An Investigation Of Development Pathways For An Economically
Viable Seafarm Cultivation At The Kosterfjorden, Sweden
Jean-Baptiste Thomas
Master of Science Thesis
Stockholm 2013
Jean-Baptiste Thomas
Master of Science Thesis STOCKHOLM 2013
An Investigation Of Development Pathways
For An Economically Viable Seafarm
Cultivation At The Kosterfjorden,
Sweden
PRESENTED AT
INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Supervisor:
Fredrik Gröndahl, Industrial Ecology, KTH
Examiner:
Fredrik Gröndahl, Industrial Ecology, KTH
Abstract New opportunities for sustainable economic development have emerged from the
transdisciplinary collaboration of aquaculture and biotechnology. As a response to the
European Commission’s call for a European Bioeconomy, SEAFARM, a five-‐year program
pending funding from FORMAS, aims to develop a sustainable aquaculture as a milieu for
and in support of further research in blue biotechnology in five collaborating institutions in
Sweden. This thesis aims to explore aquaculture technologies, notably IMTA and long-‐line
systems, established and emerging seaweed-‐based products, the proposed Kosterfjorden
site, a case study of a similar project in Scotland, BioMara, and some other technological and
socio-‐economic hurdles that will affect the SEAFARM cultivation -‐ all to enable the
development of two economically viable but contrasting scenarios for the cultivation.
Scenario ONE represents a BioMara inspired cultivation optimised for the industrial
production of biofuel feedstock, while scenario TWO explores the potential of a small-‐scale
and diverse IMTA cultivation. These scenarios were cross-‐referenced against the scenario
context criteria. The final result indicated scenario TWO, the small-‐scale diversified IMTA,
would be a more adaptable and economically resilient option, delivering a greater variety of
species for biotechnological scrutiny, potential for a diverse and specialised range of
products and revenues, while also optimising the conditions necessary for the pursuit of
SEAFARM research objectives, notably through the development of the first IMTA in
Sweden.
Acknowledgements At the time of writing this acknowledgement only a few days have passed since my
supervisor, Fredrik Gröndahl, was awarded funding to initiate the SEAFARM research
project. I would like to congratulate him as well as thank him for giving me the opportunity
to witness the beginning of a great landmark research initiative for Sweden. Just like in the
course of any journey, one meets people who give up a bit of their time to help you along
the way with new ideas, motivating stories, guidance, support and friendship. My deepest
gratitude goes out to all the interviewees, notably Göran Nylund and Stephen Cross, Fredrik
and his wife for their hospitality, as well as Karin Orve and Monika Olsson for their passion
and dedication to our course. This thesis would not have been possible without the
enterprising and enduring friendships of my fellow masters graduates. I would also like to
thank my family and all my friends back home without whose support, I would have never
gone to KTH in the first place.
Jean-‐Baptiste Thomas
List of Abbreviations SLCMS Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences SMHI Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute IMTA Integrated Multi-‐Trophic Aquaculture SAMS Scottish Association for Marine Sciences BESP Break-‐even Electricity Selling Price AD Anaerobic Digestion PP Profit Potential RSI Required Seaweed Input FA Focus Area
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List of Figures, Tables and Charts Figure 1 A holistic perspective diagram of SEAFARM FAs 1-‐5 Figure 2 Market shares of global seaweed industry by product in 2004 (US$
Millions). Figure 3 Pyramid of trophic levels for a marine environment. Figure 4 Diagram illustrating an IMTA, featuring finfish, shellfish, seaweeds and
invertebrates. Figure 5 Value pyramid for algae-‐based products.
-‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐
Table 1 Main components of the world's seaweed industry and their value for 2004 (US$).
Table 2 Description and approximate values of typical algae-‐based foods. Table 3 Description and approximate values of typical phyco-‐supplements. Table 4 Statistiska centralbyrån energy prices for natural gas and electricity
(SEK/MWh). Table 5 Summary of market status and qualitatively assigned PP and RSI, by
product category. Table 6 Summary of results.
-‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐
Chart 1 Seasonal Fluctuations of Surface Water Temperature Gradients (°C) at
the Kosterfjorden in 2012. Chart 2 Seasonal Fluctuations of Surface Water Salinity Gradients (PSU) at the
Kosterfjorden in 2012. Chart 3 Seasonal Fluctuations of Nitrate (mgL-‐1 ) and Ammonium (mgL-‐1 )
Gradients at the Kosterfjorden in 2012. Chart 4 Seasonal Fluctuations of Nitrite (mgL-‐1) and Phosphate (mgL-‐1)
Gradients at the Kosterfjorden in 2012.
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1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 5 1.1. BACKGROUND: THE BIOBASED ECONOMY .................................................................................................... 5 1.2. SEAFARM ............................................................................................................................................................. 6 1.3. AIMS AND RESEARCH QUESTION .................................................................................................................... 8 1.4. OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................................................................................... 9
2. METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................... 11 2.1. GROUNDED THEORY ....................................................................................................................................... 11 2.2. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................................ 13 2.3. LIMITATIONS .................................................................................................................................................... 16 2.4. ETHICAL ASPECTS ........................................................................................................................................... 17
3. LITERATURE ............................................................................................................ 19 3.1. MACROALGAE ................................................................................................................................................... 19 3.1.1. Biological basics ...................................................................................................................................... 19 3.1.2. Seaweed: a global industry ................................................................................................................. 22 3.1.3. Phyco-‐products and their value ........................................................................................................ 24
3.2. AQUACULTURE ................................................................................................................................................. 34 3.2.1. Fish aquaculture ...................................................................................................................................... 35 3.2.2. Seaweed aquaculture ............................................................................................................................ 37
3.3. IMTA: INTEGRATED MULTI-‐TROPHIC AQUACULTURE ........................................................................... 38 3.3.1. Defining IMTA ........................................................................................................................................... 39 3.3.2. Ancient Origins ......................................................................................................................................... 42 3.3.3. Quantifying IMTA Synergies ............................................................................................................... 44
4. CASE STUDY: BIOMARA ............................................................................................ 48 4.1. KEY FINDINGS .................................................................................................................................................. 49 4.1.1. Identifying Seaweeds for Biofuel Conversion .............................................................................. 49 4.1.2. Harvesting Beach-‐Cast Seaweeds .................................................................................................... 50 4.1.3. Technological and Socio-‐Economic Impacts of Biofuel Production from Marine Biomass ........................................................................................................................................................................ 51
4.2. PROJECT SETBACKS ......................................................................................................................................... 52 4.3. ‘PASSING THE BATON’ TO SEAFARM ......................................................................................................... 53
5. RESULTS: SEAFARM DEVELOPMENT SCENARIOS ............................................................ 55 5.1. SCENARIO CONTEXT ........................................................................................................................................ 55 5.1.1. The Kosterfjorden site ........................................................................................................................... 56 5.1.2. Assigning values to products .............................................................................................................. 61 5.1.3. SEAFARM research objectives ............................................................................................................ 64 5.1.4. Socio-‐ and techno-‐economic context .............................................................................................. 66
5.2. SCENARIO DESIGN ........................................................................................................................................... 68 5.2.1. Scenario ONE – A Biofuel Optimised Aquaculture .................................................................... 68 5.2.2. Scenario TWO – A Small-‐Scale Diversified IMTA ...................................................................... 70
5.3. SCENARIO MATRIX RESULTS ......................................................................................................................... 72 6. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 74 6.1. FURTHER RESEARCH ....................................................................................................................................... 75
7. REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 77
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8. APPENDIXES ........................................................................................................... 86 8.1. APPENDIX A – VARIABLES AFFECTING SEAWEED GROWTH RATES ........................................................ 86 8.2. APPENDIX B – QUANTIFYING IMTA SYNERGIES (FULL) ....................................................................... 87 8.3. APPENDIX C – MAPS OF KOSTERFJORDEN SITE FOR SCENARIOS ONE AND TWO ............................. 94 8.4. APPENDIX D – MAP OF AREA, PHOTOGRAPHED DURING STUDY VISIT TO SLCMS ............................. 95 8.5. APPENDIX E – INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS ................................................................................................... 96
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1. INTRODUCTION
The present thesis was written in support of the pending SEAFARM project. The
introduction presents the call by the European Commission for research to pave the
transition to an inherently sustainable bioeconomy. SEAFARM is the embodiment of
a Swedish response to this call. The core aim of the thesis will thereafter be
introduced, and objectives to achieve this goal will be fractioned out.
1.1. BACKGROUND: THE BIOBASED ECONOMY
“For most people, the bioeconomy is the way of the future. A shift towards an
economy based on renewable resources not on fossil fuels is no longer just an
option, it's a necessity” (European Commission, 2012).
The above quote summarises the basics quite accurately. The sooner the
replacement of fossil fuels is conquered in theory and practise, the better. In the
race to develop a European bioeconomy, the European Commission launched in
February 2012 a new strategy entitled “Innovating for Sustainable Growth: a
Bioeconomy for Europe” (European Commission, 2012). Summarised by Maive Rute
Director of the European Commission ‘Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food’
Directorate, the vision is for a “transition to a more resource efficient society that
relies more strongly on renewable biological resources to satisfy consumers' needs,
industry demand and tackle climate change” (Rute, 2012).
In Europe the bioeconomy is already one of the major industries, turning over an
estimated €2 trillion and accounting for 9% of jobs, employing over 22 million
people principally in fishing, forestry and farming (Rute, 2012). These are the three
primary production sectors that will feed the bioeconomy, whose products will be
processed in biorefineries to replace fossil fuel-‐based products.
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Both farming and forestry are well established in the EU, protected by strong
regulation and scrutinised by independent judicators -‐ however the domain of
fishing is very different. Perhaps it is because the oceans are too vast to grasp the
impacts we are having on them, or perhaps, as terrestrial mammals, we do not
relate the aquatic happenings in the same way as we do on-‐land. The human
conquest of the oceans is still in its infancy and predominantly based on what you
might term primitive ‘hunter-‐gatherer’ principles, to harvest natural stocks. Most
ocean-‐based produce comes either directly (wild capture fisheries) or indirectly
(intensive aquaculture fed with wild capture fish) from natural stocks, which are
dwindling at alarming rates in the face of improved technologies and growing
demand. Only a minority of the overall market is based on ‘agricultural’ principles,
whereby a carrying capacity is increased by intensive species cultivation, lessening
pressure on natural stocks. Until the second half of the 20th century, few cultivations
of aquatic products took place, however incentives and demand are on the rise, and
policy makers are increasingly looking to our oceans for answers.
1.2. SEAFARM
The SEAFARM project aims to provide Sweden with its first sustainable macroalgae
farm to provide an entirely new class of feedstock, marine-‐based feedstock, for a
future biobased Swedish economy (Gröndahl, 2012). The project is still in its infancy
having applied for funding in early 2013. A location for the farm remains to be
determined, but it will need to be located in proximity to the Sven Lovén Centre for
Marine Sciences (SLCMS), Tjärnö. The SLCMS is a research centre internationally
renown for its marine science excellence and innovation, able to provide the
expertise, equipment and facilities needed to cater for such a research project.
The SEAFARM project extends beyond a mere seaweed cultivation however: a
transdisciplinary research collaboration will be formed between some of the major
academic institutions in Sweden, including KTH Stockholm, Linnaeus University,
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Lund University, the University of Goteborg and Chalmers. SEAFARM is separated
into five focus areas (FA) as seen in figure 1 below.
Figure 1 – A holistic perspective diagram of SEAFARM FAs 1-‐5. Source: Gröndahl (2013)
FA1 involves the stimulation of know-‐how about sustainable seaweed cultivation on
the Swedish west coast. FA2 will be an investigation to develop cheap and effective
post-‐harvest pre-‐treatment and preservation methods for subsequent transport. In
FA3, seaweed biomass shall be subjected to thorough biotechnological scrutiny,
mapping out its constituent elements, identifying potential products and developing
a biorefinery approach for their extraction, similar to the multi-‐product fractioning
in petroleum refineries. FA4 aims to optimise the biofertiliser and biogas potential
of wastes coming from the biorefinery fractioning processes. Finally FA5 will see the
design and implementation of new holistic sustainability assessment tools,
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developed specifically in the context of cultivation and refining of seaweed biomass.
(Gröndahl, 2013)
Having received some preliminary funding for pilot projects, SEAFARM seems likely
to be granted funding for a period of up to 5 years. However it would be
counterproductive for the community of Swedish marine biotechnologists, if after
this five-‐year period, such an aquaculture were to become unviable and redundant.
For the cultivation to continue independently in the future and persist in providing a
suitable environment for further research, it should reach a state of economic
sustainability by the end of the five years. With this in mind, the present thesis
should be read as a preliminary investigation into development pathways to
economic viability for SEAFARM.
1.3. AIMS AND RESEARCH QUESTION
Like any research project, this thesis represents a journey. It began with the aim of
determining the scale of operations required for economies of scale to push a
macroalgae farm producing for biofuel feedstock, toward a state of economic
viability. In essence, the core of the project would have involved building on the
legacy of the SAMS BioMara project and its transposition to a Swedish west coast
context. As the literature review process began to reveal itself, it became apparent
that research in the field had rapidly matured. The last few years has seen a rapid
rise in publication and patents relating to marine organisms (Submariner
2012:148). Whereas only a few years ago research focused on developing marine
resources as biofuel feedstocks, today that is only a small part of an emerging bigger
picture – that all sorts of compounds and chemicals can be fractioned out of
macroalgae, not just biofuels.
Only in this context does the full extent of the SEAFARM research project become
apparent: it is acting as a catalyst for the transdisciplinary collaboration of marine
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aquaculture, blue biotechnology and biofuel research in Sweden. The economic
viability of such a cultivation and its downstream operations is undoubtedly vital, to
support research beyond the restricted five-‐year funding package, for what could be
the emergence of an entire new industry on the west coast of Sweden.
