr Haflidason. “It’s carbon negative.”

Vaxa’s plant has a unique situation.

It’s the only place where algae cultivation is integrated with a geothermal power station, which supplies clean electricity, delivers cold water for cultivation, hot water for heating, and even pipes across its CO2 emissions.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here

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