Could seaweed help us mitigate the effects of climate change? – Sky News

Seaweed farming in UK waters could help mitigate climate change and at the same time provide a source of food supplements and novel chemicals, scientists have told Sky News.

Several thousand tonnes could be cultivated every year in the cold, clean waters around the coast, particularly in Scotland.

It absorbs large amounts of carbon dioxide to sustain its rapid growth, which can reach several centimetres a day.

Peter Elbourne, of Shore Seaweed, already harvests small amounts from the wild to make food products.

A marine biologist by training, he has begun experimenting with seaweed farming near Oban in western Scotland to meet growing demand.

"It is an extraordinary material that has a myriad of applications but has minimal environmental impact," he said.

He has laid a web of ropes with a total length of just over a kilometre, which are held just below the surface and provide a structure for the plant.

He seeded them last month and by May they will be covered in a lush seaweed carpet two metres tall.

"This year I'd expect the equivalent of perhaps half a tonne of carbon dioxide to be absorbed from the ocean," he said.

"But as we scale, we will extract much more.

"Seaweed grows without any fresh water, it needs no land and it needs no chemical inputs like fertilisers and pesticides.

"Compare that to agriculture on land, which uses fossil fuels. So seaweed has this great potential to displace more carbon-intensive materials."

A growing number of seaweed farmers are setting up in business to meet demand from companies, such as the 'blue-biotech' firm Oceanium.

It is extracting alternative proteins, as well as minerals and other food supplements.

But it is also using seaweed to develop environmentally-friendly bio-plastic for food trays, pots and trays.

And within the next 10 to 20 years seaweed 'bio-refineries' could produce building blocks for industrial chemicals that are currently made from oil.

Charlie Bavington, co-founder of the company, told Sky News: "Seaweed lives in a tough environment - a lot of salt, energy, and sunlight, plus you have warm habitats and cold habitats.

"It has solved a lot of chemical and physical problems to survive, and that creates the diversity of chemistry we can use and develop to solve our problems."

He hopes that in future so much could be extracted from seaweed that just 5% would be left over as waste.

Oceanium currently processes 150 tonnes of seaweed a year but plans to scale up to 200,000 tonnes by 2030.

"Seaweed is the ultimate sustainable material," said Dr Bavington.

"It trumps almost everything else.

"It also provides economic opportunities for coastal communities."

Globally 30 million tonnes of seaweed are cultivated, almost all in Asia. The market is growing by 8% a year.

The Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) has just been given 407,000 by the government to set up a 'seaweed academy' to advise farmers and start-ups.

Prof Michele Stanley, Associate Director for Science, Enterprise and Innovation, said: "I don't think until recently we appreciated the marine environment and the role things like seaweed play.

"There is only so much land you can plant trees on.

"We have to look more broadly if we are going to reach net-zero."

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Could seaweed help us mitigate the effects of climate change? - Sky News