Abundant Food, Job Security, and Export Income with Restorative Aquaculture

Pitch

LDC communities use flexible floating fishing reefs to feed themselves and the world, restore oceans, produce biofuel, and sequester carbon.

Description

Summary

Overview: Ocean forestry is Restorative Aquaculture that mimics the high productivity of natural reefs. It uses technologies refined from Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA), with higher yields and the biodiversity of multiple species growing in proximity, including seaweed, shellfish, finfish, etc.

High Productivity and Profits – Using our scientifically-designed systems, all coastal communities can design, build, and operate their own fishing reefs as a new kind of aquaculture. For example, the people of Punta Abreojos, Mexico manage abalone on nearby natural reefs for a sustainable developed-country income. Every coastal community could have similar quality of life, if not for the relative scarcity of natural reefs at productive depths. Floating flexible reefs adjusted for optimal depths can produce abundant food, then natural reefs could become marine sanctuaries as fishing activities shift toward artificial ones.

Global objectives – Give coastal people food, jobs, and hope for centuries, thus helping to fulfill many UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Centuries of food and job security allow coastal peoples to stay home and welcome refugees to their communities. Restorative aquaculture can also yield biofuels and sequester carbon, while concurrently improving ocean health and global food security

Solve global issues – Abundant seafood alongside good income from local sales and exports of related products overcomes:

Famine from crop failures, fisheries collapse, storms, floods, droughts
Job loss, migration and related violence
Economic instability due to lack of income diversity
Dependence on externally supplied fuel sources

Poster below shows our island plan:

Well-engineered system: This system is based on decades of experience at the University of New Hampshire, Costa Rica, and elsewhere, recently refined by a team funded by the US Department of Energy. The service life of the reef structure developed for ARPA-E exceeds 15-years, even in Category 5 storms.

Is this proposal for a practice or a project?

Practice

What actions do you propose?

Overview: OceanForesters cooperates with local people to develop plans for large floating flexible reefs, complete with people trained to manage the reef ecosystem. Each reef will produce a blend of local seafood, such as finfish, shellfish, sea cucumbers, octopus, conch, sponges, seaweed, and more, for both local consumption and export income.

Phase 1: Feasibility Analysis ($100,000)– OceanForesters unites international experts with local university and business experts, including experienced fishers, with knowledge of that country’s marine biology, fisheries, and oceanography, to create a proposal outline that is fine-tuned for the local ecology, local tastes, local fishing practices, and other variables. The feasibility study will take about six months to assess the following:

Community, political, and organizational opportunities
Community attitudes and aptitudes
Opportunities, limitations, and business practices related to future funding
Oceanography, weather, existing nutrients, and existing ocean pollution issues
Historically optimal species to grow and harvest
Alternative reef structures with appropriate optional features
Preliminary financial projections
Outline of actions to develop a reef design, installation and operations plan, and funding proposal

Phase 2: Reef Installation and Operations Plan for ten reefs ($2 – 4 m)– The Plan compiles social, environmental, scientific, and engineering planning alongside training to increase the skills and capacity of local organizations. Upon Plan completion, the lead organization will have: governance and employees; detailed business, construction, operation, and maintenance plans; and transparent cost accounting with documents for investor and funding agreements. The organization will have applied for the appropriate permits for its reef activities. The Plan will be fine-tuned for potential submission to the World Bank and other potential funding sources. World Bank is a good benchmark for the quality of a funding proposal, especially considering UN SDGs for equality, financial transparency (avoiding corruption and money laundering), sustainability, worker safety, etc.

Three-quarters of the Plan’s cost is for environmental analyses, reef fisheries management, organization, paying employees and local resources, reef ecosystem design, surveys of the selected seafloor, permit applications, and funding proposals. One-quarter of the Plan’s cost is for detailed structural plans and specifications suitable for construction under local conditions.