As a result of this preliminary exploration the present thesis took on a new
direction: to inform and enable SEAFARM strategizing and decision-‐making. Can a
sustainable macroalgae cultivation on the Swedish west coast provide high quality
samples for SEAFARM research, while achieving economic viability within five
years? This shall be considered the research question to which this thesis embodies
an answer.
1.4. OBJECTIVES
In order to achieve this rather broad aim, a series of objectives were identified as
stepping-‐stones to painting the full picture. These are bulleted hereafter and
provide a generalised sequence that was followed.
ü Select a cultivation site near SLCMS & establish background information
ü Explore the seaweed & fish aquaculture industries: current trends and challenges,
best practises and current research focus areas.
ü Identify potential phyco-‐products & revenues
ü BioMara Case Study (2009-‐2012): research project coordinated by SAMS with a focus
on cultivation of seaweed as biofuel feedstocks.
ü Develop and analyse alternative scenarios for the development of an economically
viable cultivation for SEAFARM
i. Establish a representative scenario context including: end products, conditions at the site,
SEAFARM objectives and other techo-‐ and socio-‐economic considerations.
ii. Define two contrasting scenarios: a biofuel optimised aquaculture inspired from BioMara;
and a small-‐scale diversified IMTA.
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2. METHODOLOGY
Such a broad field of research and multivariate scenario context required an
intricately tailored combination of methodologies, to provide up to date and
accurate information, adaptable to constantly new and emerging publications. A
combined quantitative and qualitative approach was used, with a distinct partiality
to qualitative research methods. This chapter begins by explaining the general
approach and timeline of the research process. Thereafter the methodological core
of the research is presented and justified.
2.1. GROUNDED THEORY
Before going into the details of the methodological treatment and acquisition of data
or information, the general flow of the thesis must be motivated. The handling of the
broad palette of overlapping disciplines required a timeline and approach inspired
from elements of Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967); namely to intertwine
different methods and uncover development pathways simultaneously to the
research being carried out (Becker and Bryman, 2004:268). Some significant
shortcomings in data collection and in the research processes led to U-‐turns and
twists in the research flow, which are hereafter explained.
As already introduced in the section aims and research question, the original aim of
the thesis changed radically when it became apparent that blue biotechnology had
emerged as a major player in the development of marine resources. Until then, the
thesis aimed to explore the prerequisites for a BioMara inspired, economically
viable, biofuel feedstock cultivation. Thereafter it evolved into a comparison of
development scenario: one, BioMara inspired cultivation for the supply of marine
biofuel feedstock; and two, a smaller-‐scale diversified cultivation. This is typical of
how grounded theory impacted the research process.
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The SEAFARM objective, to develop a sustainable aquaculture led the author to
question what this might be. What forms of sustainable aquaculture exist today? In
the course of the literature review it became apparent that mono-‐trophic
aquaculture of marine animals or plants is fundamentally unsustainable when
considered from a holistic systems perspective, either due to high levels of
environmental stress, or from lack of profitability. A meticulously designed
combination however enables them not only to cancel out some of each-‐others
respective flaws, but can also add to productivity and resilience (Chopin, 2006).
Thus IMTA emerged as a technique with great promise, designed for environmental
neutrality, optimised productivity and a having more diverse range of produce than
any other known cultivation technique. Rather than mirroring industrial agriculture
by establishing single or dual crop cultivation or crop rotations, an IMTA approach
is characterised by a protracted design process for a balanced, resiliently productive
and environmentally neutral engineered ecosystem. The IMTA approach is currently
a hot topic in research given the potential to mitigate finfish aquaculture pollution
by upgrading to a calculated multi-‐trophic approach (Chopin et al., 2011; Neori and
Nobre, 2012; Diana et al., 2013). After these considerations IMTA became an
integral part of the second scenario as it was considered to be the best-‐suited
practice matching the initial SEAFARM objective, to develop a sustainable
aquaculture.
A final significant twist in the methodology came about as a result of a suggestion
offered during the study visit to the SLCMS, whereby SMHI water sample data was
available for potentially suitable cultivation site along the edge of the Kosterfjorden.
Initially it was hoped that the BioMara case study would provide data regarding
seaweed growth rates and water quality samples, enabling a comparison of water
quality with SMHI’s Kosterfjorden data, therefrom extrapolating growth rates and
yields to inform the question of scale. Thus BioMara researchers were interviewed
(see section 2.2) and it transpired that during the BioMara project very little
cultivation data was acquired due to marine licensing issues. Furthermore,
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complications relating to funding meant that any data on water samples were not
sharable. The grounded theory twist thereafter enabled the SMHI water quality data
in the Kosterfjorden area to be used nonetheless: the data was plotted on graphs
enabling it to be interpreted by interviewees during interviews, and to obtain an
insight into key challenges than may emerge during seasonal fluctuations of water
conditions. Yet again, the grounded theory inspired approach to the research
provided the tools to maintain initiative and flexibility in research orientation; and
to consider all methodological phases as a single learning process.
2.2. METHODOLOGY
A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods can provide a clarity and
breadth of scope to answers that one alone will usually fail to achieve (Silverman,
2005), thus it was decided to use both where possible. However given the state of
the SEAFARM project, its pending status and early planning circumstance, very little
quantitative data is available leading to a significant partiality to qualitative
techniques. Hereafter the research procedure is elaborated.
At the beginning of the project, the thesis supervisor [Fredrik Gröndahl] suggested a
field visit to the SLCMS, Tjärnö. The encounter with one of the potential research
sites and teams provided an insight into the untapped potential of the cultivation
and in proximity to this extensive marine research facility, as well as to kindle
personal motivation fuelled by the enthusiasm of the resident researchers. An initial
focus group –styled discussion was held with Göran Nylund and Fredrik Gröndahl at
the SLCMS, to identify project limitations and highlight specific avenues of interest.
In the wake of this study visit, the data collection process was planned in four
distinct phases: the initial literature review, the BioMara case study, the semi-‐
structured interview process and finally, the scenario methodology.
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A majority of the information in this thesis was collected by literature review. This
was the primary and most lengthy phase of the research process. Key areas that
were reviewed included: biology of macroalgae, notably factors that affect growth
rates (Appendix A); phyco-‐products and their value; the global aquaculture industry
for fish and seaweed; and IMTA, its emergence and role in the future of the
aquaculture industry, and an evaluation of IMTA synergies (Appendix B).
Five Semi-‐structured interviews were another key part of the thesis methodology,
and were specifically selected to enable conversations to flow freely, within a set of
predefined guiding questions and themes. In accordance with ethical
methodological procedures, all interviewees were given the option to be kept
anonymous. Furthermore, prior to the interviews they were asked for consent to be
recorded. None kept their right to anonymity and none refused to be recorded.
Transcripts are attached (Appendix E).
Information to compile the BioMara case study was gathered from literature,
particularly the key BioMara findings, but also by interviewing the BioMara project
coordinator, Dr Michele Stanley, as well as a seaweed cultivation expert working in
close collaboration with Dr Stanley during the BioMara project, Lars Brunner. These
interviews gave an insider’s intuition of the successes and failures of BioMara, most
notably elements that are not covered in literature such as practical limitations and
setbacks of the project.
Further semi-‐structured interviews were conducted. One of these was with Per
Rehnlund of Leroy AB, a food processing company with specific interest in the
development of marine foods and sea vegetables in Scandinavia. This interview was
structured to yield some information on potential value of harvested algae and the
state of the Scandinavian market for sea vegetables, and other algae-‐based foods
and products, notably phyco-‐supplements and phycocolloids.
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Finally and in support of the IMTA section, interviews were conducted with Dr Greg
Reid from the University of New Brunswick, and Stephen Cross, associate professor
in IMTA research at the Aquaculture Institute of the University of Stirling and
industrial research chairman for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada. These interviews shed light on the very latest advances in IMTA
research and the industrial applications of IMTA.
The tailored scenario methodology was then developed with two significant parts:
the first was to set a scenario context, the second to describe each scenario and
discuss how they fit into the scenario context. The scenario context was established
in four parts.
Part 1 involved the collection of data from SMHI regarding the hydrology of the
Kosterfjorden site, an area in immediate vicinity to the SLCMS. The data from these
water samples were plotted on graphs to examine potential growth conditions for
seaweed in the area. The graphs were sent to interviewees and discussed in
particular depth with Lars Brunner, Stephen Cross and Greg Reid, each of whom
interpreted them and made suggestions about growth conditions and potential
problems that may be encountered at the site. Part 2 of the scenario context aimed
to set out a framework to interpret the relative value of a selection of product
categories: phyco-‐supplements, food and sea vegetables, phycocolloids and biogas.
Most of this information was gathered from literature, but some significant
contributions also emerged from interviews. Furthermore, the estimation of prices
for the different phyco-‐products was opted for to illustrate and provide a guiding
idea of these products values, and as such, many of the values were found by
searching the internet, notably from the major online retailers such as Amazon. The
interview with Per Rehnlund of Leroy AB also helped to reinforce these findings.
Part 3 established some criteria for the analysis of each scenario’s performance in
the delivery of the SEAFARM research focus areas (FA1-‐5). This was also based on
literature reviewing, or more specifically, Gröndahl (2013). Finally, Part 4 brought
in some considerations of other socio-‐ and techno-‐economic aspects that could
16
influence the development of the cultivation, also based on literature and
interviews.
Having established the scenario context, the scenarios themselves required defining
for comparative analysis in the scenario context. This analysis was supported by the
interviews, particularly for considerations of environmental growth conditions
(Stephen Cross, Lars Brunner and Greg Reid), product values and markets (Per
Rehnlund) and finally, the cultivation’s economic viability (Michele Stanley). This
was the second major element of the scenario methodology, consisting of pragmatic
consideration of each scenario in terms of: the scale and type of cultivation, required
infrastructure, labour, deliverable products, licensing issues, public acceptability,
and economic resilience. Google maps were modified to help visualise each scenario
(Appendix C) and a detailed local map was photographed during the study visit for
further reference (Appendix D). The results from the comparative analysis were
summarised in a table (Table 6) to enable the drawing of conclusions.
2.3. LIMITATIONS
To facilitate the research process, a predefined set of limitations was established. In
terms of the geography of the research, it is limited to consider the Kosterfjorden
pilot facility and surrounding areas that are being considered as a part of an
eventual commercial expansion. Notably the Kosterfjorden site was selected, as it
was the only place in near the SLCMS with SMHI water quality data. Incidentally, it is
also perhaps the Swedish territorial water with the highest salinity content, thus
favouring elevated seaweed growth rates (Submariner, 2012).
Value is a difficult term to consider in research these days, given that it is so
subjective and multifaceted (Costanza et al., 1997). Neither the value of ecosystem
services performed by seaweeds nor ‘carbon-‐credit’ inspired revenues from
nutrient stripping were considered in the scenario method. Furthermore, costs were
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difficult to estimate for SEAFARM, given how early this thesis was written relative to
the project commencing. It was hoped that a quantified supply chain with flow
volumes, costs and revenues could be developed, but a lack of data made this
unachievable. Thus costs are not estimated within this project but they are
considered when available from peer-‐reviewed data, in which case they were
brought in to the literature review.
Two other significant limitations to the project were the restriction of the scope to
biogas production only, thus disregarding bioethanol and biodiesel production, as
well as the simplified representation of phyco-‐products into three product
categories (excluding biogas). The considerable variability across these categories
led to complications in the interpretation of results. For instance, the phyco-‐
supplements category has low value high volume products such as soil additives,
but it also includes their polar opposite, high value low volume pharmaceutics. On
the one hand this reflects the reality of the wide range of products that can be
extracted from seaweeds, however this somewhat sacrifices the ability to accurately
analyse and estimate potential revenues of the second scenario. Finally, the
restriction to biogas was simply that the current technologies for the extraction of
bioethanol and biodiesel from algae are widely considered as not being a break-‐
even technology yet. In the coming years, these technologies will also become
worthy subjects for an economic viability assessment of extraction from marine
feedstocks.
2.4. ETHICAL ASPECTS
The nature of the project, that it is an economic viability assessment of two fictional
scenarios, meant that there was very little contact with real ‘people’ other than
interviewees and so very few ethical aspects to consider within the research
process. The SEAFARM research team will necessarily have to undertake some
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public awareness meeting for local inhabitants prior to the application of a marine
license, however this is far beyond the scope of this thesis.
Exterior considerations as to the wider implications of sustainable aquaculture can
and should be mentioned. It is important to note that very little research has been
undertaken to investigate the impacts of seaweed cultivations and IMTAs on marine
wildlife, considered subjects of ethics. It could also perhaps be argued that, morally
speaking, it is vital that further research be undertaken in IMTA to support political
discourse to develop directorates on the upgrading of aquaculture operations to
reduce their environmental impacts through multi-‐trophic integration.
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3. LITERATURE
3.1. MACROALGAE
The following section will first present some biological basics on seaweeds,
highlighting the reasons why they are subject of growing interest amongst
researchers. Thereafter the existing global seaweed industry will briefly be outlined,
followed by a detailed account of four major product categories that can be derived
from seaweeds – food, phycocolloids, phyco-‐supplements and biofuels. These
categories are based on the distinctions made by Chopin and Sawhney (2009) to
support and enable the subsequent section on scenario development.
3.1.1. Biological basics
Algae are amongst the earliest life forms that known on the planet, evolving from
primitive cyanobacteria at least 1 billion years ago. It is thought that the
evolutionary path taken by algae has allowed for a far greater physiological
diversity than exists amongst terrestrial plants, particularly in reference to the
variety of proteins and carbohydrates found in cell walls, many of which are unique
to individual species making them particularly valuable in biotechnology
(Domozych et al., 1980). A key divergence took place along this evolutionary
journey quite early on, allowing taxonomists to distinguish species by colour of their
respective constituent photosynthetic pigments: Rhodophyta, red algae;
Chlorophyta, green algae; and Phaeophyta, brown algae (Roesijadi et al., 2010).
