I am greatly honored to present this Keynote address. My focus, even after sixty years, continues to be on the future of phycology, even though I now present mainly from the past. I am delighted to see biological and physical scientists and engineers coming together in the field of Applied Phycology. Our working together will result in many benefits for mankind. There is no doubt that Applied Phycology has a great future because it has the potential for more efficient use of solar energy than conventional agriculture, and because it is poised to reach still unimagined goals through both genetic and ecological engineering. As an engineer I have focused mainly on large algal mass culture systems and the efficient use of solar energy in wastewater treatment (Oswald, 1962, 1963). But now I can envision such future triumphs as the introduction of genes for sulfur amino acids into the presently deficient Spirulina genome. I am fascinated by Dr Bailey Green's crusade to minimize energy use and greenhouse gas emissions using algae-based sewage treatment (Green, 1998), by Dr Joseph Weissman's commercial production of shellfish fed mass cultured algae, and by Dr John Benemann's vision of achieving very high productivities through physiological and genetic manipulations of the photosynthetic apparatus (Benemann, 1990), to mention just three examples currently underway by former students and colleagues. All of these and many more advances have resulted from combining biological and engineering knowledge.
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