Organization and Community Building: Involves selection or creation of lead agency, involving all stakeholders while building community support, establishing organization policies and standard operating procedures (safety, management structure, finance and procurement, human relations, health plan), hiring employees to support the next components, selecting governance, etc. The local organization learns-by-doing the following plan components with support by OceanForesters mentoring and training.
Methods and Products: Integrates reef planting and fishing methods, seafood products, fisheries management, reef structure management, reef ecosystems, seasonal and multi-year changes in ocean characteristics, storm contingency plans, reef structure design, etc.
Permitting, Certifications, and Funding Documents: Provides structure, operation, and maintenance design details for discussion with permitting and certifying agencies. Permit requirements affect fisheries management plans, structure design details, reef location, fishing methods, monitoring, reporting, etc. Business plans and funding proposals for Phase 3 and potentially Phase 4 prepared for submission.
Construction Design and Initial Operations Plan: Produces contractor-ready construction and deployment specifications for 20-hectare, 20-year-life reefs with a cost estimate within ±20%.
Seafood Processing, Economic Plans: Provides planning and training for seafood handling and processing, export infrastructure, developing partnerships, facilities concept designs, training on meeting international quality standards, market research, etc.

Phase 3: Construction with oversight ($20 – 40 m for ten reefs) – Involves procurement and installation of special components designed to survive for 20+ years of life (including a direct hit by a Category 5 hurricane). We recommend pursuing funding for a minimum of ten reefs—an economically viable unit sufficient to produce profits to sustainably self-finance building additional reefs. The quantity of seafood produced would also justify construction of modern seafood handling and processing facilities, storage, and export infrastructure. Construction could take 2 to 3 years for ten reefs. Costs will depend on local oceanography, peak storm conditions, needed species, local labor costs and construction capabilities, existing infrastructure, and other factors.

Phase 4: Commissioning and Initial Operations (included in Phase 3 costs) – Testing and evaluation of the reef mechanisms and structures over a month or two, followed by planting, stocking, and testing.

Implementation: We have reached out to and engaged a number of people from developing and LDCs, and received high interest. For example, we prepared a proposal to the Green Climate Fund for Comoros, which involved the Comoros’ Women for Sustainable Development and Food Security, plus Abdallah Fatouma, the Comoros Director of Development and Forests, responsible for coastal zone in Ministry of Environment. Our proposal also involved Blue Ventures, an organization which has engaged and trained numerous coastal community leaders, such as Marie-Louise, elected president of a Madagascar community group, whose members are so enthusiastic about the benefits of creating a coastal seafood cooperative association that they have created a play to perform in other seaweed-farming communities informing them of the process and telling their story.

Many other countries would like to be involved if the funding were available.

Long Range Plans:

Feed the World with 300 g of seafood per day is accomplished with restorative aquaculture (see ref [1] below), replacing capture fisheries and the unsustainable type of aquaculture which feeds fishmeal to penned finfish. Restorative aquaculture involves building floating flexible reefs with locally appropriate plants: seaweed, seagrass, or coral. The plants are fed inexpensive plant fertilizer and/or recycled nutrients. Sunlight and photosynthesis convert the plants’ primary productivity into a locally-desired blend of seafood, such as free-range finfish, conch, lobster, shellfish, sea cucumbers, octopus, sponges, seaweed, and more.

OceanForesters has co-written proposals and publications, collaborating with over a hundred top experts.[2]

Favorable economics (see figure below), mean that restorative aquaculture reefs can grow geometrically based on profits. The plant nutrients can come from pasteurized people-waste. This allows the reefs to directly address at least twelve UN SDGs (see ref [3] and Other Benefits section below). Together, the continental shelves in the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of Thailand provide more than enough ocean area to provide 10 billion people with 300 g/day with only 0.006% of the world’s oceans. However, it’s better if many coastal communities each own a few of the needed 200,000 20-ha reefs.

Fuel the World is accomplished by harvesting a seaweed-for-biofuel crop from the flexible floating reefs. Seaweed can be harvested for biofuel with negligible impact on high-value seafood production, as explained in this report to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy[4]. The economics of seaweed-for-biofuel are challenging, but the OceanForesters team, working with CleanCarbon Energy[5], believe they can produce a low-sulfur marine biofuel for $70/barrel. The CleanCarbon Energy process can be economically scaled as an “organic waste recycling process” with income from waste tipping fees[6], biocrude oil, biochar, plant fertilizers, and clean water. Replacing all fossil fuels requires an estimated 40 million flexible floating reefs covering 2% of the world’s oceans, equal to triple the area of Australia, supplying compatible seaweed-to-biofuel facilities.