Perhaps more significantly, single cells began to congregate and from complex
macro-‐structures around 600million years ago (Yuan et al., 2011), thus
differentiating themselves as macroalgae – the focus of this report.
Seaweeds have colonised almost all illuminated aquatic habitats on the planet,
adapting to local conditions and demonstrating impressive resilience (Domozych et
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al., 1980). There are essential metabolic requirements for each species, for instance
some seaweeds require saline environments, or prefer to be located in the intertidal
zone. In the Baltic Sea and Swedish west coast, species have adapted over
generations to particularly cold and brackish conditions. As such it can be expected
that specimens of Laminaria digitata or Saccharina latissima collected from these
waters will be very different to corresponding specimens collected in Scotland,
Spain or Canada -‐ yet some distinctive physiological and reproductive traits are
shared by most. (Naoki et al., 2006)
Most macroalgae are characterised by a ‘holdfast’ or foot acting as an anchor; a
‘stipe’ or stem which structurally, like the trunk of a tree, links roots to leaf; and a
single or multiple ‘blades’ where most of the photosynthetic activity takes place.
With regards to reproduction, most seaweeds display what is known as a haploid-‐
diploid life cycle as is common in some terrestrial ferns and fungi. The ploidy refers
to the number of chromosomes present in that stage of the life cycle, haploids
having a single set of chromosomes in the cellular nucleus while diploids have two,
in other words a full set (Dawson, 1966). Thus to reproduce, the spermatophyte
diploid adults undergo meiosis to produce haploid spores which, given time,
develop into male and female gametophytes. When mature, the gametophytes
produce eggs and sperm, which form young spermatophytes upon contact,
completing the life cycle (Lewis, 1964).
The swelling interest in macroalgae stems from a large variety of adaptations these
plants are known to possess -‐ their ability to thrive in low temperatures and low
light conditions, their biofiltration properties and high energy content, to name a
few -‐ particularly when compared to terrestrial counterparts. For instance,
photosynthetic efficiency of terrestrial plants varies around 1.8 to 2.2%, whereas
that of aquatic plants usually ranges from 6 to 8% (Aresta et al., 2005), providing
macroalgae with the fastest growth rates of any plant. Additionally seaweeds absorb
nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, chronic pollutants of the Baltic Sea,
consequently offering a pathway for environmental engineering (Fox and Chapman,
21
2011; Marshall, 2012) or decontamination of current industrial activities, such as
finfish aquaculture (Huo et al., 2012).
The distribution of algal species in the Baltic Sea reflects the environmental
limitations to algal growth. It is accepted that the most important abiotic factor
controlling algal diversity in the Baltic Sea is salinity (Blidberg and Gröndahl, 2012),
however growth rates are determined by a plethora of environmental factors
ranging from light and nutrient availability to temperature, water motion and
turbidity (Lewis 1964). In order to maximise the yield of harvestable macroalgae, it
is crucial to understand the biological relevance of these variations in all their
aspects. For an explanation of the effects of such environmental factors on growth
rates, see APPENDIX A.
Many of the factors in APPENDIX A have already been considered for site selection
at Tjärnö, particularly salinity, given its biological importance and the brackish
environment that is the Baltic Sea. The SLCMS is located in a sheltered bay on the far
north of the Swedish West coast, where the water is of the highest salinity of any
Swedish waters, favouring growth conditions for algae. However the site was also
selected because of the existence of the SLCMS, a year-‐round marine research centre
with a collection of wet laboratories, equipment and scientists, whose expertise and
knowledge of the area will undoubtedly help to accelerate the development process
of SEAFARM. Specifically within the context of this thesis, the Kosterfjorden area
was selected as the site of the cultivation, constrained by the availability of water
quality sample data from SMHI.
Having covered some of the biological basics of seaweeds, the following section will
move to examine the economic potential of seaweeds, and clarify how the value of
seaweeds has been re-‐interpreted in the last few decades.
22
3.1.2. Seaweed: a global industry
The value of the global seaweed market is estimated at US$ 5.5-‐6 billion per annum
by the FAO (2003), most of which is generated from direct human consumption in
the form of food. Approximately US$ 1billion is generated from a combination of
high value products destined for the cosmetics, pharmaceutics and food processing
industries (FAO, 2003), with the remained from miscellaneous activities such as soil
conditioners, fertilisers and animal feed additives (FAO, 2004). The raw material
input to this global industry, ie. the annually harvested wet mass, is estimated as
being approximately 7.5-‐8 million tonnes (FAO, 2004), most of which is cultivated
and a minority is harvested from natural stocks. A basic calculation from these
figures indicates that the global average value of all seaweeds lies in the region of
US$ 0.65-‐0.8 per kilogram of wet mass -‐ but in reality there is a great variation in
price according to species and location of production. Table 1 below provides a
detailed breakdown of the major industry components and their market values.
Figure 2 below helps to highlight the importance of these three major sectors of
production by showing each industry component’s share of the global market. Both
table and figure present information from Chopin and Sawhney (2009).
Table 1 -‐ Main components of the world's seaweed industry and their value for 2004
(US$). Source: Chopin and Sawhney (2009)
Industry Component Raw Material (wet tonnes)
Products (tonnes) Value (US$)
Sea-‐vegetables TOTAL 8.59 million 1.42 million 5.29 billion Kombu (Laminaria) 4.52 million 1.08 million 2.75 billion Nori (Porphyra) 1.40 million 141 556 1.34 billion Wakame (Undaria) 2.52 million 166 320 1.02 billion
Phycocolloids TOTAL 1.26 million 70 630 650 million Carrageenans 528 000 33 000 300 million Alginates 600 000 30 000 213 million Agars 127 167 7 630 137 million
Phyco-‐supplements TOTAL 1.22 million 242 600 53 million Soil additives 1.10 million 220 000 30 million
23
Agrichemicals (fertilisers, bio-‐stimulants)
20 000 2 000 10 million
Animal feeds (supplements, ingredients)
100 000 20 000 10 million
High value miscellaneous (Pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, botanicals, cosmeceuticals, pigments, bioactive compounds, antiviral agents, brewing, etc.)
3 000 600 3 million
Figure 2 -‐ Market shares of global seaweed industry by product in 2004 (US$
Millions). Source: Chopin and Sawhney (2009)
Human beings have been consuming seaweeds for millennia. A growing demand has
sparked a rapid increase in cultivation capacity over the last half century,
particularly in Asia, where it is a dietary staple. The share of the global market held
by sea vegetables such as Kombu, Nori and Wakame is astounding: almost 90% of
the seaweed industry comes from the demand of these three edible species, as
illustrated in Figure 2 above. A market analysis conducted by Walsh and Watson
24
(2012) for the BMI (Irish Sea Fisheries Board) explored the potential of all seaweed-‐
based products in a European context. This extensive report concluded that the
demand for edible seaweeds is present though minimal, however there is
substantial room for growth in the seaweed industry to meet a growing demand for
high value phycocolloids and especially for phyco-‐supplement products.
It is increasingly being recognised at a global level that the value of seaweeds is not
just of economic relevance. In their natural environment, seaweeds truly are
keystone species that define their ecosystems: they provide shelter, food and habitat
for molluscs, bacteria, crustaceans, insects and fish alike while oxygenating the
water and acting as highly effective cleaning agents, stripping water of nutrients,
some heavy metals and a variety of other toxic compounds. They have also been
acknowledged as potentially valuable geoengineering agents (particularly
microalgae) through their ability to capture carbon dioxide during photosynthesis
while blooming at prolific rates (Fox and Chapman, 2011). Seaweeds are even used
as end of pipe solutions to remediate aquaculture and waste water treatment plants.
Regrettably it is not within the scope of this thesis to accurately represent algae’s
multiple ulterior values during the analysis, for instance by placing economic values
on ecosystem services, however these are recognised and considered where
appropriate.
3.1.3. Phyco-‐products and their value
Phyco-‐ originates from the Greek word ‘phukos’, meaning seaweed. For the purpose
of this thesis, the vast range of phyco-‐products has been split into four major
categories. There are other at least several other uses and values of seaweeds that
have been excluded from this report, for instance they have been used to absorb
heavy metals in industrial salvage (Stirk & van Staden, 2000) and in waste water
treatment as biofilters (McHugh, 2003). Returning to this thesis, four phyco-‐product
categories have been established for simplicity. The first and by far the largest in
25
terms of market value and global demand are sea vegetables. Second are the colloid
substances such as agar, carrageen and alginate. The third category are compounds
that are used by industries as supplements, known as phyco-‐supplements, adding
value to a great diversity of substances ranging from cosmetic creams,
pharmaceutical products and soil conditioners, to processed foods, dietary
supplements and beer. The fourth and final general category remains untested in
commercial-‐scale application, despite having a well-‐established market: the use of
seaweed as biomass feedstocks for the production of biofuels. The following section
will explore these five product categories, providing some market value estimations
and an elementary overview of production methods.
3.1.3.1. Sea vegetables
As formerly presented, sea vegetables are the biggest players in the global seaweed
market with an estimated value of around US$ 5 billion. The majority of demand
however is in the Far East, so they could be mistaken as being of little interest for
European cultivations. The comparatively small European demand for sea
vegetables is conversely on the rise (Walsh and Watson, 2012). There are hosts of
innovative phyco-‐food-‐products that have been emerging for the last decade,
marketed as healthy eco-‐foods and snacks, flavourings and seasonings. Chefs across
the world use such products as secret ingredients or decorations in the high-‐end
Michelin restaurants. As Per Rehnlund confirmed in our interview, from his
personal experience at Leroy AB, as long as the sea vegetables are of high quality,
their value, marketability and demand is unmistakable in Europe.
Table 2 below shows a typical selection of phyco-‐food-‐products available for
purchase on the Internet or in typical European supermarkets. This selection has
been made based on cultivation potential by European seaweed species. The market
values are purely to paint a basic picture of their value, and were obtained from
26
quick searches at a variety of retailers on the Internet. All prices have been
converted to US Dollars.
Table 2 – Description and approximate values of typical algae-‐based foods Product Description Market value Kombu or Kelp
Dried seaweeds of the Laminaria genus, some of which are native to European waters. Nutritious and a favourite in Asia, Kombu is used in a large variety of dishes and dried snacks.
$6-‐27 for 50grams
Winged Kelp (Alaria esculenta)
Traditionally eaten in Europe and Canada for centuries, this kelp can be eaten dried as a snack, in fresh salads and in soups or other dishes.
$4.69 for 100grams (frozen)
Slaw Kelp (Laminaria digitata)
Pre-‐cooked and frozen, this product is recommended for use in soups, salads, and stir-‐fries or as an accompaniment to fish or red meat.
$4.69 for 100grams (frozen)
Sweet Kelp or Kombu Royale (Saccharina latissima)
Harvested when they are small, these kelps are characterised by a distinctly sweet taste. Traditionally used as a grazing crop for sheep to sweeten the meat, today they are commonly found in salads and mains just like in deserts and cocktails.
$6-‐17 for 50grams
Sea Spices Available as flakes to be added as spices to cooked dishes, the ease of use, high nutritional value, surprising variety and niche flavours offered by these combinations of seaweeds has led to this innovative product being a great success amongst high-‐end European chefs.
$7.50 per unit (100grams)
Phyco-‐products from sea vegetables are diverse and have relatively high market
values. With no costly investments involved, they are easy and cheap to produce and
hold potential in being highly profitable to businesses. The only downside is that the
European demand is relatively low and that competition for these products is fierce
amongst producers (Wegeberg and Felby, 2010).
3.1.3.2. Phycocolloids
In chemistry substance mixtures are classified into three types: solutions,
suspensions and colloids. Colloids are defined as containing particles ranging from 1
to 1000 nanometres in diameter and remain evenly distributed throughout the
27
substance. That is to say the particles do not settle or separate over time. This
contrasts with solutions in that they have a tendency to separate, while suspensions
contain particles that are usually visible to the naked eye. Colloids are a highly
diverse group of mixtures with an equally varied set of chemical properties. Colloid
products that are extracted from algae, that is to say phycocolloid products, are
usually one of three: agar, alginate and carrageenan. The seaweeds from which they
are extracted are usually harvested and selected for quality over quantity. (FAO,
2003)
Agar is most commonly used as a thickening, emulsifying or stabilising agent for
food (vegetarian alternative to gelatine), as a mild laxative component in
pharmaceutics products, but also as the growth medium for bacteria and fungi in
petri dishes due to its solidifying temperature, which is ideal for experiments
incubated at human body temperature. Boiling certain species of algae results in the
breaching of cell walls and the release of two structural polysaccharides. Together
these polysaccharides form agar, which can be dried into a fine powder ideal for
storage. Thanks to such niche uses, the market for agar is global and well
established but somewhat limited when compared to sea vegetables. It is mass-‐
consumed by the food processing industry, laboratories and the general public.
