The following is excerpted from Chapter 4 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth (http://SimpleSolutionsBook1.com):
Marine biomass, microalgae in particular, has long been known to be ten times more productive per unit area than land crops. However, the more easily managed variety is something called macroalgae, such as kelp.
A good starting point is 1968 when Howard Wilcox of the California Institute of Technology, using U.S. Navy funds, initiated a literature survey of marine plants ideal for marine plantation cultivation. Macrocystis, the giant brown kelp, prevalent along the coastline of Southern California all the way up to Alaska, was selected. Experimental studies show that sugarcane is about the most productive crop cultivated today. The solar capture efficiency of this specie is about 2.6%, yielding close to 100 tons per hectare of dry matter per year. Macrocystis, in plot tests, has been shown to be 7.5 times more productive than sugarcane, and on an areal basis, 17 times higher. Taking a rough average, say that giant brown kelp is ten times more efficient than sugar cane in converting sunlight into biomass. Ah, the potential, remembering from early in Chapter 2 that if we can only secure 0.01% of impinging sunlight, we can replace all the fossil fuels and nuclear energy currently used. Large portions of the ocean can be utilized for this option.
The Wilcox unmoored floating ocean farm was conceived to be 400 hectare (just under a thousand acres) modules, with the kelp attached in an umbrella pattern 3 meters apart, with about 1000 plants per hectare. Modified Jacobs wave pumps were to be used to bring up nutrient rich fluids from the deeper waters.
So, in 1972, Macrocystis pyrifera was grown in an open ocean farm off San Clemente, California, not far from where now the Richard Nixon Museum sits. The energy crisis then drew the partnership of the American Gas Association (Gas Research Institute, GRI) and the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration (later called the U. S. Department of Energy), with General Electric Company as the prime contractor. By 1975, the design expanded and the enterprise became known as the Ocean Food and Energy Farm.
However, the multi-product concept of Wilcox was down-focused by the new associates to provide energy only in the form of substitute or synthetic natural gas (SNG) via the anaerobic digestion of the kelp. Although cultivation proved successful, for high growth rates were experienced with upwelled nutrients, inclement conditions dislodged the plants and caused havoc. The Offshore Test Platform, using a Navy buoy, was tried, but upwelling proved testy and the whole system was destroyed by a storm in 1981. The federal government withdrew its support and GRI continued to look at other macroalgal species.
Follow-up work involved the U. S. Department of Energy, New York State Energy Development Authority, New York Gas Industry Group and the University of Florida Regional Biomass Program, with seaweed genetics and new bioconversion technologies added to the research mix. By 1986, when the program was essentially cancelled, most of the work was occurring on land, using herbaceous and woody feedstocks, and had moved from the West Coast to the East Coast. GRI continued to support the effort at a low rate until 1990.
I recall interacting with Wheeler North (Cal Tech) and Michael Neushal (University of California at Santa Barbara) about regenerating an upgraded program in Hawaii, and, in fact, Professor Neushal’s son, Andrew, spent some time under my tutelage as a graduate student in Hawaii. Andrew submitted a paper entitled, “OTEC and Mariculture: A Review,” but not long thereafter returned home to Santa Barbara, for a reason explained in the following paragraph. He pointed out that, while ocean projects tended to be pricey, the cost to erect a building in Tokyo was more than $55,000 per square meter, while the offshore structure for kelp could be kept below $50 per square meter. The point here is that “land” or space is free in the ocean. Further, he cited the work of Oswald Roels, reporting that the electricity from a 100 MW OTEC plant would yield $34 million/year, but an additional $516 million/year for shellfish. In many ways, this paragraph underscores the attractiveness of the Blue Revolution, that is, the total product potential and the fact that it would be foolhardy to only produce electricity, at least in early efforts, to enhance the commercial value of those billion dollar initiatives.
I subsequently assisted Michael Neushal on a National Science Foundation sponsored Franco-American Workshop held in Baltimore, Maryland, which he co-chaired with Marlene Karakashian on Ocean Engineering, Biotechnology and Mariculture. More than any other scientific gathering, this is the one that planted the seed and contacts for a future effort to gain a National Science Foundation engineering research center in marine bioproducts, as described in Book 2. In the proceedings of this workshop is a statement reporting on related studies involving the work at Stanford by Irving Weissman on mammalian stem cells being bioengineered to cure cancer. In his 1993 cover letter, Neushal laments that the delay in completing the workshop report was due to his contracting colon cancer, which very soon thereafter overcame him.
In 2007, two Japanese groups reported on mega-projects to grow macroalgae for both global warming remediation and the production of a biofuel. An informal information-sharing coalition was attempted, involving Toshitsugu Sakou, who chairs one of the Japanese teams, John Forster from the State of Washington, researchers at the University of Hawaii and the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research. A year later, there is very little to report.
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Hurricane Genevieve, now a tropical depression at 30 MPH, has lost any cyclonic character, is continuing to move west, and a week or so from now will drop some rain on Hawaii, maybe. Nothing else particularly significant is happening in the Pacific or Atlantic at this time.
