US$1.8 billion. That is the amount that Chitose Bio Evolution, a Singapore-based company, aims to raise in the coming years to finance one of the largest microalgae cultivation and processing complexes for converting microalgae into biofuels and food. A consortium of 35 Japanese companies, including automaker Honda and oil refiner Eneos, has come together to create initial demand for the project. 

Chitose is building a 5-hectare pilot facility in Malaysia and is negotiating to expand it—in the industrial phase—to 2,000 hectares by 2027. The greenest aspect of the project is that it uses CO2 to feed the microalgae. The plan is to use CO2 from a nearby thermoelectric power plant to produce 140,000 metric tons of microalgae per year. These organisms absorb more than eight times the volume of CO2 than a soybean plant.

Once it is operating at full capacity, Chitose expects to generate approximately US$1 billion in annual sales.