Standard agar-‐agar can be purchased both online and in supermarkets for
approximately US$10 for 100g, while higher quality agar used in laboratories can
fetch up to US$2 per gram. (FAO, 2003)
Similarly to agar alginates are characterised by gel-‐like properties, or more
specifically, their ability to make aqueous solutions more viscous. Today they are
widely used in food processing (sauces, ice creams, syrups, biscuits, canned foods),
pharmaceutics (specialised open wound dressings, slow release medicines),
immobilising biocatalysts in industrial processes, the printing industry, and as
additives to animal feeds, most notably fish feed. Alginates are sold as dry and
powdered sodium alginate, produced by a three step process: first the seaweed cell
walls are broken by stirring and leaving them in a hot alkaline solution, creating a
28
thick slurry which, when diluted with water and filtered to remove any insoluble
seaweed cellulose; the second step involves the precipitation of either alginic acid or
calcium alginate, two alternative processes that lead to the same result; and finally
these substances can both be converted back to sodium alginate by adding a mixture
of alcohol and water. Alginates can also be purchased online for US$9-‐47 for 50g,
depending on the quality, viscosity, specific properties and applications of the
alginate in question. (FAO, 2003)
Carrageenan is another viscosity agent and is most commonly used in dairy
products, meat processing and other miscellaneous products like toothpaste, air
freshener gels and pet food. There are two major forms of carrageenan resulting
from two different production methods. The first is significantly cheaper and
produces a ‘natural grade carrageenan’ (lower quality), simply involves washing the
seaweed and dissolving compounds in water and alkaline solutions, followed by a
drying process. This natural grade carrageenan is available online for anything from
US$10-‐24 per 50g. The second involves series of chemical processes and filtrations,
dehydration by the addition of alcohol followed by auxiliary drying, producing a
refined high quality carrageenan which is significantly more expensive and is sold in
bulk to industry. (FAO, 2003)
3.1.3.3. Phyco-‐supplements
The high nutrient content in seaweeds (vitamins, protein & minerals), as well as a
range of valuable and specialised fatty acids, enzymes, carbohydrates, pigments,
antioxidants and polymers have raised the profile of seaweeds in recent years, most
notably in the realm of biotechnology. The European Science Foundation’s Marine
Board estimated the blue biotechnology global market as standing in the region of
€2.8 billion in 2010, while forecasting annual growth between 5 and 12%
(Querellou et al, 2010). It is not within the scope of this thesis to examine all the
29
potential avenues of growth of this industry, so a selection has been made of some of
the more significant product research and development areas.
A biorefinery approach to the extraction of products from seaweeds and other
marine organisms (sponges, molluscs, sea worms, bacteria and fungi) is thought to
hold the most significant potential for business and industry, through a fractionation
of processes for multiple end products (Langeveld, 2012:111-‐130). Core to research
and development in the field, biorefineries are still being designed by metabolic flux
modelling and tested at pilot scales. One of the core objectives of SEAFARM is for an
interdisciplinary collaboration across different Swedish universities to produce
such a pilot biorefinery system.
In terms of end products, it is hoped that a wide range will be derivable while
wastes are expected to contribute toward biomass feedstocks or soil additives. A
few existing products include animal feed and omega 3 supplements, hydrating and
anti ageing creams from Laminaria species. A total of 4900 patents associated with
genes of marine organisms had been filed by 2010 (Submariner, 2012:128). A host
of innovative products are being developed, trialled, licensed and will soon be
available to the public. Below, table 3 shows some examples of existing phyco-‐
supplements and their associated market values, to give a basic idea of the value of
this growing industrial sector.
Table 3 – Description and approximate values of typical phyco-‐supplements Product Description Market value Animal Feed Available as pellets, liquid (for dilution in drinking water),
or flakes, the essential nutrients in algae make these increasingly sought after, particularly by equestrian breeders, but also in industry.
$10-‐50 per kg
Plant Feed Also available in a range of strengths and forms (liquid, pellets, powder, etc)
$2-‐25 for 100grams
A Vogel VegOmega 3
A vegetarian alternative to fish-‐oil based omega 3 tablets, Eucheuma genus seaweeds
$29 for 60 tablets
Cellumend cellulite
Cellulite nodule removal and prevention cream, made from Liporeductyl, a patented molecule found in
$74.99 for 125ml
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cream Laminaria digitata. Clinical trials have proven it to be one of the most effective cellulite treatments available to date.
Seagreens Food Capsules
Certified as organic, vegan and sustainably wild harvested, these clinically trialled capsules are reputed to be one of the best dietary supplements available for humans.
$25 for 60 tablets
3.1.3.4. Marine biomass feedstock for biofuels
The race to find a viable replacement for hydrocarbons is well underway. Initially
produced to mix with fuels thus lowering costs and acting as a buffer to rapid fossil
fuel price fluctuations, biofuels have been on the rise since the 80s and are widely
accepted as a ‘green’ or carbon neutral source of energy (UNCTAD, 2008). Large-‐
scale biofuel feedstock sourcing, however, has resulted in much controversy
through unforeseen knock-‐on effects, such as land grabbing and deforestation to
make way for feedstock cultivations like sugar cane, jatropha, rapeseed and oil
palms (GRAIN, 2013).
Marine biomass has emerged as an alternative feedstock with distinct advantages
over their terrestrial counterparts (Rodolfi et al., 2009; Wegeberg and Felby, 2010):
algae are richer in energy (lipids, starch) than terrestrial alternatives, while also
having a low lignin content, facilitating digestion (Schenk et al., 2008; Sialve et al.,
2009); they are by far the fastest growing potential feedstock source (Muñoz et al.,
2004); their role in ecosystems is to lock up carbon dioxide and filter water (strip
nutrients), thus holding the potential to act as geoengineering agents, perhaps
reversing eutrophication or slowing the rise in atmospheric CO2 if cultivated on a
large enough scale (Hernandez et al., 2005; Chopin, 2006); they do not compete with
arable, wild or protected land; they do not add to fresh water stress; and perhaps
most importantly, the supply chain technology is rapidly approaching a profitable
state, most notably anaerobic digestion to biogas (Bruton et al 2009; Dave et al
2013).
31
As the notorious J. Craig Venter said following his controversial finalisation of the
first synthetic genome: “Whoever produces abundant biofuels could end up making
more than just big bucks – they will make history… the companies, the countries,
that succeed in this will be the economic winners of the next age to the same extent
that the oil rich nations are today” (Synthetic Genomics, Inc., 20 April 2009; quoted
in ETC Group 2010). Marine biomass brings this opportunity to all countries with a
coastline; it is an alternative to land-‐based fuel dependence, offering solutions to
better manage our oceans while generating food, employment, sustainable products,
local economies, and a new ‘green growth’ sector.
Indeed there is huge potential for a marine-‐centric bioeconomy and marine
feedstocks, however few trials have been conducted and none at all at a commercial
scale. It has been suggested that with the technologies currently in hand, the cost of
cultivation needs to be reduced by a factor of four or five for operations to break
even and become viable and financially attractive to investors (Bruton et al., 2009).
Some key challenges have been identified and attempts to overcome them are being
undertaken.
Once such attempt is the BioMara project (2009-‐2012) coordinated by SAMS in
Scotland. It was amongst the first major European funded marine biofuel research
programs. Developed as a preliminary investigation to answer some key questions
to help develop a Scottish/Irish marine biofuel economy, so far, this project is the
closest we have come to achieving commercial scale trials for biogas production.
Some recently published reports shed some light on these techno-‐economic issues,
the findings of which are summarised hereafter.
Dave et al. (2013) conducted a mass-‐energy balance pilot investigation in a selected
Anaerobic Digester (AD), modelling the chemical processes using the ECLIPSE
software. The biogas from the selected AD of 1.6 MWth (macroalgae feed rate of 8.64
dry tonnes per day) was burned in a combined heat and power plant generating 237
kWenet of electricity and 367kWeth of heat. Each tonne of dry macroalgae feedstock
32
was valued at €50, including cultivation, pretreatment and transport costs. The
resulting Break-‐even Electricity Selling Price (BESP) was in the region of 120
€/MWh over a 17 year payback period. This was calculated using cost data, techno-‐
economic elements of the ECLIPSE software (material costs, insurance, etc), an
assumed heat selling price of 20 €/MWh and finally, a digestate cost of €7.5/tonne.
The estimated accuracy of the cost estimation is ±30%, given the variability of all
the component factors. (Dave et al., 2013)
When comparing the BESP for this pilot study to other electricity cost prices, it is
clear that the technology is indeed approaching a state of profitability. In the UK
where the study was conducted, the average cost of 1MWh at a consumer level
according to the BERR averages at £151.30 (Confused about energy, online), which
is equivalent to €177. In context with the variation of ±30% from the estimated 120
€/MWh BESP, there would be almost no profits to make the proposed scheme a
viable business enterprise, however by lowering costs, scaling up and achieving
economies of scale, the potential is there for profits to be made. (Dave et al., 2013)
The calculations for BESP in Sweden however would yield very different results
reflecting the generally higher costs there, so a BESP in the UK is not comparable to
the same exact project in Sweden. Nevertheless, table 4 below shows the electricity
prices in Sweden, arranged as they are into categories according to annual
consumption.
Table 4 – Statistiska centralbyrån energy prices for natural gas and electricity
(SEK/MWh). Source: SCB (2013)
Consumption Categories (MWh/year)
<1 1 -‐ <2.5 2.5 -‐ <5 5 -‐ <15 >15
2007 January to June 2500 1450 1440 1280 1140 July to December 2700 1610 1500 1360 1220
2008 January-‐June 2690 1760 1590 1390 1270
33
January to June 2930 1920 1720 1490 1360
2009 January-‐June 2770 1950 1740 1490 1400 January to June 2850 1890 1710 1480 1350
2010 January-‐June 3370 1950 1800 1560 1430 January to June 3090 1970 1820 1580 1430
2011 January-‐June 3250 2040 1870 1610 1460 January to June 3090 2030 1860 1610 1440
2012 January-‐June 3130 1970 1800 1510 1360 January to June 3080 1930 1780 1520 1360
2007-‐2012
Total Average 2954 1873 1719 1490 1352 Total Average (€) 343 217 199 173 157
As you can see from the table above, the average cost of 1MWh is on the rise, having
increased on average (in all categories) by 23% over 5 years, a trend which is
reflected throughout Europe as governments and companies attempt to move
toward sustainable energy generation.
As already discussed, it would be inaccurate to make a direct transposition of the UK
developed BESP (120 €/MWh) to the case in Sweden, however for the sake of this
report it shall be considered nonetheless, with a pinch of salt. In essence what the
report findings indicate is that an exact copy of the project by Dave et al. (2013)
would be a profitable venture, providing electricity at approximately 60-‐80% of the
retail price of the least expensive price bracket and 25-‐45% of the most expensive,
leading to interesting returns and a theoretically much lower BESP in Sweden.
Of course the UK BESP being applied to the Swedish market warps the situation and
an equivalent pilot study in Sweden would be necessary to determine the profit
potential of such a plant. Other studies have shown similar results however the
costs of cultivation, AD plants, materials, labour and insurance amongst many other
factors can vary immensely from place to place, leading to very different results and
a high degree of uncertainty. In essence other studies have found that there is
potential to make profits through such ventures, however at the moment the risks
34
are too high and the profit margins are too low and unclear (Bruton et al., 2009;
CREW, 2012).
Another important note from the above pilot study conducted by Dave et al. (2013)
is that the biogas generated in this study is converted directly into electricity and
heat, as opposed to being sold directly as biogas. However the latter option, selling
the biogas directly, would make it very expensive and non-‐price competitive with
natural gas, which is considerably cheaper. Over the coming years however, as the
AD processes are optimised and cultivation techniques become more automated
and cost effective, it could be expected that overall costs will drop to a point where
this direct sale of biogas may become viable.
3.2. AQUACULTURE
Everyday 200’000 new people are brought into this world quadrupling population
over the last century while the most conservative estimates forecast a continued
increase to 9.2 billion by 2050, and further beyond that (UN Population Division,
2007). There is no doubt that this huge population growth is now irreversibly
affecting the environment, particularly oceans.
Over 1 billion people depend on global fish stocks for their livelihoods and as a
principle source of protein (FAO, 2003) – and the depletion of these stocks is
amounting to trepidation amongst world leaders who are looking into new ideas on
how to manage our oceans long-‐term, while feeding a growing population and
supplying it with clean energy. Just like our hunter-‐gatherer ancestors settled and
developed agriculture to raise the carrying capacity of the land thousands of years
ago -‐ today we face the same challenge with our oceans.
It is easy to confuse the aquaculture of fish and seaweeds, given the same word
portrays both. In this section, first the aquaculture of fish will be presented on a
35
global scale, and then the aquaculture of seaweeds will be explored as a source of
food and energy. Thereafter, the emerging field of Integrated Multi-‐Trophic
Aquaculture will be presented, and it will be concluded that single trophic
aquacultures are necessarily a thing of the past and that sustainable aquaculture can
only come from meticulously designed multi-‐trophic aquaculture.
3.2.1. Fish aquaculture
Typical aquacultures are undertaken as monocultures, with a single or sometimes
several species being cultivated in ponds inland or off-‐/nearshore sheltered areas. It
is also commonly known as intensive fed aquaculture, shellfish or finfish
aquaculture. Initially, very little research was carried out on the short and long-‐term
effects of introducing the cultivation of a single species in an ecosystem, mainly
because there was so much profit to be made that the focus was on expansion of
farming practises. Take salmon production for instance; an explosive shift took
place between 1990 and 1991, as global salmon production grew from about 7’000
tons to a little over 325’000 tonnes -‐ an increase of some 4,600% (Weber, 1997:4).
In 2010 it was estimated that the value of the global aquaculture industry was in the
region of USD 119.4 billion, producing an estimated 59.9 million metric tons of fish,
crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic animals (FAO, 2010).
The environmental implications of the industry have only recently become subject
of major studies at a global level. Many different techniques have been developed,
ranging from dive surveys to sediment chemistry, with four major areas of concern
found to be recurrent throughout these studies. They relate primarily to escapes
from farming pens, wastes and eutrophication therefrom, the use of drugs and
chemicals, and of effects on other species such as predatory birds or seals that
attempt to gain access to farming pens (Carroll et al., 2003). There is great variation
however in results from one inquiry to the next, particularly amongst different
methods to investigate the use of chemicals and drugs, as well as the impacts from
36
waste. Some studies find almost no impacts at a distance of 15m, due to dilution of
wastes or chemicals (Brown, Gowen & McLusky, 1987), while other more precise
experiments on benthic composition and sediment chemistry can identify impacts
over 150m away (Klaoudatos et al., 2006). Overall however, the greatest concern
lies in the wastes and eutrophication, and the resultant anoxic environment in close
proximity to farming pens as well as knock on effects therefrom (Karakassis et al.,
1998).
