dotlah! dotlah!
  • Cities
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Society
  • Science
  • About
Social Links
  • zedreviews.com
  • citi.io
  • aster.cloud
  • liwaiwai.com
  • guzz.co.uk
  • atinatin.com
0 Likes
0 Followers
0 Subscribers
dotlah!
  • Cities
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Society
  • Science
  • About
  • Lah!

Seaweed Farming Could Really Help Fight Climate Change

  • September 18, 2019
Total
0
Shares
0
0
0

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), addressing carbon emissions from our food sector is absolutely essential to fight climate change. While land and agriculture took center stage in the panel’s most recent report, how the oceans at large could help in that fight was largely missing.

For their study, researchers investigated the carbon offsetting potential of seaweed aquaculture.

“It’s not a silver bullet, nor an industry that exists yet,” says Halley Froehlich, an assistant professor in the environmental studies and marine biology department at the University of California, Santa Barbara and lead author of a paper in Current Biology. “But it has huge potential.”

Seaweed aquaculture could indeed be a powerful new way to sequester carbon, say researchers who synthesized diverse datasets from scientific literature. The process would involve cultivating seaweed and harvesting it for the purpose of sinking the algae in the deeper ocean, where the carbon stored in its tissues would remain “buried.”

“We really wanted to know if it could be beneficial, but also be realistic about its potential,” Froehlich says of the research, which she and colleagues bounded with constraints including nutrients, temperature, and geographic suitability. They also assessed production growth and cost, and investigated the mitigation potential on various scales with a focus on the food sector—a major source of greenhouse gases and a considerable hurdle to fight climate change.

Infant Industry

There is substantial suitable area—roughly 48 million square kilometers [more than 18.5 million square miles]—in which seaweed could be farmed, and a relatively small proportion (0.001%) would be enough to render the entire global aquaculture industry carbon neutral, according to the study.

However, the benefits don’t scale proportionally against the much higher greenhouse gas-emitting global agricultural sector, in part due to cost and growth constraints, Froehlich says. Farming seaweed alone won’t balance emissions from global food production, she adds, but could be a useful new tool in a suite that includes other carbon reduction and offset measures such as cleaner sources of energy, reforestation, and protection of carbon sinks.

Greenhouse gas-mitigating seaweed farming could have the most potential when it comes to achieving local and regional carbon neutrality goals, the study finds. California is particularly well-primed to reap the mitigating benefits of seaweed aquaculture, given the state’s strong climate action policy and its long, nutrient-rich coast. An area of only 3.8% of the West Coast Exclusive Economic Zone (a marine zone that extends no more than 200 miles [just under 322 km] from the coast) would be enough to offset the carbon produced by the state’s agriculture sector.

Relative to the rest of the world, US seaweed aquaculture is still somewhat in its infancy.

“The vast majority of seaweed aquaculture occurs in Southeast Asia,” Froehlich says. While no measurable seaweed farming was occurring in the United States in 2016—the most recent time period of the study—small seaweed farms are starting to emerge in the US, though primarily for food and other commercial purposes, and not for carbon sequestration.

No Simple Solution

The US, meanwhile, is the world’s second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, Froehlich points out, underscoring the need for solutions such as seaweed farming to mitigate the millions of tons of carbon dioxide equivalents the country emits per year. Fortunately, seaweed farming has other appealing and beneficial environmental effects, she notes.

“We like to call it ‘charismatic carbon’ because it has additional benefits,” Froehlich says, “such as potentially providing habitat for fish and other marine life, reducing ocean acidification and oxygen depletion, and taking up excess nutrients in local areas.”

Seaweed cultivation’s beneficial climate effects far outweigh the fact that it can’t completely offset the country’s food production greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, according to coauthor Benjamin Halpern from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, there is not—and never will be—a single tool for dealing with climate change.

“The problem has become too big for simple solutions,” he says. “We need all hands on deck.” While solutions to climate change will not be easy, the more strategies, the better, he says.

“The huge advantage is that if we can actually deploy many different strategies—from seaweed farming to renewable energy to energy efficiency and others—the solution is more resilient,” Halpern says.

To make it a real option in the United States, policy would need to enable and accelerate seaweed cultivation for carbon sequestration, farmers would need to respond by dramatically scaling up production, and the carbon market would need to expand to offer higher prices.

In the meantime, research will continue to investigate seaweed cultivation’s potential for mitigating climate change.

“My colleagues and I are now assessing other paths seaweed can take to find the ‘best bang for your buck’ on carbon mitigation,” Froehlich says. Given that farmed seaweed is also subject to climate change effects, a better understanding of how it could be affected would greatly inform how it could be cultivated and managed in the long term.

 

Sonia Fernandez

Source: UC Santa Barbara & Futurity

Original Study DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.07.041

Total
0
Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Share
Related Topics
  • Aquaculture
  • Carbon Emissions
  • Climate Change
  • Seaweeds
majulah

Previous Article
  • Lah!

We Built An App To Detect Areas Most Vulnerable To Life-Threatening Haze

  • September 18, 2019
View Post
Next Article
  • Lah!

