Techniques for Tropical Seaweed Cultivation

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Program:
MARINER
Award:
$7,515,793
Location:
Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Status:
ACTIVE
Project Term:
05/01/2018 - 04/30/2024
Website:

Technology Description:

The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), located in Woods Hole, will lead a MARINER Category 1 project to design and develop a cultivation system for the tropical seaweed Eucheuma isiforme to produce biomass for biofuels. Eucheuma is a commercially valuable species of “red” macroalgae, primarily cultivated in Asia, which has been difficult to propagate in a cost-effective manner. Cultivation of Eucheuma is labor intensive — making up almost 70% of the production costs — and is limited to easily accessible areas near shore. The MBL team will design and development a farm system that will mechanize the seeding and harvesting process to drastically reduce labor costs, and allow farms to be deployed in offshore areas to greatly expand large-scale production and increase biomass yield per dollar of capital. The ultimate goal of the project is to cost-effectively produce biomass in underutilized areas of the Gulf of Mexico and tropical U.S. Exclusive Economic Zones where year-round production is possible. MBL will investigate opportunities to deploy an experimental farm in Puerto Rico where a wide range of exposure to prevailing winds and waves creates an ideal testbed to understand the influence of environmental conditions on biological, physiological, and chemical properties of cultivated macroalgae. If successful, the project can disrupt the current practices in the red macroalgae market and reduce reliance on imports from foreign sources, and ultimately scale to production levels relevant for bioenergy production.

Potential Impact:

If successful, MARINER projects strive to develop the tools needed to allow the United States to become a world leader in marine biomass production for multiple important applications, including the production of biofuels.

Security:

Production of biofuels and bioenergy from domestically produced marine biomass could ensure that the U.S. has at its disposal a scalable, domestic source of low-carbon energy supplies.

Environment:

Growing large amounts of macroalgae would not compete with land-based food crops, requires no fresh water and can be grown without the addition of energy-intensive, synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. Large-scale macroalgae cultivation may help reduce the negative effects of nutrient overload and ocean acidification in many coastal ocean regions.

Economy:

A domestic macroalgae industry would not only create a valuable new source of domestic energy, but also create significant new economic and employment opportunities in many waterfront communities along the U.S. coasts from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, and the Pacific Islands.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Simon Freeman
Project Contact:
Dr. Loretta Roberson
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
lroberson@mbl.edu

Partners

C.A. Goudey & Associates
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Related Projects

• C.A. Goudey & Associates - Autonomous Tow Vessels
• Catalina Sea Ranch - Design of Large Scale Macroalgae Systems
• Fearless Fund - Ocean Energy from Macroalgae
• Kelson Marine - A Validated Finite Element Modeling Tool for Hydrodynamic Loading and Structural Analysis of Ocean-Deployed Macroalgae Farms Using Open-Source Tools
• Makai Ocean Engineering - Performance and Impact of Macroalgae Farming
• Marine BioEnergy - Biofuel Production from Kelp
• Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) - Techniques for Tropical Seaweed Cultivation
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) - Spatial Planning and Entanglement Simulations to Support for Macroalgae Aquaculture Development in California
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) - Assessing the U.S Potential of Renewable Natural Gas (RNG)-based Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)
• Ocean Era - Single Point Mooring Array for Macroalgae
• Ocean Rainforest - Design of Large Scale Macroalgae System (MacroSystem)
• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) - Modeling for Scalable Macroalgae Production
• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) - Nautical Offshore Macroalgal Autonomous Device
• Umaro Foods - Continuous, High-Yield Kelp Production
• University of Alaska Fairbanks - Scalable Coastal and Offshore Macroalgal Farming
• University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) - MacroAlgae Cultivation Modeling System
• University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara) - Scalable Aquaculture Monitoring System
• University of New England (UNE) - Modeling Tool for Ocean-Deployed Farms
• University of Southern Mississippi (USM) - Adjustable Depth Seaweed Growth System
• University of Southern Mississippi (USM) - SeaweedPaddock Pelagic Sargassum Ranching
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) - Genome-Wide Seaweed Studies
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution - Seaweed Hatchery and Selective Breeding Technologies
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution - Monitoring Macroalgae Using Acoustics and UUV

Release Date:
12/16/2016