It is worth noting that of all the sectors of food production in the world adapting to
cater for a growing population, aquaculture is the fastest growing with an average
growth rate of 6.9% per annum (FAO, 2005). In 2006 aquaculture equalled wild
fisheries in the world’s fish supply, however these growth rates are beginning to
slow down, partially from growing public concern with regards to environmental
impacts, genetically modified organisms, fish quality and sanitary issues (FAO,
2005). Another major reason for decreasing growth rates is that these fish
aquaculture are usually for top predators (for instance salmon, cod, haddock or
trout), and the feed for these carnivorous fish usually comes from wild fishery
captures. Thus wild fish are captured in the order of 10 tonnes per ton of
carnivorous cultured fish they are fed to (Chopin et al., 2001), meaning this
feedback loop increases the demand and our dependence on wild fish captures,
rather than developing a replacement for it (Folke et al., 1998). Needless to say the
fish aquaculture industry needs to evolve to a higher state of being, more in tune
with the aquatic environment, the reality of withering global fish stocks and public
concerns.
Thus far aquaculture of marine animals has been considered but an essential part,
more relevant to this study, is still missing: the cultivation of aquatic plants. In the
IMTA section 3.3 later in the literature review, recent research will be presented to
demonstrate how the aforementioned environmental impacts of fish aquaculture
can be mitigated. But first the focus will turn to the cultivation of seaweeds.
37
3.2.2. Seaweed aquaculture
It is estimated that the value of the global seaweed industry lies in the region
between US$ 5.5-‐6 billion per annum (FAO 2003). Seaweeds have been cultivated
for millennia in Asia, notably in China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Korea and Japan
where macroalgae have long been a pillar of traditional food staples. However in
recent years production has begun to increase rapidly outside of Asia, most notably
in Norway, Chile, Russia, Ireland, Mexico, the UK and France (Roesijadi et al. 2010).
Why this sudden change? There are several reasons, but perhaps most prominent is
the search for techniques to sustainably cultivate marine biomass for biofuel
production, to reduce stresses on available arable land.
The high levels of interest in biofuels comes from the fact that they are, in theory at
least, carbon neutral: the CO2 emitted in combustion of a biofuel is initially
sequestered by photosynthesis, thus recycling the carbon. Furthermore biofuels are
chemically very similar to fossil fuels, and in many instances can quite simply
replace fuels used today, neither requiring considerable infrastructural upgrades
nor new technologies. However surrendering vast swathes of arable land to grow
energy crops seems counterproductive particularly given the growing demand for
food, and that many of these crops are grown with petroleum-‐based fertilisers.
Increasingly this trend is also having unforeseen knock on effects, for instance land-‐
grabbing in Africa (Zoomers, 2010).
Marine environments motion answers to many of these problems, offering the
medium in which to grow energy rich aquatic biomass, ideal substitutes of land
based energy crops, without competing for arable land. Further still, research shows
that combined fish and seaweed aquaculture could take over the global market
share of wild fisheries, providing price competitive and potentially environmentally
positive culture systems (Chopin et al., 2001; Ridler et al., 2007; Chopin, 2011). This
will be presented in the later section on IMTA. In a Baltic context, however, algal and
38
finfish aquaculture has been carried out in the Baltic region for decades, but the
potential is there for a vast increase in capacity, not just to produce food but also to
participate toward a smörgåsbord of sustainable energy sources and bio-‐based
products (Blidberg and Gröndahl, 2012).
Very little evidence has been gathered in academia regarding the environmental
impacts of off-‐ or nearshore production of macroalgae on a large scale. The only
major concerns that have been raised, consider potential impacts on benthic
ecosystems during the installation of anchors of cultivation systems, and shading
impacts of an operational aquaculture. In fact, much research suggests quite the
opposite. Algae are seen as highly environmentally positive through their ecological
role as nutrient biofilters. As long as seaweeds are removed from water when
mature (i.e. they are not left to sink and decay), pollutants are fixed in the biomass
and removed from the water, including phosphorus, nitrogen, ammonia and several
heavy metal groups, depending on the algae species in question (Chopin, 2006;
Abreu et al., 2011; Ferreira et al., 2012). Potential has even been accredited to algae
as a relatively safe agent for use in geoengineering to reverse eutrophication (Fox
and Chapman, 2011), however in practise, this remains relatively undocumented
other than one trial conducted in 2012 (Marshall, 2012).
3.3. IMTA: INTEGRATED MULTI-‐TROPHIC AQUACULTURE
Despite being the fastest growing sector of food production, the rate of growth of
fish aquaculture has begun to decline in the face of growing public and
environmental concerns (FAO, 2010). The move from traditional aquaculture
toward IMTA is quite simply a necessary evolution, as the latter holistically
addresses the formers’ shortcomings. It is the birth child of our increasing
knowledge of nutrient flows, bad cultivation practises, the natural world and
mounting environmental concerns. In IMTA, the fish-‐excreted ammonia, phosphates
and CO2 are assimilated into biomass by seaweeds and shellfish (Abreu et al., 2009),
39
mitigating the impacts of an otherwise direct discharge of nutrients into the
environment.
In the words of Thierry Chopin, one of the greatest advocates of IMTA, past
president of Aquaculture Association of Canada and current president of the
International Seaweed Association: “Such a balanced ecosystem approach provides
nutrient bioremediation capability, mutual benefits to the co-‐cultured organisms,
economic diversification by producing other value-‐added marine crops, and
increased profitability per cultivation unit for the aquaculture industry” (Chopin et
al., 2001). This section aims to explore such claims first by exploring how IMTAs
have come about, then by reviewing experiments that attempt to quantify the
benefits of IMTAs, and finally by interviewing experts in the field.
3.3.1. Defining IMTA
Inherent to the concept of IMTA is the key word ‘trophic’. Derived from the Greek
word trophē, meaning food or feeding, trophic levels are used to describe an
organism’s position in a food chain. Trophic levels are now used to describe a series
of key ecological processes within ecosystems, namely the transfer of energy in the
food chain and the cycling of nutrients between different species types. Figure 3
below is a typical marine trophic pyramid, which illustrates the transfer and loss of
energy as it passes from primary producers (photosynthetic organisms) to primary
consumers (herbivores), to the secondary, tertiary and finally, to top consumers
(carnivores). The pyramidal shape helps to visualise the loss of energy between
each trophic level due to the imperfect nature of digestion, which usually converts a
mere 10% of consumed energy into body mass (Duxbury and Duxbury, 1994). As
such, where 10’000 units of energy are available from the sun, phytoplankton are
only able to convert 10% into 1000 units of energy available for primary
consumption by herbivorous zooplankton. Likewise, each step of consumption
converts about 10% of energy into transferable energy (body mass) until we reach
40
the top predators. This is often also reflected in terms of population numbers, not
just body mass. The top trophic levels often have a lower population number than
lower trophic levels.
Figure 3 – Pyramid of trophic levels for a marine environment. Source:
Duxbury and Duxbury (1994)
Thus the current model of industrial aquaculture has created an imbalance in the
natural trophic ordering in our oceans. Consumers tend to favour species of top
consumers (salmon, tuna, cod, etc.) which are mass-‐produced in cages consume vast
amounts of feed (usually a combination of harvested fish stocks, chicken, and other
cheap sources of protein and supplements). So by multiplying the effluents from the
top consumers, in other words, by increasing the importance of the red line on the
left of Figure 3, the environmental load of the effluents becomes so great it degrades
local water quality, and if this is not carried away by currents and diluted, it can
result in severe eutrophication. This also raises questions about the long-‐term
effects of dilution of such effluents, particularly given that such aquacultures already
proliferate globally on a huge scale.
IMTA attempts to rebalance the equation, by integrating multiple trophic levels into
single cultivations. If the design process is well executed, with careful quantification
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41
of nutrient flows, and calculated positioning to maximise inter-‐species synergies,
the result is an engineered ecosystem designed to have balanced nutrient flows and
trophic populations, thus minimising the environmental load (see Figure 4). Such an
engineered ecosystem, it turns out, hold a number of advantages over traditional
aquaculture techniques. In section 3.3.3, some of these synergies are demonstrated
through the reviews of some papers, the full analysis of which can be found in
Appendix B.
Figure 4 – Diagram illustrating an IMTA, featuring finfish, shellfish, seaweeds and invertebrates. Source: Diana et al. (2013) In the interview with Greg Reid, he elegantly summarised that amongst IMTA
researchers and in the industry, it is generally accepted that there are three types of
IMTA. In the first instance, an existing finfish aquaculture is transformed into an
IMTA by the integration of other trophic levels to reduce the environmental loading
from the initial mono-‐trophic finfish cultivation, thus diversifying production and
improving revenue (Ridler et al., 2007). This is known as the add on approach. In the
second instance, the IMTA is designed from scratch in a virgin or disused
environment, allowing full control and flexibility over the plans. This is known as
the custom designed IMTA. The third and final type of IMTA comes into existence
42
through trial and error, with the developers selecting methods that provide the
greatest yields and highest quality produce. It has been documented and applied
over four millennia ago in China and through the ages since: this style is known as
an incidental IMTA and is the subject of the next section.
3.3.2. Ancient Origins
Aquaculture in all its forms has been happening for centuries. Over the course of
time, there is no doubt that combinations of cultures have been incidentally
stumbled across and identified as effective design recipes (Troell et al., 2003). The
reasoning behind them however differs very much from today: in the past,
polycultures sought to satisfy a complex mix of social pressures, local supply and
demand, and lack of resource availability (Ruddle and Zhong, 1988); today IMTA is
conceptually driven by bioremediation and profit potential. The wisdom integral to
traditional farming techniques has been accumulated over generations; IMTA is
quite simply a new name for an old trick, with specific emphasis on using species of
different trophic levels while attempting to quantify and balance the whole in terms
of nutrient flows (Chopin, 2013).
The earliest written record of the integration of multiple species in aquacultures is
accounted in the You Hou Bin document, published by the ancient Han Dynasty of
China in the period between 2200-‐2100 BC. Recommended methods (pen, cove and
cage systems) and their benefits are presented notably for the co-‐cultivation of fish
with aquatic plants and sea vegetables (Costa-‐Pierce, 2008:10). Historical evidence
however suggests that such multi-‐species aquacultures are predated by up to a
millennia by the Etruscans, who practised active coastal management with sluice-‐
like structures to enclose lagoons, thereafter conducting multi-‐species aquacultures
at those sites (Costa-‐Pierce, 2008:15). Nonetheless it is widely accepted that the
Chinese were the first to recognise and document synergies in multi-‐species
cultivations.
43
In the period of 2000-‐1000 BC, successive dynasties would rewrite these
documents, building on previous knowledge. The incorporation of carp, mulberry
trees and rice paddies became a common example of practise around 1100, after the
publication of Lin Biao Lu Yi (The Curious of Ling Biao Region) by Liu Xun which
elaborated on the theory of mutualism in rice-‐fish cultures and the integration of
fruit production (Costa-‐Pierce, 2008:10; Chopin, 2013). Increasingly detailed
accounts would continue to be published for many hundreds of years, culminating
with a milestone act around AD 618, when the common carp was banned from
cultivation due to its resemblance in Chinese to the then Emperor’s name – Li. As a
result species diversification ensued and soon cultivation moved on to combine
multiple species of carp and their integration with various sea vegetables and
plants, as adapted from neighbouring Vietnamese practises (Chevy and Lemasson,
1937). Ancient Egypt is also known to have practised polycultures as early as 1550
BC under the New Kingdom, with Tilapia grown in in integrated agriculture-‐
aquaculture drainable ponds (Chopin, 2013).
Chopin (2013) recounts a royal IMTA practised at the ‘Étang aux Carpes’ (still active
today) at the Château de Fontainebleau, as a result of instructions by the French
King Henry IV who insisted that the castle should be self-‐sufficient. In the 1970s,
John Ryther rekindled interest in IMTA and is considered by Chopin as the
grandfather of IMTA based on his work “integrated waste-‐recycling marine
polycultures systems.” This work developed prototype biofilter mechanisms using
microalgae to strip excess nutrients from wastewater, thereafter feeding the
microalgae to oysters, clams and other bivalves molluscs. In turn, worms,
amphipods, lobsters and other small invertebrates of commercial value feed upon
the wastes from the shellfish. Finally, Ryther introduced various species of Red
Algae to remove any other excess nutrients, resulting in a final effluent virtually free
of inorganic nitrogen, thus not contributing to eutrophication or pollution (Ryther et
al., 1975).
44
The term Integrated Multi-‐Trophic Aquaculture was coined some thirty years later
at a workshop in 2004: Thierry Chopin, Jack Taylor, Stephen Cross and other
research leaders of ‘eco-‐friendly’ aquaculture finally agreed that what they were
talking about was in fact the integration of species across different trophic levels,
thus mimicking natural ecosystem flows yet adapting them for harvestable
productivity. As summarised by Chopin: “It [Ryther’s 1975 paper] was followed by
three productive decades on what has been variously called polyculture, integrated
mariculture or aquaculture, ecologically engineered aquaculture and ecological
aquaculture. Understanding the need to harmonize all these names, the author
[Chopin] and Jack Taylor combined integrated aquaculture and multi-‐trophic
aquaculture into the term integrated multi-‐trophic aquaculture in 2004.” (Chopin,
2003:16)
Returning to the initial aim of this thesis, specifically the search for the sustainable
cultivation of seaweeds, it would seem that IMTAs whether incidental, custom
designed or added on have demonstrated their sustainability quality, by standing the
test of time.