Reverse Climate Change is accomplished by capturing and sequestering bio-CO2. Bio-CO2 is produced when biofuel burns in an engine[7]. The figure below, based on our peer-reviewed scientific publication[8], shows one of many possible nutrient cycles spinning off food and biofuel while reversing climate change.

The economics of reversing climate change are challenging, but the advantage of floating flexible reefs is that the food and energy production is paying for the direct air capture by photosynthesis. When the bio-carbon is released by burning the biofuel, the resulting concentrated CO2 is relatively inexpensively captured. For example, the Allam Cycle[9] can make electricity while, without extra expense, also produce pure liquid CO2 for sequestration.

The biofuel from 40 million flexible floating reefs would enable sequestering 30 billion tons of bio-CO2 per year. The seaweed-to-biofuel-to-sequestered CO2 would be decreasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. It will take 30 years to remove a trillion tons. There are many sequestration options which can accommodate this volume of CO2, including OceanForesters’ low-cost, permanent, easily-monitored seafloor CO2 sequestration scheme.[10]

[1] See presentation to World Aquaculture Society, March 2019: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ihr1vLW7L9EXlN7Wealoh2xi750dFAOt/view?usp=sharing

[2] See bios, testimonials and list: https://drive.google.com/open?id=15Os1VqhKxGbFHTHP6SrYso2UPjzpss0g

[3] See summary: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WI-qHhPJ9CdDtWtYkVuQ0zm4COQbNg9b

[4] OceanForesters developed the ideas and organized the teams that were awarded a total of $1 M for two successful ARPA-E MARINER Phase 1 seaweed-to-biofuels projects. A team member has been operating a prototype at the University of New Hampshire for over a decade. See Phase 1 Final Report DE_AR0000916, posted here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uIudPOFZi1qZCXSbQq_vSZuDFmkSqio_

[5] See: https://www.facebook.com/cleancarbonenergy/

[6] “Tipping” fees are what landfills and compost facilities charge to accept waste.

[7] Some seaweed-to-biofuel processes produce by-product CO2 that is easily captured and sequestered.

[8] “Negative carbon via Ocean Afforestation.” N’Yeurt, A.de R., Chynoweth, D.P., Capron, M.E., Stewart, J.R., Hasan, M.A., 2012. Process Safety and Environment Protection, Vol. 90, p. 467-474: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2012.10.008, https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DiZ14teC1DUdoMTTt4Mp817BJGUWOsOW

[9] The Allam Cycle uses supercritical CO2: https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/the-allam-cycles-nexus-with-ammonia

[10] Secure Seafloor Container CO2 Storage Mark E. Capron, P.E., Jim R. Stewart, PhD, and R. Kerry Rowe, PhD, OCEANS’13 MTS/IEEE San Diego Technical Program #130503-115 (2013) DOI: 10.23919/OCEANS.2013.6741182. Paper at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VeEZ2s2rdELwrP7F_mc_75bPefjX7_v8

Who will take these actions?

Actions are best started in developing and least developed country coastal communities with more than 10,000 people (because you need enough people to fish and maintain the reefs). The ideal community has a few dozen people with knowledge of and equipment for fishing on open coasts (in good weather). People from the starting communities would be retained to start-up systems in other developing coastal countries. As a side note, there is considerable potential to train and resettle climate change refugees to manage, maintain, and fish the new reefs.

“Mapping the global potential for marine aquaculture“, R. Gentry, et.al. is focused on penned finfish and shellfish aquaculture in locations less than 200 m deep. We found its areas shown in red and blue in this map are also ideal locations for restorative aquaculture. Gentry says:

“We found that over 11,400,000 km2 are potentially suitable for fish and over 1,500,000 km2 could be developed for bivalves. Both fish and bivalve aquaculture showed expansive potential across the globe, including both tropical and temperate countries. The total potential production is considerable: if all areas designated as suitable in this analysis were developed (assuming no further economic, environmental or social constraints), we estimate that approximately 15 billion tonnes of finfish could be grown every year—over 100 times the current global seafood consumption.”

