New seaweeds to plug Europe's market gap: Palmaria, Fucus & Porphyra
Also: investigating seaweed biochar’s potential
European sea farmers mostly grow sugar kelp, which is relatively easy to grow but more difficult to sell at a profit. At the same time, there is more demand than supply for Palmaria (dulse), Ulva (sea lettuce) and Porphyra (nori), which are still difficult to grow at scale.
Ireland’s Pure Ocean Algae wants to fill that gap. They recently announced a 3 million euro investment to move dulse cultivation from onshore tanks out into the open sea and finally scale production, using an outgrower model.
Also looking to use an outgrower model is Origin by Ocean. They need a lot of Fucus vesiculosus; 50 000 tonnes by the time their biorefinery is ready in 2026. F. vesiculosus has a lot of potential to extract excessive nutrients from the eutrophied Baltic Sea.
Origin by Ocean will also feed its biorefinery blooms of Sargassum and Rugulopteryx, but as we discussed in the last newsletter, adding in some cultivated seaweeds to fill the gaps is a smart move.
Also working on Fucus cultivation is OceanBASIS, the algae cosmetics company with a farm in the bay of Kiel. They are working together with Vyld, Berlin’s ocean-friendly period startup. And Vyld is crowdfunding: if you are concerned about tampon waste and the chemically-treated ingredients that come into close contact with the most sensitive parts of women’s bodies, then put your money where your then join Vyld’s seaweed tampon crowdfunding!
Meanwhile, on the other side of Europe in Portugal, A4F’s BIOFABrica project aims to convert a 3.5-hectare site into an integrated Fucus vesiculosus biorefinery.
Finally, the cultivation of Atlantic Porphyra (nori) species still faces difficulties due to the complex life cycle. AlgaPlus are the first in Europe to grow 2 types of Atlantic Porphyra for food and cosmetic applications.
Investigating seaweed biochar’s potential
By improving nutrient uptake and storing water, nitrogen and other soil-amending elements, biochar helps agriculture reduce nitrous oxide emissions, fertilizer and water usage. And it sequesters carbon. Project Drawdown models climate impact at 0.1–0.2 gigatons of CO2 equivalent per year in 2050, while the IPCC calculates 3.67 gigatons per year, by adding in soil sequestration (which lacks sufficient data according to PD).
So, let’s make lots of biochar! We could, in principle, but the nascent biochar industry is limited by the availability of biomass. Could seaweeds be an alternative feedstock?
In Norway, a new 3-million euro pilot backed by Equinor is evaluating the options. It’s complicated, though, since they also have to find a way to grow so much seaweed in difficult offshore conditions.
What about Sargassum?
If the 24 million tonnes of Sargassum that washed up on Caribbean beaches this year were converted to biochar, that would amount to 7.15 million tonnes of biochar to fertilize soils, and 22.5 million tonnes of CO2 sequestered. Of course, you would have to use renewable energy for the processing.
That’s exactly what SMO Solar Process is doing, turning Sargassum into green hydrogen, activated carbon and biochar with solar energy. In a similar vein, researchers at Auckland University propose a hydrochar biorefinery for Barbados.
What is hydrochar?
Biochar is made using pyrolysis, which requires high energy input and expensive pretreatment. Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) has replaced pyrolysis as the preferred conversion process for biomass with high moisture content.
With HTC, you use super-hot water (80-240°C) that remains in a liquid state under high pressure. Treating Sargassum in this super-hot water for 30 minutes helps break it down. Compared to biochar, hydrochar research is still in its infancy, but early results indicate seaweed hydrochar has potential as a fertilizer.
Thank you for maintaining the very interesting blog with high quality standard. Question: Do you have a good reference about the Pros and Cons of Open Sea / Deep Sea Seagrass Farming ... Is there any Risk Assessment Study available? Thank you