[OANNES Foro] Using wild or farmed seaweed to fuel anaerobic digesters could provide local communities with abundant energy through biogas as well as producing fertiliser.

[Mario Cabrejos]

Seaweed forests could help power tropical islands

 <http://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/author.jan-piotrowski.html> 

 <http://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/author.jan-piotrowski.html> Jan
Piotrowski

04/04/14

http://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/energy/news/seaweed-forests-could-help-po
wer-tropical-islands-1.html

 
<http://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/energy/news/seaweed-forests-could-help-p
ower-tropical-islands-1.html#send-to-friend-form-container> 

 
<http://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/energy/news/seaweed-forests-could-help-p
ower-tropical-islands-1.html> 

[HONOLULU, HAWAII] Harvesting seaweed 'forests' and feeding them into large
underwater digesters could one day meet the world's
<http://www.scidev.net/global/environment/energy/> energy needs, with nine
per cent of the ocean floor being enough to replace fossil fuels entirely,
according to an ambitious idea.

Even a more immediate and realistic use of seaweed - a major untapped
resource -  would greatly increase the self-sufficiency and
<http://www.scidev.net/global/governance/sustainability/> sustainabilityof
small island states, but limited investment is preventing the roll-out of
relevant  <http://www.scidev.net/global/enterprise/technology/>
technologies, marine  <http://www.scidev.net/global/environment/biofuels/>
biofuel experts have said.
 
Using wild or farmed seaweed to fuel anaerobic digesters could provide local
communities with abundant energy through biogas as well as producing
fertiliser, according to Antoine N'Yeurt, a researcher at the Pacific Centre
for Environment and Sustainable Development at the University of the South
Pacific, Fiji.

"These applications will reduce the dependency of small island countries on
imports and build much more sustainable societies," he toldSciDev.Net on the
sidelines of the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Hawaii, United States, last
month (23-28 February).

"This technology could become widespread as soon as there is
<http://www.scidev.net/global/enterprise/funding/> funding to scale it up."

Anaerobic digestion is a well-established technique that produces methane
and a rich by-product ideal for fertiliser by fermenting a range of organic
matter.
But work was needed to identify the conditions and equipment required to
optimise the method for marine biomass, said N'Yeurt.

He began a pilot project in Fiji in January - the first attempt to use
seaweed for biofuel production in the Pacific region, he said - to achieve
just this, using a US$200 digester designed for a family that is ideal for
poor and isolated communities.

But with much of the US$10,000 grant being spent on laboratory work, he
said, more funding was needed if the technology were to become widespread.

Small-scale operations are perfect for Pacific islands, according to
N'Yeurt, but, along with a collective of professors and researchers called
the Ocean Foresters, he sees this technology as having worldwide importance.


Underwater forests



Mark Capron, president of PODenergy, a company exploring the use of algae as
an energy source, who presented the group's ideas at the conference,
envisages a world where seaweed can meet the world's energy needs without
adding to carbon emissions.

Giant balloon-like anaerobic digesters on the seabed could use the natural
pressure of the deep ocean to speed up the fermentation that leads to biogas
production, fed by vast cultivated forests of seaweed, he said.

Covering nine per cent of the ocean floor in these forests could provide
enough energy to replace fossil fuels, while removing carbon from the
atmosphere and increasing fish stocks by replacing bare ocean floor with a
more-productive ecosystem, he says.

While some delegates were sceptical about this proposed scale, which Capron
himself admits is "rather optimistic", there has been interest in his idea.

For example, feasibility studies have been published in a peer-reviewed
journal and his ocean forestation scheme was a finalist in a competition run
by Climate CoLab - a crowdsourcing platform for
<http://www.scidev.net/global/environment/climate-change/> climate
changesolutions run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United
States.

If this dream is to become a reality, governments and donors must drop their
reluctance to support the pilot projects required to take the technology
from theory to practice, said Capron.

Alex Golberg, a research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, United
States, who has published a paper on using seaweed for biofuel production,
agrees that governments have a crucial role to play in the technology's
development.

Governments must be prepared to build a solid foundation by supporting
demonstration projects and further research before private companies step in
to scale up the technology, he tells SciDev.Net.

Apart from financial issues, the technology is "ready to go" in small
communities, he says. His research suggests that the process becomes more
efficient at smaller scales, making it ideal for isolated Pacific
communities with abundant seaweed.

But the technique has yet to be proven on large scales, so Capron's idea is
still a long way from reality, he adds.

See below for a video by PODenergy about its ideas:
 
<http://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/energy/news/%E2%80%9Chttp:/vimeo.com/440
76838%E2%80%9D> Ocean Afforestation Intro by PODenergy

 



---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com
------------ próxima parte ------------
Se ha borrado un adjunto en formato HTML...
URL: <http://lista.oannes.org.pe/pipermail/oannes-oannes.org.pe/attachments/20140422/ee255541/attachment.html>