Economically-viable restorative aquaculture can be done anywhere less that 300 m deep because there are species of fish, shellfish and seaweed that grow in any location except the polar regions. Even dead zones caused by excess pollution can be cleaned up by the combination of seaweed and shellfish and restored to be viable for finfish.

Least developed countries where we have identified potential starting communities include: Bangladesh, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritania, Somalia, the United Republic of Tanzania, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and Vanuatu.

We have reached out to and engaged a number of people from developing and LDCs, and received high interest. For example, we prepared a proposal to the Green Climate Fund for Comoros, which involved the Comoros’ Women for Sustainable Development and Food Security, plus the Comoros Director of Development and Forests. Our proposal also involved Blue Ventures, which has an excellent track record of engaging and training female leaders in Madagascar.

We look forward to working with all 40 coastal LDCs. The ones listed above are initial examples of locales where we already have identified eager communities who would be interested in implementing ocean forest systems as soon as funding is available, but based on our experience, we believe all coastal LDCs would be interested.

R. R. Gentry, H. E. Froehlich, D. Grimm, P. Kareiva, M. Parke, M. Rust, S. D. Gaines, and B. S. Halpern, “Mapping the global potential for marine aquaculture,” Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2017, 1, 1317-1324

Where will these actions be taken?

We would like to implement this action plan in every coastal LDC community where the people want it. The plan is best started in coastal communities with more than 10,000 people (because that provides a large enough population to manage the reefs and process the seafood for sale). The ideal community has a few dozen people with knowledge of and equipment for fishing on open coasts (in good weather). People from the starting communities would be retained to start systems in other least developed countries. Note there is considerable potential to train and resettle climate change refugees to manage and fish the new reefs (as described in our OpenIdeo entry).

“Mapping the global potential for marine aquaculture”, R. Gentry, et.al. (mentioned above) is focused on penned finfish and shellfish aquaculture and found the areas marked in red and blue in the map below are priority locations. These, and other locations not marked, are also ideal locations for restorative aquaculture.

Economically-viable restorative aquaculture can be done anywhere less than 300 m deep because there are species of fish, shellfish and seaweed that grow in any location except the polar regions. Even dead zones caused by excess pollution can be cleaned up by the combination of seaweed and shellfish and restored to be viable for finfish.

We have reached out to and engaged a number of people from developing and LDCs, and received high interest. For example, we prepared a proposal to the Green Climate Fund for Comoros, which involved the Comoros’ Women for Sustainable Development and Food Security, plus Abdallah Fatouma, the Comoros Director of Development and Forests, responsible for coastal zone in Ministry of Environment. Our proposal also involved Blue Ventures, which has an excellent track record of engaging and training female leaders in Madagascar.

In addition, specify the country or countries where these actions will be taken.

Tanzania

Country 2

Bangladesh

Country 3

Tuvalu

Country 4

Mauritania

Country 5

Comoros

Impact/Benefits

What impact will these actions have on greenhouse gas emissions and/or adapting to climate change?

Address food, fuel, and reversing climate change, plus adaptation:

Ocean forests provide powerful adaptation and climate mitigation, but go beyond to reverse climate change by massive carbon sequestration. We see no other ecologically sustainable, scalable, low-cost method to accomplish all three goals: Supply abundant seafood, replace all fossil fuels with sustainable biofuels, and capture and sequester over a trillion tons of CO2 (36 billion tons/yr for 30 years) to fully remediate climate change and ocean acidity (see our peer-reviewed publication N’Yeurt, et al. + detailed spreadsheet)

Global Food Security – Aim for globally robust food security using 200,000 20-hectare flexible floating fishing reefs operating by 2030, including some near shore like Dr. Radulovich family-size sea-farms in Costa Rica and others offshore like OceanForesters model to produce abundant inexpensive seafood that could displace much beef, chicken, and pork consumption. Ideally, demonstration reefs built and operating by 2022. Then building at the rate of 80 reefs per day for 7 years to get to 200,000.

Global Seaweed for Biofuels – Aim for commercial-scale seaweed grow-harvest equipment and operations by 2028. Aim for global fossil fuel demand by 2040 using 10 million flexible floating energy reefs. From 2020 to 2026, use the fishing reefs to refine growing, harvesting, storing, pre-treating, nutrient recycling, and other issues to maintain an even flow day-to-day, year-to-year supply of biomass for energy production. Then building at the rate of 2,000 reefs per day for 14 years to get to 10 million.