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A good starting point is 1968 when Howard Wilcox of the California Institute of Technology, using U.S. Navy funds, initiated a literature survey of marine plants ideal for marine plantation cultivation. Macrocystis, the giant brown kelp, prevalent along the coastline of Southern California all the way up to Alaska, was selected. Experimental studies show that sugarcane is about the most productive crop cultivated today. The solar capture efficiency of this specie is about 2.6%, yielding close to 100 tons per hectare of dry matter per year. Macrocystis, in plot tests, has been shown to be 7.5 times more productive than sugarcane, and on an areal basis, 17 times higher. Taking a rough average, say that giant brown kelp is ten times more efficient than sugar cane in converting sunlight into biomass. Ah, the potential, remembering from early in Chapter 2 that if we can only secure 0.01% of impinging sunlight, we can replace all the fossil fuels and nuclear energy currently used. Large portions of the ocean can be utilized for this option.
The Wilcox unmoored floating ocean farm was conceived to be 400 hectare (just under a thousand acres) modules, with the kelp attached in an umbrella pattern 3 meters apart, with about 1000 plants per hectare. Modified Jacobs wave pumps were to be used to bring up nutrient rich fluids from the deeper waters.
So, in 1972, Macrocystis pyrifera was grown in an open ocean farm off San Clemente, California, not far from where now the Richard Nixon Museum sits. The energy crisis then drew the partnership of the American Gas Association (Gas Research Institute, GRI) and the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration (later called the U. S. Department of Energy), with General Electric Company as the prime contractor. By 1975, the design expanded and the enterprise became known as the Ocean Food and Energy Farm.
However, the multi-product concept of Wilcox was down-focused by the new associates to provide energy only in the form of substitute or synthetic natural gas (SNG) via the anaerobic digestion of the kelp. Although cultivation proved successful, for high growth rates were experienced with upwelled nutrients, inclement conditions dislodged the plants and caused havoc. The Offshore Test Platform, using a Navy buoy, was tried, but upwelling proved testy and the whole system was destroyed by a storm in 1981. The federal government withdrew its support and GRI continued to look at other macroalgal species.
Follow-up work involved the U. S. Department of Energy, New York State Energy Development Authority, New York Gas Industry Group and the University of Florida Regional Biomass Program, with seaweed genetics and new bioconversion technologies added to the research mix. By 1986, when the program was essentially cancelled, most of the work was occurring on land, using herbaceous and woody feedstocks, and had moved from the West Coast to the East Coast. GRI continued to support the effort at a low rate until 1990.
I recall interacting with Wheeler North (Cal Tech) and Michael Neushal (University of California at Santa Barbara) about regenerating an upgraded program in Hawaii, and, in fact, Professor Neushal’s son, Andrew, spent some time under my tutelage as a graduate student in Hawaii. Andrew submitted a paper entitled, “OTEC and Mariculture: A Review,” but not long thereafter returned home to Santa Barbara, for a reason explained in the following paragraph. He pointed out that, while ocean projects tended to be pricey, the cost to erect a building in Tokyo was more than $55,000 per square meter, while the offshore structure for kelp could be kept below $50 per square meter. The point here is that “land” or space is free in the ocean. Further, he cited the work of Oswald Roels, reporting that the electricity from a 100 MW OTEC plant would yield $34 million/year, but an additional $516 million/year for shellfish. In many ways, this paragraph underscores the attractiveness of the Blue Revolution, that is, the total product potential and the fact that it would be foolhardy to only produce electricity, at least in early efforts, to enhance the commercial value of those billion dollar initiatives.
I subsequently assisted Michael Neushal on a National Science Foundation sponsored Franco-American Workshop held in Baltimore, Maryland, which he co-chaired with Marlene Karakashian on Ocean Engineering, Biotechnology and Mariculture. More than any other scientific gathering, this is the one that planted the seed and contacts for a future effort to gain a National Science Foundation engineering research center in marine bioproducts, as described in Book 2. In the proceedings of this workshop is a statement reporting on related studies involving the work at Stanford by Irving Weissman on mammalian stem cells being bioengineered to cure cancer. In his 1993 cover letter, Neushal laments that the delay in completing the workshop report was due to his contracting colon cancer, which very soon thereafter overcame him.
In 2007, two Japanese groups reported on mega-projects to grow macroalgae for both global warming remediation and the production of a biofuel. An informal information-sharing coalition was attempted, involving Toshitsugu Sakou, who chairs one of the Japanese teams, John Forster from the State of Washington, researchers at the University of Hawaii and the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research. A year later, there is very little to report.
-
Hurricane Genevieve, now a tropical depression at 30 MPH, has lost any cyclonic character, is continuing to move west, and a week or so from now will drop some rain on Hawaii, maybe. Nothing else particularly significant is happening in the Pacific or Atlantic at this time.
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