What It Takes To Put Out Forest Fires

  • September 23, 2019
View Post
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Lah!

Tariffs, Trump, and Other Things That Start With T – They’re Not The Problem, It’s How We Use Them

  • John Francis
  • March 25, 2025
View Post
  • Lah!

Canonical announces 12 year Kubernetes LTS

  • John Francis
  • March 4, 2025
dotlah-smartnation-singapore-lawrence-wong
View Post
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Featured
  • Features
  • Lah!
  • Machine Learning
  • Technology

Growth, community and trust the ‘building blocks’ as Singapore refreshes Smart Nation strategies: PM Wong

  • Dean Marc
  • October 9, 2024
dotlah-singapore-ndp-2024
View Post
  • Lah!

Here’s what to expect for NDP 2024!

  • dotlah.com
  • August 9, 2024
dotlah-singapore-airlines_may_21-1716298816
View Post
  • Lah!

Severe turbulence during Singapore Airlines flight leaves several people badly injured. One man died

  • majulah
  • May 22, 2024
dotlah-pm-lee-lawrence-wong-9656d4cd-1fa4-40ed-905d-e19e639b8476_728802dd
View Post
  • Lah!
  • People
  • Politics

End of Lee Era for Singapore as PM Steps Down

  • dotlah.com
  • May 16, 2024
DPM Lawrence Wong will be Singapore's fourth prime minister on May 15. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
View Post
  • Lah!
  • People
  • Politics

7 things to know about Singapore’s next prime minister Lawrence Wong

  • dotlah.com
  • May 15, 2024
When asked about his leadership style, DPM Lawrence Wong said he will be open and consultative, but he will not shirk from doing what is necessary for Singapore's future. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
View Post
  • Features
  • Lah!
  • People
  • Politics

‘We are prepared to relook everything’: Lawrence Wong on a changing society and his hopes for S’pore

  • dotlah.com
  • May 15, 2024


Trending
  • 1
    • People
    Why You Need To Eat Meat To Stay Healthy
    • June 10, 2020
  • 2
    • Lah!
    • Technology
    DBS And Trafigura Collaborate With IMDA To Launch Open-Sourced Blockchain Trade Platform
    • November 8, 2019
  • 3
    • Lah!
    • Technology
    NUS Engineers Make Smart Plugs Smarter
    • January 28, 2021
  • 4
    • Lah!
    PUB Awards Bedok/Lower Seletar Floating Solar PV Systems To BBR Greentech
    • October 30, 2019
  • 5
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Technology
    How the UK’s plans for AI could derail net zero – the numbers explained
    • February 9, 2025
  • 6
    • Cities
    How Asia Transformed From The Poorest Continent In The World Into A Global Economic Powerhouse
    • October 28, 2019
  • 7
    • Cities
    Coronavirus Hasn’t Killed The City. Here’s Why
    • September 16, 2020
  • women-hannah-busing-Zyx1bK9mqmA-unsplash 8
    • People
    • World Events
    Only Twelve Countries Have Full Equal Rights for Women
    • March 8, 2022
  • people-wearing-face-mask-julian-wan-DWaC44FUV5o-unsplash 9
    • Cities
    • People
    How to Detox While Living in a Polluted City
    • January 21, 2022
  • 10
    • Lah!
    Why White Island Erupted And Why There Was No Warning
    • December 10, 2019
  • Internet web platform on theme of very high speed internet 11
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Featured
    • Science
    Is Our Digital World Alive?
    • July 10, 2023
  • 12
    • Lah!
    Driving Environmental Resilience, Energy Efficiency And Developing Food And Water Security Through The Singapore Sustainability Scholarship 2021
    • August 11, 2021
Trending
  • 1
    Meralco PowerGen’s PacificLight starts up 100 MW fast-response plant in Singapore
    • June 20, 2025
  • 2
    A Father’s Day Gift for Every Pop and Papa
    • June 14, 2025
  • 3
    Apple services deliver powerful features and intelligent updates to users this autumn
    • June 12, 2025
  • 4
    Apple supercharges its tools and technologies for developers to foster creativity, innovation, and design
    • June 11, 2025
  • 5
    It’s time to stop debating whether AI is genuinely intelligent and focus on making it work for society
    • June 8, 2025
  • 6
    PBBM asks Singapore to invest more in PH renewable energy projects
    • June 6, 2025
  • 7
    Singapore PM Wong arrives in Malacañang
    • June 4, 2025
  • 8
    Renewable energy, carbon credits are priority areas of cooperation for Singapore, Philippines: Lawrence Wong
    • June 4, 2025
  • 9
    Singapore businesses eye more investments in PH, says PM Wong
    • June 4, 2025
  • 10
    The Summer Adventures : Hiking and Nature Walks Essentials
    • June 3, 2025
Social Links
dotlah! dotlah!
  • Cities
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Society
  • Science
  • About
Connecting Dots Across Asia's Tech and Urban Landscape

Input your search keywords and press Enter.