NOVEL SEAWEED CULTIVATION PROJECT WINS GOVERNMENT CONTRACT

U.S. Department of Energy to provide funding for sustainable marine biomass production

On Tuesday the 9th of June, Ocean Rainforest signed a contract with the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to conduct Phase II of a pioneering seaweed cultivation project in California, known as “MacroSystems”. In partnership with Primary Ocean Producers and Hortimare, Ocean Rainforest will lead the work in designing and testing new methods for farming Giant Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) in open ocean conditions.

Over the course of the next three years, Ocean Rainforest will conduct a three-year project in the California Bight under the project name “MacroSystems”. The project will test a state-of-the-art cultivation structure in open ocean conditions that minimizes the impact of cultivation practice on existing marine operations (e.g. navigation, commercial fishing, etc.) and supports ecosystem services in the surrounding environment. The goal is to develop and scale up the necessary technology and machinery to de-risk the full production chain from seaweed propagation to harvesting, thereby enabling production of kelp for high volume applications including biomass for bioenergy.

The MacroSystems project has a unique opportunity to support the development of the U.S. seaweed industry in a way that is economically feasible, environmentally sustainable and socially supportive. With financial support from this ARPA-E award, Ocean Rainforest intends to refine its novel seaweed cultivation system and launch the U.S. into a new era of the blue economy. The MacroSystems Project is part of the ARPA-E MARINER Program, which seeks to develop a range of enabling technologies for seaweed cultivation in US waters in many parts of the US Exclusive Economic Zone.

The Principal Investigator of the project is Javier Infante who will lead the Ocean Rainforest team based in Santa Barbara, California.

To learn more about the project, please contact Javier Infante, javier@oceanrainforest.com or Olavur Gregersen, CEO of Ocean Rainforest, at: olavur@oceanrainforest.com