BLUE REVOLUTION TAKES TWO MORE TINY STEPS FORWARD

On 7 June 2019 I posted on THE BLUE REVOLUTION TAKES A TINY STEP FORWARD.  Here, a colleague I mentored a long time ago, has succeeded growing land plants in the ocean, and with the coming genetic engineering, will be able to do so with any terrestrial crop

This past Sunday, the Star Advertiser, on the front page, headlined, COMPANY WANTS TO CREATE A DEEP-SEA LIMU FARM.  The link to the above is that, with artificial upwelling, you get "free" fertilizer.  If renewable energy like OTEC or wind energy is the pumping source, then the farm becomes carbon neutral.

Off Kaiwi Point on the Big Island, Kampachi Farms is seeking permits to test whether four native seaweed species can be grown by supplying nutrient-rich water from depths of 600 (183 meters) to 2000 (610 meters) feet.  Fluid will be pumped to the surface using wind energy.  

You will need to get down to nearly 1000 meters to produce ocean thermal energy conversion electricity, and, anyway, wind-pumped volumetric rates are far too low to bother with power production.  However, when it comes to ocean nutrients to start and nurture the growth cycle, as near ocean surface waters are nutrient deserts because the  existing biota consume them, access to this "fertilizer" in the correct Redfield ratio opens up a viable future for future ocean farming.

What happens is that life forms growing in the photic zone (where the sun shines) die, and and as they fall, naturally dissolve into mineral compounds that create this natural fertilizer.   The concentration of these nutrients increases with depth, but pretty much reaches a sufficiently high level long before reaching 1000 meter depths:

• Note that the phosphate concentration dramatically increases with depth, and at only a couple of hundred meters, can already be tapped for growing biomass near the surface.
• With silica, this increase is only gradual.  However, silica is not a useful nutrient.
• Nitrogen and phosphorus are the key elements required for plant growth, and the Redfield ratio of carbon:nitrogen:phosphorus does not deviate much from 106:16:1.
• Phytoplankton is at this 106:16:1 ratio.

Called Project Blue Fields, the ocean thus can become a sea farm for edible seaweed.  The global market in 2024 is projected to be $22 billion.  More so, this biomass shows promise for the production of biofuels and generation of electricity.  To the left, company president Neil Sims and research manager Lisa Vollbrecht.

Life takes some funny twists.  Three decades ago, former Governor George Ariyoshi, then Dean of Engineering Paul Yuen and I started a company at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority to cultivate white pearls.  We found a potential expert in Australia, so I flew to Sydney to have dinner with Neil Sims and his wife Kate.  The part I remember the most was the Wolf Blass Black Cabernet/Shiraz.  Anyway, I talked them into coming all the way to the Big Island of Hawaii to run the operation.  The company itself did produce beautiful pearls at half the time as normal ocean operations, but profitability was elusive.  

Thus, I lost track of Kate and Neil, with some sense of guilt that I brought them to Hawaii, wondering what would they do next.  To my pleasant surprise, with some help from her (she's American) father and friends, who were rich, Neil founded a series of fish companies, and is now the world authority on the subject.  I had dinner at their place in Kona a couple of years ago and, totally dissolving any remorse, they indicated, in so many words, that when they wake up observing their environment, they subconsciously thank me for bringing them to Hawaii.

But that's not all, for also on the front page, there was good news about a seawater air conditioning project for Honolulu.  I was secretary of  the Hawaii Natural Energy Laboratory board in the 80's when we succeeded in air-conditioning the facilities using deep and cold ocean water.  I wonder how much they have since saved on electricity?

Well, finally, Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning apparently has met all the regulatory requirements, and are finalizing contracts with large customers  to place a 4.7-mile pipeline and tap 44 F sea water from a depth of 1755 feet.  Cost?  $250 million.

Clearly, an obvious next step would be marine biomass plantations and next generation fisheries in the Ultimate Ocean Ranch, an article I wrote for the Huffington Post more than a decade ago.  We are getting closer to the $150 billion Pacific Ocean International (POI) Exposition as the initial pre-commercial stage for the Blue Revolution.

If anyone associated with Blue Revolution Hawaii wanders what this is, I just expanded the scope and cost of what was once PIOS (Pacific International Ocean Station).  Why Exposition?  I have dreams of this floating platform hosting the 2030 World's Fair.  If you clicked on that article, I'd then only be a decade late for Hawaii to finally do something of monumental long-term consequence.

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