Advanced BioFuels USA – Threat to Whales Complicates US Research into Seaweed for Biofuel

by Gloria Dickie (Reuters) U.S. Department of Energy has invested $55 million in seaweed biofuel research; Whale biologists worry kelp growing gear could entangle critically endangered North Atlantic right whales; Seaweed farms test out stiffer, whale-friendly gear -- ...

Now, the whales face another threat as the U.S. Department of Energy tries to boost clean energy production by ramping up research into seaweed, or kelp, as a potential source of biofuel, scientists say.

The DOE has funneled tens of millions of dollars into such research. If proven viable, seaweed offers a more eco-friendly alternative to corn-based ethanol, proponents say.

But whale biologists are worried. As with traditional lobster fishing, seaweed farms involve fields of ropes strung up underwater for the kelp to grow on.

While there hasn't yet been a documented case of a whale getting tangled in seaweed ropes, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution marine biologist Michael Moore is worried: "Wherever there's rope in the water column, there is entanglement risk," he says.

Most of what's been harvested has gone into food, pharmaceuticals or cosmetics. But with research sites along the Eastern Seaboard, U.S. officials hope energy leaders might bring seaweed into their biofuel plans if it can be proven as a cost-effective alternative to corn.

"Renewable liquid fuels are especially attractive, because they allow us to leverage existing liquid fuel infrastructure," said oceanographer Simon Freeman, who heads the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program funding seaweed research.

Kelp supporters also note that corn, unlike seaweed, takes up increasingly scarce land and freshwater, while also needing agrochemicals that then pollute waterways.

The DOE has spent more than $55 million since 2017 on 21 projects exploring whether seaweed production can be scaled to meet some of U.S. energy demand.

The department says the country has enough coastline with the right conditions to grow at least 500 million metric tons of seaweed per year - which could make up to 2.7 quadrillion BTUs of biofuel, roughly 10% of U.S. annual energy demand in transportation.

For now, kelp can't beat corn's low cost.

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But while microscopic algae is hard to separate from water, larger algae such as sugar kelp is easier to harvest by hand - growing as long as 5 meters (16 feet).

IN THE WATER

Kelp grown around New England is often harvested in spring - around the same time North Atlantic right whales feed in the area, slowly following their cold-water prey up to Canada.

The state of Massachusetts has granted coastal permits to five farms for sugar kelp, a strain of large brown seaweed. But they won't allow any new kelp sites with fixed ropes in deeper waters known to be important areas for right whales, said Christian Pepitas of the state's marine fisheries division.

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Citing concerns over entanglement, the federal government now regulates rope use in the lobster fishery and has implemented seasonal closures. The waters of Cape Cod Bay, for example, are off limits to lobster fishers until all right whales have left.

For states with a large dependence on the lobster fishery, the seaweed development agenda smacks of hypocrisy.

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'A BALANCING ACT'

After a long day of harvesting kelp, John Lovett, owner and operator of Duxbury Sugar Kelp, relaxes on his boat in the shallow waters of Cape Cod Bay, near where he has a narrow 4-hectare (10-acre) farm.

When Lovett applied for a permit a few years ago, state regulators made him move his proposed location to a more sheltered area of the bay over cetacean concerns.

Now he's testing out whale-friendly kelp gear in collaboration with Woods Hole. An acre of his shallow water plot is dedicated to research.

Whereas traditional kelp lines are often placed just 2 meters (7 feet) below the surface, "we pin the kelp arrays very close to the ocean floor," he said. "Whales theoretically can go over top of it."

He's also experimenting with stiff fiberglass rods to replace rope, designed to break rather than ensnare a whale bumping against them. Lovett hopes their designs, once proven, could be taken to future offshore sites in deeper waters where whales travel.

Woods Hole researcher Scott Lindell, the recipient of a $4.9 million DOE grant for sugar kelp biofuel research, has discussed with biologist Moore on planning for expanding kelp production as whales follow prey into new areas amid ocean warming.

"If whale migrations become so unpredictable and regulations tighten up, we may have to go to stiffer structures, which will increase the price and make it more expensive to operate" kelp farms, Lindell said.

Ultimately, he said, "it's a balancing act between 'How do we produce low-carbon fuels with minimal risk to protected species?' and 'How we can produce a low carbon future?'" READ MORE

Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change? (National Geographic)

Excerpt from National Geographic: A wave of startups say seaweed is a multi-pronged solution to climate change: It can absorb carbon, curb the effects of cattle's methane burps, and feed biofuels—not to mention the world.

A bold experiment to use seaweed as part of a solution to climate change is underway in Iceland, where millions of basketball-size buoys made of wood and limestone and seeded with seaweed will be dropped into the ocean in the coming months.

The buoys—which look like bald mannikin heads with flowing seaweed locks below—are designed to sink to the deep ocean floor, where the carbon they contain will remain sequestered for 800 years or more, according to Running Tide, the Maine-based company behind the project. It's hard to pin down the timeframe: Nothing like this has ever been done before.

Running Tide is part of a new crop of startups that position seaweed as a multi-pronged solution to climate change—able to absorb ...

Right now, there are about 2,000 square kilometers’ worth of seaweed farms in the world; to sequester a tenth of a gigaton of carbon annually would require 73,000 square kilometers—equivalent to planting a nearly half-kilometer-wide belt of seaweed farms along the entire United States coastline, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Using seaweed to draw down carbon would be an elegant solution—if it works. Seaweed forests collectively cover an estimated two million square kilometers and absorb as much carbon as the Amazon rainforest. But much of that sequestration is short lived. When the seaweed is harvested, eaten by animals, or washes ashore, its stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere.

Running Tide's model, in theory at least, would take that sequestered carbon and sink it to the ocean floor where, in the cold and dark conditions, it would remain for centuries, breaking down slowly. But tracking its fate will be difficult.

Still, researchers cited a litany of potential challenges to seaweed as a climate solution no matter how it was used, including the high costs of seaweed-based carbon removal, potential ecosystem disruption, and the uncertainty that large markets for seaweed products exist. "The outlook for a massive scale-up of seaweed climate benefits is thus decidedly murky," they wrote. READ MORE