I woke up particularly elated this morning, and, as I began composing this posting, realized why. If you've been keeping up with my life, I'm now in a period of Euphoria 3, all phases galvanized by some health issue.
Yesterday I had another free lunch at Orchids (click on this for the one last week). This second meal session was particularly rewarding, for, while through most of my professional life I've initiated and supported programs and projects that have yielded few concrete benefits, just maybe the effects of my efforts will come later. While in the U.S. Senate I drafted the original legislation on Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) and hydrogen, both becoming official laws forty years ago, neither sustainable resource option has made any kind of impact on energy use today. 
My very first indigenous energy attempt when I first joined the University of Hawaii was as a reservoir engineer for the Hawaii Geothermal Project. The Kilauea eruption last year wiped out any potential for large-scale utilization.
Similarly, I was involved with an early NASA attempt to bring some resolution to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and spent time at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion, both in the 70's. Neither has progressed much.
However, my life has not been a total failure, for I took a leadership role to head the initial Hawaii effort to develop our wind resources at the outset of the First Energy Crisis in 1973, chairing the Wind Energy Division of the American Solar Energy Society in the 70's, and going on to help pass the U.S. Congress' first wind power legislation in 1980. However, it is getting more and more difficult to install wind farms anywhere because of a that NIMBY (not in my back yard) attitude. Yet, wind- and geo- are today, with natural gas, the three cheapest generation sources of electricity:
I thus had lunch with Dr. Wenhao Sun yesterday at Orchids, and, in addition to recapping his life story, he indicated that what kept him going in difficult times was my vision for the Blue Revolution. While his first degree was in mechanical engineering, followed by an M.S. in horticulture, and I'm a chemical engineer, our degree foci and personal interests are similar. I got my PhD in biochemical engineering, while he focused on the genetics of plants.
For lunch he had a hamburger, while I consumed a Penne Bolognaise. On the left he is showing his latest patent approval. 
Sun comes from Shanghai, and when he graduated from high school, there were no universities in China, for this was when Mao had his cultural revolution. So he went to work, first in industry, then a farm.
When colleges returned, he eventually got a master's in the biotechnology of agricultural. He had this dream of growing land plants in the ocean. He found his way to the University of Hawaii, where he earned a PhD from the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. This was when I noticed him. Soon thereafter he formed a company, and the UH helped him get a patent to grow land plants in saltwater. To me this was monumental, for he could control the farming of the ocean. I was asked to join his board.
In the development of the Blue Revolution, a wide-range of applications need to come together:
- ocean farms
- next generation ocean ranches
- renewable energy
- freshwater production
- marine pharmaceuticals
- global climate change remediation
- hurricane prevention
- and much more
He provides one of the key pathways. His first task was growing akulikuli at the Ala Wai Golf Course. Something interesting happens. First, most plants send out toxins to kill the competition. Akulikuli is salt tolerant and gets rid of algae. You must know how filthy the Ala Wai Canal looks. The waters around his growth were crystal clear. Photoremediation was a new concept, and funding was difficult.
This plant is scientifically called Sesuvium portulacastrum, and also known as portulaca. No actual gene engineering yet. Just land plants that are salt-tolerant. The kiawe tree, incidentally, is also in this class. Thus, you see it along the coastline. So anyway, he let his UH patent expire, mostly because he could get no personal advantage out of it. 
He founded Marine Agrifuture at one of those Kahuku ponds, and was able to convert a land plant, gasswort (Salicornia) into sea asparagus (he so-named), a super food. Read a 2008 article:
- good for stomach and skin, while detoxifying your liver and improve muscle formation
- loaded with vitamin A, B2, B9, folic acid and trimethylglycine (TMG)
- quinoa and spinach has more TMG than anything else you consume, except that sea asparagus has three or so times more
- TMG improves your mood and lowers blood pressure
- He sent me a particularly interesting article on sea asparagus which I urge you to read
- Sea Asparagus Powder seems like an intriguing additive I should try
A 2011 article reports that naturally growing below the floating sea asparagus was ogo (seaweed), which became a second crop. Further, the water is brackish, so no herbicides are necessary. These sold under his Olakai Hawaii brand in most supermarkets.
However, in 2016 he ran into a salmonella problem. They found a solution, but he lost 40% of his expected revenues. He has since recovered and now is the largest producer of both both ogo and sea aparagus in Hawaii.
He had considerable difficulty re-gaining the standard governmental approvals. Hawaii is noted as being particularly difficult to conduct business. Sure, they try to protect the consumer, but in the process, much of the red tape has more to do with covering their rears. There is a bureaucratic mentality in this state that sometimes reminds me of India. I experienced something similar in my years at the University of Hawaii, hastening my early retirement.
I will put him in contact with the Seasteading Institute (SI-- I spoke at one of their summits, where I mentioned Sun's work), for they lean in the Libertarian direction to minimize governmental tampering. While the Blue Revolution is much longer term, and I recently made the challenge ridiculous by suggesting a refined budget of $150 billion, both Sun and Seasteading seek immediate profits. He also thought that the benefactor, Peter Thiel, might be interested in financing him. But life on the open ocean is a difficult prospect. Read about SI's latest setback.
Turns out that one common link to the people involved has to do with Stanford connections. Wenhao's son, Hongzhe, was a world-class swimmer, graduated from Iolani, going on to Stanford. Amazingly enough, around this same period, three of my staff members I recruited around 1990 to join the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, also had sons at Stanford. Peter Thiel graduated from Stanford. We both agree that the key to progress is to find that right billionaire who is seeking a nautical legacy.
Hongzhe entered the financial field in the East Coast, and with a lawyer contact, helped Wenhao get a second patent, the one you saw in the above photo. This version features polyculture, and might well be more flexible for business applications. He tried expanding to China, but he doesn't trust the people and system there, for they stole his ideas.
In addition to his new patent, he has trademarked his products, just Blue Revolution Hawaii did, and we now own the term, Blue Revolution. He favors Blue-Green Revolution, and will next be into franchising the concept. The next stage will occur on an atoll in the Marshalls. Anyone got $5 million to invest?
Four hours into lunch, at 4:30PM, I suggested we leave because my Thursday night 15 Craigside dining tablemates convene at 5. So E3 is now at a particularly high state, particularly as I further won at poker last night.
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