3.3.3. Quantifying IMTA Synergies
To develop pathways for an economically viable aquaculture on the west coast of
Sweden, it is important to explore the potential benefits of potentially basing the
design of the cultivation on IMTA principles. This section aims to scrutinise four
reports and experiments that have aimed to quantify the synergies and demonstrate
benefits of IMTA systems, in view of supporting the development of scenario TWO
in the latter part of the thesis. For full details on these experiments, see Appendix B.
The first report predates the coining of the term IMTA and was carried out by Troell
et al. (1997) in the Metri bay of Chile, between January and March 1995, as a follow
up to the report by Buschmann et al. (1994). The report investigated growth rates of
45
blue mussels and Gracilaria chilensis 10m away from salmon cages, compared to a
site 150m away and a reference site 1km away. Each site had an identical layout,
with close to identical environmental conditions and currents. Growth rates were
measured regularly over a period of three months, and the results concluded that
growth rates were 20-‐40% higher at the site that was 10m away from the salmon
cages, while growth rates at 150m and 1km distance were almost identical. It was
found that the effluents from the salmon cages acted as fertilisers for the seaweed
and mussels growing 10m away. This inter-‐trophic fertilisation has been further
documented in other reports since then. In the interview with Stephen Cross, he
confirmed that experiments he has taken part in had accurately measured growth
rate improvements of up to 50%. (Troell et al., 1997)
The second chosen report identifies another synergy that emerges from the
integration of multiple trophic levels in an aquaculture: that is the improved
resilience to disease and pests. Molloy et al. (2011) set out on an experiment, based
on the hypothesis that blue mussels ingest certain salmon pests and diseases,
notably the sea louse, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, and therefore could act as biological
control agents in cultivations. Undertaken laboratory conditions the hypothesis was
confirmed. A follow up study is being undertaken in the Bay of Fundy to explore this
potential in open waters, where the pesticide resistant strains of sea louse are
already threatening vast numbers of salmon aquacultures. Different three-‐
dimensional configurations will be developed, and if proven successful, mussel long-‐
line cultivations could be introduced as a biological control agent, protecting salmon
crops while adding potential value to those cultivations.
This same location, the Bay of Fundy, has also been subject of other IMTA related
studies. A ten-‐year economic feasibility model was developed by Ridler et al. (2007)
to understand the impact of upgrading a 500’000 smolt salmon farm to an IMTA.
Included in this model was the costs of introducing the blue mussel and seaweed
long-‐line upgrades, the operation and maintenance costs of each system and their
corresponding revenues. Three scenarios, a best, a worst and an intermediate one
46
were established according to losses and to risks. The results from the running of
the model found that no matter which scenario was selected, the subsidiary incomes
from mussels and seaweed buffered the effects of salmon losses, while also paying
for themselves within the ten-‐year period. Principally the results show that one bad
salmon harvest can suffocate profits of a salmon monoculture over a ten-‐year
period, whereas IMTA provides the diversity of economy to maintain a positive
balance sheet and sustain the business. A subsequent re-‐run of the model was
thereafter carried out, this time incorporating market risks subjected in the form of
an immediate 12% decrease in salmon market value carried over a ten-‐year run,
mimicking a similar price drop in the 1980s (Whitemarsh et al., 2006). Similar to the
first results, the IMTA coped better yielding a profit margin of 3.2% compared to
0.3% for the salmon monoculture. (Ridler et al., 2007)
Similar results have been found in studies of land-‐based IMTAs. In a study by Nobre
et al. (2010), two schemes for IMTA developments were once again compared to a
monoculture, this time of abalone, with specific aim to compare the economics of
the two systems while also monitoring the changes in the state of ecosystems during
the study period. The authors based the methodology on a recent modification of
the DPSIR framework, the Differential Drivers-‐Pressures-‐State-‐Impact-‐Response
(ΔDPSIR) proposed by Nobre (2009) to support sustainable coastal management
decision makers. The results of the study showed first and foremost that the IMTA
scemes paid for themselves within the first financial year, and despite increasing
labour costs, they also increased overall operational profit. Secondly the IMTA
schemes reduced discharges of nitrogen and phosphorus by 44% and 23%
respectively, while also reducing net CO2 emissions. “The quantified environmental
externalities [of these reductions] corresponded to an overall economic benefit to
the environment and thus to the public, of about 0.9 million and 2.3 million USD
year-‐1 upon shifting the farm practice from abalone monoculture (scheme 1) to the
IMTA schemes 2 and 3, respectively” (Nobre et al. 2010:123).
47
Some reports have focused solely on this bioremediation capability of seaweeds.
Huo et al. (2012) monitored the nutrient reduction efficiency of Gracilaria verrucosa
when co-‐cultured with Pseudosciaena crocea in the coastal waters of Xiangshan
harbour in the East China Sea. “The maximum reduction efficiency of PO4–P, NO2–N,
NH4–N and NO3–N was 58%, 48%, 61% and 47%, respectively” (Huo et al.,
2012:99). It was thus found that for a balanced system in term of nutrient discharge
and uptake, one cage of P. crocea required a cultivation area of 144.95m2 of G.
verrucosa, or 1kg to 7.27kg respectively. The bioremediation capability of this
particular gracilaria species was confirmed in this study.
The above five reports summarised in this section were selected as convincing
examples of the potential of well-‐designed and executed IMTAs, in five very
different areas. The first demonstrated the inter-‐trophic fertilisation between
species (Troell et al., 1997). The second identified that IMTAs might be more pest
and disease resistant than their counterparts (Molloy et al., 2011). The third
modelled an economic assessment of IMTA versus a monoculture, finding that the
former strengthened the economic resilience by diversifying products while also
paying for itself and increasing returns (Ridler et al., 2007). The fourth similarly
reported the benefits to a monoculture’s economy through upgrading to IMTA style
operations, but it also assigned a value of between US$0.9-‐2.3 million for the
environmental externalities reduced as a result of the change to IMTA (Nobre et al.,
2010). The fifth and final report in this section confirmed the open sea
bioremediation capabilities of Gracilaria verrucosa, while also demonstrating a
procedure to balance out bioremediation with effluent output, to create an
environmentally neutral (in terms of nutrients) open sea cultivation (Huo et al.,
2012).
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4. CASE STUDY: BIOMARA
BioMara was a joint UK-‐Irish, €6 million four year research project led by a team
from SAMS [Scottish Association for Marine Sciences] from 2009 to 2012, to explore
the feasibility of yielding third generation biofuels from marine biomass. The idea
came about in reaction to the EU Parliament setting the target for all members to
achieve at least 10% transport fuels from sustainable sources by 2020 (Council
Directive 2009/28/EC). Terrestrial crops for biofuels are neither a viable nor
sustainable option for Scotland given the lack of suitable agricultural land, thus to
achieve the goal set by the EU, it was decided to look to the oceans for answers.
The aim was to explore all avenues of biofuel generation from both seaweed and
microalgae in Scotland, and accordingly the project developed four core objectives.
The first was to identify the most appropriate species of seaweed and cultivation
techniques for bioethanol and biogas generation. The second was to identify some
oil rich microalgae in view of extracting biodiesel (irrelevant to this thesis and will
not be elaborated). Third was an evaluation of the environmental impacts of algal
cultivation and harvesting of natural stocks. And finally to achieve a holistic
perspective on the final objective, close collaboration with and the education of
stakeholders was seen as essential in order to evaluate the technological and socio-‐
economic practicalities of producing competitive and sustainable biofuels from
marine sources.
This case study aims to provide the reader with an overview of the journey
undertaken by the research collaboration of BioMara, their major findings and how
these should help pave an economically viable pathway for SEAFARM. The case
study attempts to answer the following questions
-‐ What were the major findings? -‐ What were the biggest encumbrances of the project? -‐ What conclusions can be drawn from BioMara to serve SEAFARM research?
49
4.1. KEY FINDINGS
In the time leading to the BioMara official start date expectations were running high.
It had been hoped that the project would remove the last major hurdles obstructing
the development of a viable algae-‐based economy, paving the way for a new
beginning for the depressed ‘cross-‐border area’ between Ireland, southwestern
Scotland and Northern Ireland. Such hopes are embodied by the role of Ian
Macfarlane, chair of the Stakeholder Group whose role in BioMara was to
disseminate results through industry, raise the profile of research activities
internationally and help nurture research-‐industry partnerships. But as promising
as the algae for biofuels would appear in theory, the project would reveal new
questions requiring further research in seaweed pre-‐treatment, co-‐digestion and
storage, as well as practical encumbrances of cultivation site licenses, which would
need to be overcome before a profitable algal biofuel industry could really take-‐off.
Hereafter are presented the key findings, as summarised in the “Celebrating
BioMara 2009-‐2012” report by SAMS (2012).
4.1.1. Identifying Seaweeds for Biofuel Conversion
Primarily the focus of the research was on brown seaweeds, also known as kelps,
given their relatively high-‐energy contents and thus biofuel yield potential when
compared to other species. Both production processes – bioethanol by fermentation
and biogas by anaerobic digestion – were core to the research objectives.
Fermentation of biomass is carried out by micro-‐organisms that convert sugars into
alcohols, a process refined over hundreds of years by humans to produce a range of
alcoholic beverages, or more recently, fuels. However seaweeds are structurally
very different from their terrestrial counterparts, so existing saccharification
enzymes and chemicals are ineffective, expensive and produce toxic compounds.
Further research is needed to identify higher yielding and more cost effective
50
methods, and in comparative terms, it was considered that fermentation was less
cost-‐effective and less energy-‐yielding that anaerobic digestion. The other major
finding relating to fermentation was that, like all plants, the seasons affect cellular
chemical composition. The autumn was identified as the time when sugar content
peaks and thus the most suitable time for harvesting for fermentation. Each species
of seaweed however have slightly differing peak times for sugar content, and also
differ from year to year, so multiple species cultivations should prolong the season
and improve yields.
Pilot tests for anaerobic digestion were carried out and it was identified that the
higher yields can be achieved through a mixture of different seaweeds and added
substrates such as sheep gut rumen and faeces from seaweed eating sheep, as well
as by separating the acidogenic and hydrolytic phases of digestion. Similarly to the
research into fermentation, the ideal harvesting time was also identified as the
Autumn, and preferred pre-‐treatment methods included fresh mincing followed by
freeze drying or air drying, prior to digestion. Vanegas and Bartlett (2013) found
that when co-‐digested with bovine slurry at 35°C in incubators of 150ml and
1000ml, of the common Irish sea kelps, the highest methane yields were obtained
from Saccharina latissima (335ml gVolatile Solids-‐1), followed by Saccharina polyschides
(255ml gSV-‐1) and Laminaria digitata (246ml gSV-‐1).
4.1.2. Harvesting Beach-‐Cast Seaweeds
Prior to BioMara, a serious potential candidate source of algal biomass was beach-‐
cast seaweeds -‐ torn from their footholds usually during storms, these are seaweeds
that are carried by waves and cast at the high tide mark along beaches. Large storms
off the coast of Scotland regularly bring in great volumes of seaweeds, which then
decompose along beaches. The theory was that rather than decomposing on
beaches, these vast algal beds could be harvested and used as feedstock.
51
A model was developed by PhD student Kyla Orr (SAMS), which would shed light on
the ecological role of beach cast seaweeds in the region, particularly in terms of
their effects on the local food web, benthic communities, migrating birds and
invertebrate populations. In essence the beach-‐cast seaweeds were found to be the
habitat for a range of organisms upon which migrating birds feed, such as beetles
and flies, thus the model predicted impacts on their population numbers growing in
severity with increased harvesting. Furthermore, the decomposed seaweeds were
found to fertilise and increase productivity of near shore ecosystems, supporting
benthic communities with a slow-‐release source of nutrients. The model indicated,
with a medium degree of certainty, that to minimise environmental impacts on
migrating and local birds, as well as the local ecosystems, no more than 10% of
beach-‐cast seaweed should be harvested in each designated area, and that this
harvesting could only happen every second year, allowing the local ecosystems and
communities time to recover. Further research on beach-‐cast seaweeds also
suggested that they were neither reliable nor a high quality feedstock, and that
overall it would be best to harvest specially cultivated species during the autumn,
when they contain highest densities of fermentable or anaerobically digestible
compounds. (SAMS, 2012)
4.1.3. Technological and Socio-‐Economic Impacts of Biofuel Production from
Marine Biomass
A fundamental part of the BioMara project was to investigate the techno-‐ and socio-‐
economic impacts of the potential seaweed-‐biofuel industry. At a local level, the
potential of the industry is very positive, supplying energy and creating jobs and
revenues in an isolated region subjected to high-‐energy prices and ageing
infrastructure. Some detailed models and plans for pilot AD combined heat and
power plants were developed in an attempt to convince investors to get involved,
however these efforts were unsuccessful.
52
Overall some major hurdles to profitability were identified, notably the labour
intensive nature of seaweed cultivation, unstable annual yields and significant
investment costs. It was estimated that long-‐line systems of 14’400m could yield up
to 100 tonnes of algae, at a market price of about €50 per tonne. Electricity
therefrom was estimated to cost approximately €120 per MWh, with potential to
improve efficiency by integrating combined heat and power plants into the system.
Such systems are estimated, overall, as costing up to €3500 per KW of electricity
generation capacity – several times the cost of equivalent sustainable energy
sources, such as wind or wave power systems. Further research in the area is
needed to reduce process and infrastructural costs, optimise efficiencies for marine
biomass digestion and to estimate the economies of scale that could be achieved by
scaling up production. (Dave et al., 2013)
4.2. PROJECT SETBACKS
One of the biggest obstacles to encumber the momentum of BioMara’s research was
the application process for marine licenses to cultivate algae in near-‐shore
environments. In a telephone interview with Dr Michele Stanley (05/15/2013), she
explained: “We did an Environmental Impact Assessment on the site because back
then it was suggested we were going to cultivate, but we never did. They didn’t get
licenses for a long time, and we’ve had to change sites.” Multiple applications were
filed in the early stages of the project and only recently, some three to four years
later, have licenses been acquired and pilot tests effectively begun. One of the
BioMara financiers, The Crown Estate, had planned to develop a pilot cultivation in
the Lynn of Lorn to provide samples for experiments, yet it is in the wake of
BioMara’s completion that the first few harvests will be attempted.