Biofuel Production – Build commercial-scale hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) processes using waste organic biomass, plastics, and paper. Deploy the HTL units in developed and developing countries to make biofuels from plastics which could eliminate new marine plastic pollution by 2030. A commercial biofuel production facility requires biomass from at least 1,000 20-ha reefs, so build biofuel production facilities at the rate of two per day for 14 years to get to 10,000 to produce 400 quads of energy enough to replace all fossil fuels.

Sequestration: Production of biofuels produces CO2 easily separated from the fuel. In addition, power plants utilizing processes like the Allam Cycle can simultaneously produce electricity and liquid CO2. Aim to sequester 36 billion tons/yr for 30 years to reduce to 350 ppm by 2070.

In addition to sequestering in saline aquifers, OceanForesters designed an inexpensive system to store trillions of tons of CO2 in permanent, easily monitored long-lived geosynthetic seafloor containers.

Adapting – Ocean forests can ameliorate insufficient food from crop failures, fisheries collapse, storms, floods, and changing sea levels plus job loss, migration and associated violence

Abundant seafood, plus good income from local seafood sales and exports restores jobs and hope, so coastal people have income to build floating or elevated homes and businesses.

What are other key benefits?

UN SDG benefits:

1 No Poverty – Ocean farming is a sustainable environmental enterprise that creates jobs, especially for underserved communities.

2 Zero Hunger – Ocean farming rapidly grows a variety of sustainable and protein rich food sources.

3 Good Health and Well Being – Seaweed provides important people-nutrients which also spread to the fauna on the reef: iodine, potassium, magnesium, calcium and iron, as well as vitamins, antioxidants, phytonutrients, amino acids, omega-3 fats and fiber. Seaweed can be eaten directly as a gluten-free, low-carbohydrate source of nutrition.

5 Gender Equality – Ocean farming enterprises can focus on training and advancing women as an economic development tool that serves the immediate family and ripples out to the community and nation.

6 Clean Water and Sanitation – Presently, many coastal waters are polluted by runoff from overloaded sewage systems, malfunctioning septic tanks, and even raw sewage discharges. Ocean forests can clean up these issues, restoring a clean healthy ocean environment.

7 Affordable and Clean Energy – Seaweed farming sustainably grows seaweed suitable for conversion to bio-energy, including cooking gas, electricity, biodiesel, and aviation fuel.

8 Decent Work and Economic Growth – Creating ocean farming jobs for dislocated workers and underserved populations and growing healthy local food. Ocean farms result in diverse income streams comprised of the following: edible seaweed and shellfish for food, bio-energy, fertilizers, health/pharmaceuticals, sea cucumbers for export and other markets. In addition, after ocean forests clean polluted waters, tourism opportunities can be expanded.

10. Reduced Inequalities – By creating ocean farming jobs with good year-round incomes we reduce economic inequality. With sustainable jobs in spite of climate change we help coastal communities affected by rising sea levels and storms reduce the number of climate refugees.

11 Sustainable Cities and Communities – Ocean forests can help restore coral reefs and barrier islands to protect coastal cities against storms. Inexpensive biofuels make the cities sustainable and reduce pollution from energy sources such as coal.

13. Climate Action – Restorative aquaculture producing food is a step toward large scale seaweed biofuels, carbon sequestration, and eventual restoration of pre-industrial CO2 levels.

14. Life Below Water – Ocean waters around restorative aquaculture have measurably lower acidity, which helps crustaceans and sea life of all kinds.

15 Life on Land – Major drivers of deforestation and desertification are lack of food and fuel for cooking and heating. Restorative aquaculture will provide abundant, inexpensive, healthy, sustainable seafood and biofuels, reducing the need for clearing forests, farming marginal lands, and overdrawing aquifers.

The other five Goals are aided by the creation of a sound economic and social foundation owing to improved income from aquaculture.

Costs/Challenges

What are the proposal’s projected costs?