SAMS and some of the other BioMara research partners have recently acquired two
other licensed sites. The cultivation infrastructure was installed at the Kerrera
cultivation site in February 2013, followed two weeks later by the first seeded long
53
lines, along which macroalgae will be monitored as the grow over a period of
approximately 6 months. Harvests will begin in late summer and early autumn,
providing the old research collaborations with their first cultivation sites. In the
course of BioMara, to undertake anaerobic digestion and fermentation trials, in the
words of Dr Michele Stanley: “we had to beg, borrow and steal from all sorts of
places”, amongst which some neighbouring small mussel cultivations. After years of
unsuccessful attempts, complicated financing issues and licensing terms, the
Kerrera cultivation site is now finally up and running.
4.3. ‘PASSING THE BATON’ TO SEAFARM
In some ways, one could consider the SEAFARM research collaboration as BioMara’s
big sister, picking up research gaps where BioMara left them, while adapting to the
Swedish west coast. So what are the research gaps? What needs to be done before a
viable biogas-‐from-‐algae industry could emerge in Europe?
During the interview with Michele Stanley, she clearly communicated that the
planning for BioMara predated the emergence of biotechnology as a key player in
the development of seaweed resources. Whereas in 2008, biofuels from seaweed
were the subject of excitement and of inherent great promise, today the greatest
potential is seen in the development of new innovative products, and particularly
the fractioned biorefinery approach. These shifts in perspective are reflected in the
research agenda of SEAFARM. Beyond that, Michele also commented on the
importance of investigating marine licensing procedures, and that these can take
many more years that initially forecasted in the planning phase. Licensing should
not be taken lightly, nor should it be assumed that permission for a cultivation to be
granted on any time scale.
Published recently on the 3rd of June, the latest roadmap on the development of algal
biotechnology resources provides estimated timeframes and relative values of each
54
key development area (Schlarb-‐Ridley and Parker, 2013). After reviewing this
report, it was found that the SEAFARM objectives (FA1-‐5) fit effectively into this
framework, most notably regarding the development of the fractioned biorefinery
approach and the suggested investigation into the use of the biorefinery wastes to
develop biofuels and soil additives.
55
5. RESULTS: SEAFARM DEVELOPMENT SCENARIOS
Thus far the present report has presented a wide range of information that has
come from literature and IMTA experiment reviews, interviews, a case study of
BioMara and a field visit of the Sven Lovén Centre in Tjärnö. Hereafter the informed
discussion is engaged, with the aim of exploring three alternative scenarios for the
development of an economically viable SEAFARM.
This exploration of scenarios will have 3 constituent parts. Firstly the scenario
context will be determined by examining Kosterfjorden water quality data obtained
from SMHI, considering the range of algae-‐based products established in section
3.1.3 and some socio-‐ and techno-‐economic information from the literature review.
Secondly, the three scenarios will be designed, inspired by a combination of existing,
planned and fictional cultivations and based upon information gathered in the
literature review, experiment reviews and interviews. Thirdly the scenarios will be
applied in the Kosterfjorden context, providing an analysis of estimated revenues
from the products and anticipated growth rates. This third and final process will be
informed primarily by interviewee experience and SMHI data from the
Kosterfjorden, but also through the wide range of data collected in the literature
review and experimental reviews.
5.1. SCENARIO CONTEXT
In order to apply the three development pathway scenarios, the context in which
they are to be applied must be established. As mentioned previously, this context
has four major elements: the water conditions at the cultivation site, Kosterfjorden,
will be analysed from SMHI data; the selection of algae-‐based products undertaken
in section 3.1.3 will be assigned relative values (very high, high, medium, low, very
low) based on interview discussions and literature, to reflect estimated potential
56
revenue streams from each; the SEAFARM research objectives will be reiterated;
and finally, other socio-‐ and techno-‐economic considerations will be considered.
5.1.1. The Kosterfjorden site
The research collaboration of the SEAFARM project has yet to begin the selection
process of cultivation site, or sites. As such the Kosterfjorden site was chosen for the
purposes of this thesis due to the availability of water sample data collected by
SMHI as well as the Kosterfjorden’s proximity to the SLCMS. The SMHI data has been
collected regularly for many years and gives a historical insight of water conditions
dating back over 50 years. This water condition database includes a wide range of
parameters and nutrient levels, at a variety of depths. A selection of the 6 most
important parameters to seaweed growth was made, based on BioMara’s Final
Stakeholder Meeting report (Groom and Macfarlane, 2012), and are: salinity (PSU),
temperature (°C), and water sample content of nitrate, ammonium, phosphate and
nitrite (mgL-‐1). These 6 parameters are represented in the 4 charts here below, with
a variety of different depths to illustrate the change in values that make up
distinctive depth-‐gradients.
These charts were presented during the interviewing process to Stephen Cross and
Lars Brunner, both of which have extensive experience of seaweed cultivation, the
former on the Canadian west coast and the latter at a variety of sites in Scotland. The
purpose of this section, of sharing this information while interviewing these two
experts, was for experts to loosely evaluate the suitability of the site and identify
any potential problems that might occur in attempts to cultivate seaweeds at the
Kosterfjorden. After consideration of the charts, both experts made comments,
expressed after each chart here below.
57
CHART 1 -‐ Seasonal Fluctuations of Surface Water Temperature Gradients (°C) at the Kosterfjorden in 2012 [Depths (D) of 0, 5, 10 and 20m]. Source: SMHI (2013)
Chart 1 displays the temperature fluctuations for the year 2012, at depths of 0, 5, 10
and 20 meters. As you can see, water temperatures at the Kosterfjorden are
characterised by significant annual fluctuations from the extreme low of -‐0.7°C on
the 7th of February 2012, to a maximum of 19.1°C on the 22nd of August 2012, both
values having been recorded at a depth of 0m. The single most important trend to
take note of is that temperatures fluctuate to a greater extent at the surface and
remain more stable at depth. This is probably due to water mixing at depth and
energy transfers with the atmospheric temperature fluctuations, which are more
pronounced than that of the oceans. It is also evident that the waters generally
warm up until the peak of the summer in August, and then decline steadily until the
middle of winter in February.
Both Stephen Cross and Lars Brunner were of the opinion that these are quite
tolerable variations for seaweed and fish aquaculture. Both commented that it was
particularly positive that the surface waters at the site did not seem likely to freeze
on annual bases, however they warned that a larger data set should be used in
58
further studies considering a larger span of time, in order to identify potential long-‐
term risks associated with temperature fluctuations.
CHART 2 -‐ Seasonal Fluctuations of Surface Water Salinity Gradients (PSU) at the Kosterfjorden in 2012 [Depths (D) of 0, 5, 10 and 20m]. Source: SMHI (2013)
Chart 2 displays the salinity fluctuations for the year 2012, at depths of 0, 5, 10 and
20 meters. Several trends are observable here. First it is clear that the highest
salinity values are at lower depths, while surface waters are somewhat more diluted
by freshwater. This indicates that the highly saline Atlantic water mass is situated
below a more brackish Baltic water mass at the surface, diluted by a combined fresh
water input of rivers, lakes, surface currents and precipitation. A second observable
trend is that there is no pronounced seasonal oscillation of salinity; at each depth,
salinity remains more or less constant throughout the year. The third trend of note
is that, like for temperature, the fluctuations in salinity are more pronounced
amongst surface waters (range of almost 10 PSU, from a high of 27.6 PSU in
September to a low of 18.6 PSU in March), and become more stable with depth
(range of approximately 5 PSU, from a high of 32.9 PSU in November to a low of 27.6
PSU in March).
59
This information kindled concern in both experts. Lars Brunner was of the opinion
that the salinity levels were particularly low and would be a major limiting factor in
the metabolic growth rates of seaweed. He commented that a generally accepted
minimum is usually said to be around 15 PSU. Similarly, Stephen Cross warned
against low salinity, however he has visited successful cultivation site with even
lower salinity of surface waters. The trick, he explained, was to rig the seaweeds on
a cultivation system that can be lowered to greater depths when surface waters are
beyond the survival thresholds of the most vulnerable species. Such a system is
more costly than a fixed line system, and requires relatively advanced engineering
knowledge of such cultivation systems, however it is a challenge that has already
been overcome at other cultivation sites in Canada.
CHART 3 – Seasonal Fluctuations of Nitrate (mgL-‐1 ) and Ammonium (mgL-‐1 ) Gradients at the Kosterfjorden in 2012 [Depths (D) of 0, 5 and 10m]. Source: SMHI (2013)
CHART 4 -‐ Seasonal Fluctuations of Nitrite (mgL-‐1) and Phosphate (mgL-‐1) Gradients at the Kosterfjorden in 2012 [Depths (D) of 0, 5 and 10m]. Source: SMHI (2013)
60
Charts 3 and 4 represent the nutrient concentration gradient fluctuations for the
year 2012, at depths of 0, 5 and 10m. The major trend of note is a seasonal
oscillation of all the nutrients, which seem to increase steadily in the autumn to
high’s in the winter, and then decrease rapidly in the spring to very low or absent
levels for most of the spring and summer. The exception is perhaps ammonium,
which seems to fluctuate more readily displaying independence to the seasonal
oscillations trend of the other nutrients, most notably in the surface waters.
With regard to nutrient levels, Stephen Cross explained he had few comments to
make given that his experience lies principally in IMTA cultivations, and as such the
cultivation sites he is familiar with are not characterised by seasonal variations, but
by steady stream of nutrients from the finfish cultures. Lars Brunner on the other
hand had plenty of comments to make. According to him the nutrient levels seemed
quite tolerable, although the lows seem particularly strong as well as long lasting
(over 4 months). He explained that usually seaweeds have plenty of nutrients
available in the winter but not enough light, which limits growth. Then light
intensity begins to increase in the spring, raising metabolic rates. This period of time
is when growth rates are highest, and other species such as plankton strip the
waters of nutrients very quickly, leading to the summer lows. Thereafter the
61
limiting factors are reversed in the summer for seaweeds, as light intensity is
prevalent but there is a scarcity of nutrients.
5.1.2. Assigning values to products
As presented in section 3.1.3 of the literature review, generally speaking there are
four major categories of products in development or in resale, these being food,
phycocolloids, phyco-‐supplements and biofuel feedstocks. Each of these have
potential revenue streams, or profit potential (PP), that will be considered hereafter.
Furthermore each of these product categories also have different required seaweed
inputs (RSI), that is to say different volumes of seaweeds required for operational
viability. Assigned according to literature, available data and interview discussions,
PP and RSI are qualitatively assigned hereafter according to the following scale: low,
medium, high.
Currently the largest profits from seaweeds are generated from the Asian market for
sea vegetables, worth US$ 5.29 billion in 2004 (Chopin and Sawhney, 2009). In
Europe seaweeds are not a dietary staple and are not sought after to the same
extent, though there is a small demand for high quality sea vegetables and the
European market is growing. The cost of processing sea vegetables is very low, they
are light and cheap to transport. Overall therefore, the generalised PP for sea
vegetables will be assumed as being ‘medium-‐high’, while RSI is assumed to be
‘medium’.
Phycocolloids are the second biggest player in the global market, worth
approximately US$ 650 million in 2004 (Chopin and Sawhney, 2009). Depending on
the quality of the end product phycocolloids can either be cheap or expensive to
extract, however their market price reflects these costs, balancing revenues with
expenses. The difficulty with introducing phycocolloids as a substantial product in
the SEAFARM scenarios is that the European market is already virtually saturated,
62
and thus any serious profit to be generated by phycocolloids will need to be price
and quality competitive with existing industries (FAO, 2003). As such the
generalised PP for phycocolloids was assigned as being ‘medium-‐low’, primarily due
to market saturation, but also due to the requirement of significant investment to
become competitive with existing phycocolloid suppliers. RSI was allocated a
‘medium-‐low’ volume rating.
Phyco-‐supplements are not only on the rise in terms of demand but also diversity.
New innovative products are emerging, as are high value compounds destined for
use in high-‐value/low-‐volume industries such as the cosmetic, neutraceutic or
pharmaceutic products specified in table 3. The diversity of this category of
products, which range from high-‐value/low-‐volume specialist compounds to low-‐
value/high-‐volume soil additives, must be considered and included in the PP and
RSI estimates; i.e. consider the difference between the small volumes of seaweed
required to make high value compounds sold per gram, and the vast volumes
utilised to sell soil additives by the kilo. On the whole, however, there is room for
significant growth of the phyco-‐supplements category notably through research in
blue biotechnology; both interviewees and reviewed literature suggest there is a
‘high’ PP for for this sector, with a probable increase to ‘very high’ in the near future.
The RSI volume had to be assigned as ‘low-‐high’ in order to reflect variation in the
product category.
The fourth and last category of products, biofuels generated from seaweeds, is also
on the rise and of particular interest to industry as this is the sector seen as having
highest profit potential in the near future (ETC Group, 2010). As we have seen in the
literature review, bioethanol and biodiesel derived from seaweeds are looking
promising but still very much embedded in research, while biogas is rapidly moving
toward development and at the tipping point of being profitable. That said, the
temporal context for these scenarios is the present to five years from now
(SEAFARM duration) and thus the PP for biofuels must held in that time frame.
Based on the information gathered in the literature reviews and discussions in the
63
interviews, the generalised PP will be limited to biogas only and will be set as
‘medium-‐low’ with potential to increase in the coming years, while the RSI will be
set as ‘high-‐very high’ to reflect the need for economies of scale to tip the balance
sheet toward a profitable direction.