Economics – Establishing a lead agency, outfitting with equipment, training, and building a hundred hectares (five 20-ha floating flexible fishing reefs) would cost between US$10 to US$20 million. The fish and shellfish from these fishing reefs would be worth US$10 to US$40 million/year, depending on the species and availability of developed country markets. Fishing and maintaining the reefs would cost a few $million per year, storing and preparing for export another few million. The profits to a community could be many millions per year. For details, click here for a spreadsheet with 27 tabs analyzing the revenues, costs and production statistics. It projects that 100 reefs could generate profits (including paying principal and interest on bank loans) >$160 million in ten years from seafood sales.

At global scale OceanForesters projects 200,000 20-ha fishing reefs could provide 300 grams of seafood for 10 billion people every day. This could be done in a few or distributed among many LDCs (which we recommend).

The average floating flexible fishing reef will deliver fish to the dock for about half the cost of penned finfish aquaculture. Most of the cost for penned finfish is associated with fish feed. Neither example in the figure includes boats, equipment and labor costs.

Open-ocean restorative aquaculture can be combined with Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA). For example, finfish pens may be attached to the flexible reef. Or the entire reef may be enclosed as one vast, multi-species pen. People could supply the penned finfish with fishmeal, and in turn the penned fish urine and feces becomes fertilizer for reef flora.

Due to its developed country perspective (with the high cost of fishmeal covered by high sale prices), the existing aquaculture industry has not examined free-range finfish, harvesting multiple species, or permanent rope structures. Restorative aquaculture appears better suited to developing country communities cooperating to protect the ecosystem while harvesting many species in the area around their cluster of reefs.

Like a cluster of natural reefs, each new reef cluster will have a custom structure, custom substrate, custom sea creature shelters, custom harvest techniques, unique ecosystem, and custom economics. For example, some coastal communities may emphasize local sales of seafood selling for less than $1/kg at the dock. Other coastal communities may emphasize exports selling their harvests for $3/kg at the dock, and others may elect to emphasize the restoration of prehistoric fisheries such as those of Giant Clam in the Gulf of Thailand or Queen Conch in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. As a result, actual costs of construction and operation of reefs to address the approaches of specific communities will vary.

Timeline

Restorative aquaculture will have a local impact within approximately 3 years of initial implementation. That is about how long it will take for the first few communities to be harvesting seafood. Said 3 year period begins with a preliminary six months of oceanographic, biological and economic feasibility analysis, with the outcomes outlined above. This is followed by a year for construction and installation. Then, we estimate that a year will pass before the reef ecosystems would be providing profitable harvests.

(Note that perhaps a third of the reef’s total productivity is harvested, while about two thirds increase local ocean health and biodiversity. This biodiversity is essential to support the reef to continue growing and producing through the stresses of a changing climate and warming oceans.)

The global timeline depends on the availability of investment funding. (The forecasts below use bank loans to expand to scale, based on the demonstrated profitability of the initial ocean forests.)

If the initial funding is $10 million – Global protein food security by 2050.

If the initial funding is $1 billion – Global protein food security by 2040.

If the initial funding is $10 billion – Global protein food security by 2030.

While the world enjoys global food security, restorative aquaculture can be expanded to produce seaweed-biofuel.

If the initial funding is $1 billion – Replace all fossil fuels (with seaweed-biofuel) by 2080.

If the initial funding is $100 billion – Replace all fossil fuels by 2050.

When producing significant seaweed-biofuel, restorative aquaculture can include mechanisms to restore natural CO2 levels (reverse climate change).

If the initial funding is $1 billion – Natural CO2 levels can be restored by 2200.

If the initial funding is $100 billion – Natural CO2 levels can be restored by 2100.

About the author(s)

The OceanForesters’ open-ocean permanent-reef concept for restorative aquaculture builds on Dr. Ricardo Radulovich’s near-shore multi-product sea-farms[1] Funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) MARINER program allowed refining one possible reef structure with associated scale and economics. The OceanForesters-organized team includes aquaculture specialists from the University of Southern Mississippi, structural engineers at University of New Hampshire and U.S. Naval Academy, oceanographers at Texas A&M University, ocean nutrient experts at Baylor University, and biologists at University of the South Pacific, Florida Atlantic University, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of Costa Rica, University of Chile, University of Hawaii, plus industry specialists including Samson Rope, and Applied Fiber.

Mark E. Capron, M.S. Structural/Ocean Engineering, UC Berkeley, Founder, President, Registered Professional Engineer. Mark was a U.S. Navy Diving Officer and marine engineer (with inventions leading to four patents) and then a water resources engineer envisioning, planning, gaining public support, finding funding, designing, building, and operating multi-million-dollar projects. He guided the 40 scientists, engineers, and business people with $1 million funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy to design flexible floating reefs to feed and fuel the world, and reverse climate change.

Don Piper is an operations and finance executive with extensive leadership expertise in driving revenue and massive cost savings for companies across 25 sectors; expertise in measuring social and environmental impacts of businesses, improving employee engagement and ROI.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044848614005407

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References

Extensive supporting information includes Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy MARINER program: Phase 1 final report, PPT; Proposal for Phase 2, PDF; Techno-economic analysis, Excel Spreadsheet

Some of 100 references in the Phase 2 proposal:

Buck, B., N. Nevejan, M. Wille, M.D. Chambers and T. Chopin. 2017. Offshore and Multi-Use Aquaculture with Extractive Species: Seaweeds and Bivalves. Chapter in “Aquaculture Perspective of Multi-Use Sites in the Open Ocean” by B. Buck and R. Langan. pp 23-69.

Bugbee BG, Salisbury FB (1988) Exploring the limits of crop productivity. I. Photosynthetic efficiency of wheat in high irradiance environments. Plant Physiol. 88: 869–878.

Buschmann, A. H., M. C. H.-G. Varela, and P. Huovinen (2008), Opportunities and challenges for the development of an integrated seaweed-based aquaculture activity in Chile: determining the physiological capabilities of Macrocystis and Gracilaria as biofilters, Journal of Applied Phycology, 20, 571-577.

Capo, T. R., J. C. Jaramillo, A. E. Boyd, B. E. Lapointe, and J. E. Serafy (1999), Sustained high yields of Gracilaria (Rhodophyta) grown in intensive large-scale culture, Journal of Applied Phycology, 11(2), 143.

Capron, Mark, Blaylock, Reginald, Lucas, Kelly, Chambers, Michael, Stewart, Jim R, DiMarco, Steven F, Kerri Whilden, Binbin Wang, MH Kim, Zach Moscicki, Igor Tsukrov, M Robinson Swift, Corey Sullivan, Chris Webb, Stephan Howden, Suzanne Fredericq, Stacy Krueger- Hadfield, Antoine de Ramon N’Yeurt, Scott C James, Don Piper “Adjustable Depth Ocean Forests: the next step for aquaculture”, Proceedings of MTS/IEEE Conference Oceans2018, doi: 10.1109/OCEANS.2018.8604586, 2018.

Celikkol, B. DeCew, K. Baldwin, S. Boduch, M. Chambers, D. Fredriksson, J. Irish, O. Patursson, G. Rice, R. Swift, I. Tsukrov, C. Turmelle, “Engineering Overview of the University of New Hampshire’s Open Ocean Aquaculture Project”, Proceedings of MTS/IEEE Conference Oceans06, Boston MA, 2006.

Chambers, M.D. 2013. “Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture of Steelhead, Blue Mussels and Sugar Kelp”, Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Biological Sciences, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.

Fredriksson, D. W. J. DeCew, M. R. Swift, I. Tsukrov, M. D. Chambers and B. Celikkol. 2004. “The Design and Analysis of a Four-Cage Grid Mooring for Open Ocean Aquaculture”. Aquacultural Engineering 32 (2004) 77-94.

Hanisak, M. D. (1994), Cultivation of Gracilaria and other macroalgae in Florida for energy production, 28 pp, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Fort Pierce, FL.

Neori, A., Chopin, T., Troell, M., Buschmann, A. H., Kraemer, G. P., Halling, C., Shpigel, M. and Yarish, C. 2004. Integrated aquaculture: rationale, evolution and state of the art emphasizing seaweed biofiltration in modern mariculture. Aquaculture 231: 361-391.

N’Yeurt, A.de R., Chynoweth, D.P., Capron, M.E., Stewart, J.R., Hasan, M.A., “Negative carbon via Ocean Afforestation.” 2012. Process Safety and Environment Protection 90, 467-474.

IFWEN