Table 5 – Summary of market status and qualitatively assigned PP and RSI, by
product category.
Product category Profit potential, PP (low-‐medium-‐high)
Required seaweed input, RSI (low-‐medium-‐high)
European market prospects
Food/sea vegetables Medium -‐ high Medium Low, improving slowly
Phycocolloids Medium -‐ low Medium Stagnating, highly competitive
Phyco-‐supplements High Low -‐ High Good and rapidly improving
Biogas from seaweed
Medium -‐ low High -‐ very high Promising
To summarise this section, table 5 above presents the PP and RSI for each product
category selected in section 3.1.3, motivated in the preceding section. Figure 5
below further helps to visualise this information, inspired from Bruton et al. (2009)
and adapted from the Value Pyramid for algae-‐based products, described by Smith &
Higson (2012). The above PP and RSI values will hereafter be used in the scenario
design section, justifying potential profitability of different operational scales,
product diversities and cultivation types.
64
Figure 5 – Value pyramid for algae-‐based products. Adapted sources: Bruton et al. (2009); Smith & Higson (2013)
In addition to revenues from algae-‐based products, revenues can be generated from
the finfish, invertebrate and shellfish aquacultures intrinsic to an IMTA. These are
well-‐established industries, however the seasonal and sustainable production of
fresh, local foods could be highly lucrative as seen in the economic assessments of
Ridler et al. (2007) and Nobre et al. (2010). Furthermore the cross-‐fertilisation of
trophic levels can be expected to improve harvest yields.
5.1.3. SEAFARM research objectives
As presented in the introduction (section 1.2) and in the SEAFARM research
proposal (Gröndahl, 2013), SEAFARM has five FAs. Crucial to the scenario context is
that the SEAFARM cultivation operations must not only cater for, but be designed to
maximise research opportunities in the five FAs. Hereafter is a reminder of each FA,
and a brief explanation of how the different scenarios might affect that particular
research objective.
V. H
igh
LOW
MEDIUM
HIGH
RSI (Volume)
Mar
ket V
alue
Biofuel feedstockSoil additives
Feed
Sea vegetables
Luxury foods
Phycocolloids
Neutraceutics
Industrial chemicals
Cosmetics
Pharmaceutics
Speciality products
Hig
h
Med
ium
Low
Phyco-supplem
ents
Food / Sea vegetables
65
FA1. Sustainable seaweed cultivation on the Swedish west coast.
Sustainable aquaculture research today is very much oriented toward the potential
benefits of IMTA aquacultures over traditional mono-‐trophic methods. A sustainable
seaweed cultivation is further interpreted in the scenario context as being an
aquaculture whose operations can sustain themselves in the long-‐term: it must
therefore be free of significant impacts on the environment; it must provide
valuable renewable harvests every year; and it must yield a source of income that
can grow over time.
FA2. Seaweed biomass pre-‐processing and preservation strategies.
The scenarios must be designed to cater for opportunities to research and develop
new strategies and techniques for the pre-‐processing and preservation of seaweed
biomass, prior to anaerobic digestion and/or biorefining. As such, samples must be
readily available for harvest in proximity to wet and dry labs in order for conditions
to favour efficient research for this FA.
FA3. Map out biotechnology potential of local seaweeds, then design and
demonstrate the viability of a large-‐scale biorefinery capable of recovering
valuable phyco-‐products.
The aquacultures must be able to provide sample specimens of the highest quality
throughout the growing season, and regular harvests should be made in order to
map out changes to the internal composition of seaweeds throughout their life
cycles. Opportunities could also emerge from the biotechnological mapping of red
and green seaweeds, and species from other trophic levels, for instance of sea
cucumbers or fish.
FA4. Optimise the potential of biorefinery residues to produce biofertiliser and
biogas.
66
The aquaculture must support the best possible conditions to explore and develop
an economically viable supply-‐chain for the AD of seaweed biomass to biogas. Large
scale would be ideal as it would answer some questions relating to economies of
scale, however a small scale cultivation would supply specimens for the continued
development of improved AD techniques.
FA5. Develop a suite of sustainability assessment tools for the whole of the
above processes: cultivation, harvesting, pre-‐treatment, preservation,
biorefining and waste recovery of seaweed biomass.
Once again, the development of sustainability assessment tools is not likely to be
affected by cultivation type. The results of sustainability assessments will certainly
vary according to different cultivation scenarios, but the development of these
assessment tools will not be impacted.
As explained here above, the key FAs likely to be affected by the different cultivation
scenarios are FA1-‐4. These FAs will be included in the scenario matrix of section 5.3
and will help to grade the performance of each scenario.
5.1.4. Socio-‐ and techno-‐economic context
This section looks toward the socio and techno-‐economic context of the SEAFARM
scenarios. Licensing, the location, public attitude, infrastructure required, etc…
One of the biggest challenges faced by any aquaculture, is obtaining a marine
license. As seen in the BioMara case study, this was an unforeseen barrier and the
most significant project setback. Licenses can be very difficult to obtain, notably due
to a lack of evidence as to the impacts of large-‐scale seaweed cultivations, the multi-‐
use nature of nearshore areas, and a “not-‐in-‐my-‐back-‐yard” resistance to any change
67
amongst local populace. There are few seaweed aquaculture of significant scale in
Swedish waters, only small-‐scale pilot facilities for research purposes. As such it
could be expected that the application for the marine license to develop a nearshore,
large-‐ or small-‐scale facility will be complicated and lengthy, as it will be the first of
its kind. Rather than following a set of pre-‐determined marine licensing
instructions, it is likely the process will be of mutual discovery for all parties
involved.
At this point it is suitable to bear in mind that at the time of the writing of this
report, the SEAFARM project remains in the starting blocks, pending funding and
purely theoretical. No practical decisions have yet been made with regards to the
specific location of the cultivation site, nor has a time plan been developed. These
act as major limitations to the accuracy of the scenario context. The Swedish west
coast is a major destination for summer holidaymakers, most notably this area, and
it can be expected that the licensing process will be heavily encumbered by public
opinion and the multi-‐use condition of the area. It will be imperative that the site be
sufficiently discrete so as not to affect views, while also avoiding conflicting
interests with local fishermen, shipping routes and recreational activities. As such it
can be hypothesised that the smaller the cultivation, the less likely it will be for
conflict to emerge. Some opinion surveys have already been conducted in Canada, as
noted in section 3.3.3. It would seem that the public generally favours the
development of IMTA over traditional aquacultures, however some form of
community awareness program would need to be undertaken, or at the very least a
survey, in order to determine local opinion and resistance to the SEAFARM
cultivation.
From a technological perspective, the aquaculture infrastructure will necessarily
need to be adapted to the local area and specific requirements lain down by the
licensing authorities. For instance, it can be expected that the infrastructure will be
required to be removable (non-‐permanent) and discrete in appearance but not
hazardously so (submerged but clearly marked to avoid accidents, notably by night).
68
Either way, it must be expected that the lack of experience of Swedish marine
licensing authorities relating to IMTAs and seaweed cultivations will slow the
process of development and potentially amount to unforeseen costs.
5.2. SCENARIO DESIGN
The following section will present two alternative scenarios for the development of
the SEAFARM project. The goal of this section is to envision (describe) alternative
end-‐states for the cultivation system, thereafter considering each in the scenario
context established in the previous section 5.1. The multi-‐dimensional context
involves four principal aspects: Kosterfjorden growth conditions, potential revenue
streams, the SEAFARM research objectives, and finally, some additional
assumptions on socio-‐ and techno-‐economic aspects as well as some consideration
of impacts on the local environment. These four context aspects will be split into a
series of criteria within a table inspired by decision matrixes, enabling the full
picture of each scenario to be studied pragmatically and presented succinctly. In
essence the answer to three questions is investigated:
a) What would each scenario look like?
b) How is each scenario optimised to fit into the scenario context?
c) Which of the two scenarios represents the more suitable course for the
SEAFARM project to base itself on?
a) and b) will be addressed in the description of scenario ONE and TWO in section
5.2.1 and 5.2.2, respectively, in parallel to the analysis of c). The analysis will be
recapitulated in table 6 of section 5.3.
5.2.1. Scenario ONE – A Biofuel Optimised Aquaculture
69
Scenario ONE describes a cultivation characterised by the ambition of achieving
economic viability within a 5-‐year timeframe, primarily from the large-‐scale
cultivation of local kelp species for conversion to biofuels, and other large volume
kelp products such as fertilisers and feed. In consequent, research conditions should
be optimised for FA2 and FA4, while also delivering capabilities for the provision of
seaweed specimens that can be analysed by partner institutions involved with FA3.
The large-‐scale mono-‐trophic nature of scenario ONE will not contribute to
vanguard aquaculture research. This scenario draws heavily from the work
undertaken as part of the BioMara initiative, notably the techno-‐economic
assessment work undertaken by Dave et al. (2013) as well as the interviews held
with Michele Stanley and Lars Brunner. Ultimately a mono-‐trophic cultivation, it
could be argued that this scenario is not optimised for FA1 and that forefront
aquaculture research on IMTAs will not be taking place. A map of the Kosterfjorden
area has been provided in Appendix C to give an indication of the scale and of what
scenario ONE may look like. Hereafter some further details are provided for
subsequent comparison with scenario TWO.
As Dave et al (2013) suggest, along with several other reports (Bruton et al., 2009;
James and Postlethwaite, 2012), it is still unclear if a biofuel-‐oriented aquaculture
can reach a state of economic viability. The profit margins are still too tight and the
risks too great. It is expected that by scaling-‐up however, economies of scale could
be achieved that will favour a positive balance sheet. Also costs and prices vary
depending on where the aquaculture is located: on the west coast of Sweden biogas
may have a much lower market price than in the Scottish Hebrides, making
economic viability more achievable in Scotland given the higher market value of the
end product. Furthermore this scenario’s economy would have added revenues
from large volume kelp products such as supplements for animal feeds and soils, as
well as a limited amount of local sea vegetables. The major concern of this scenario
is that such a large-‐scale cultivation could be met with public resistance, hampering
efforts for a smooth licencing process.
70
Questions of process optimisation, more efficient anaerobic digestion year-‐round,
pretreatment and storage are still largely unresolved, however according to Schlarb-‐
Ridley and Parker (2013) it is expected that within a 5-‐10 year time frame, advances
in cultivation technology will render AD of macroalgae feedstocks commercially
viable. Lewis et al. (2011) specifically suggest that the cost of AD feedstocks must be
reduced to £125-‐300 per dry tonne in order for operations to break even under
existing market conditions. Another strong argument for AD reaching economic
viability is that the cost of natural gas and fossil fuels as a whole is steadily
increasing, and the more these prices rise, the more lucrative opportunities in AD
will become. In the present however, the ability to project profits from AD alone
remains limited.
The mono-‐trophic nature of scenario ONE is also a key limitation. As will be
explained in the description of scenario TWO, certain key synergies induced through
multi-‐trophic integration will not be capitalised upon. In relative terms therefore it
can be expected there will be a reduced resilience to disease and market price
fluctuations, shifts in environmental conditions (nutrient striping) resulting in
growth limitations, and added vulnerability from the limitation to a single revenue
stream. The extent of these relative shortcomings will be clarified in the description
of scenario TWO in the following section.
5.2.2. Scenario TWO – A Small-‐Scale Diversified IMTA
Scenario TWO describes an IMTA cultivation designed to cater for a wide range of
local species to subsequently identify those that hold the greatest PP and exploit
them within the 5-‐year timeframe. The contrast with scenario ONE lies
predominantly in the IMTA approach. With regards to the SEAFARM research
objectives, scenario TWO should perform better relative to scenario ONE, with the
author weighting each FA with an ‘optimised’ status, as motivated hereafter, except
for FA4.
71
High expectations are accorded to FA1 as the IMTA approach is now widely
accepted to be the most advanced form of aquaculture and is currently the subject of
intensive research. FA2 is neither hampered nor favoured by the IMTA approach,
thus having the same weight as in scenario ONE. The research conditions for FA3
are also considered to be optimum through the vast range of species that will be
subjected to biotechnology research and development of biorefinery processes. FA4
is rated as limited relative to the other scenario, due to the small cultivation, thus it
will not act as a large-‐scale pilot cultivation. Finally, the development of a suite of
sustainability assessment tools (FA5) should be unaffected by the differences
between scenarios ONE and TWO. A map for scenario TWO has also been provided
in appendix C to illustrate the scale of operations, and to demonstrate what it might
look like.
The cultivation infrastructure is expected to be more costly and complex per m2
however the cost of its installation should more or less match that of scenario ONE
given the smaller scale of operations. Furthermore, one of the greatest assets of an
IMTA approach is the cross-‐species fertilisation, which should help to maximise
growth rates during the summer when natural nutrient availability will be low for
scenario ONE, thus relatively improving yields, but also nurturing synergies of
disease resistance and environmental benefits.
The expected revenues of scenario TWO are much more diverse, coming from all
four categories of phyco-‐products outlined and motivated in section 5.1.2. Based on
the assumption that a diverse economy is more resilient, scenario TWO is also
favoured as being build on a more solid economic foundation than scenario ONE,
with multiple avenues of future development rather than being restricted to an
income from biogas related options. Indeed in the short term, profits could be
drawn from readily established markets and extraction processes, such as the
fractioning of omega 3 and β-‐carotene, or the sale of sea vegetables and
72
phycocolloids. Each of these markets could participate toward a greater whole,
while nurturing a more diverse set of key skills for the team of Swedish researchers.
Finally, research by Ridler et al. (2007) suggested that public stakeholders can be
more accepting of an IMTA cultivation over a more traditional aquaculture, while
the small-‐scale of operations relative to scenario ONE should also reduce the
likelihood of public resistance and opposition to marine licensing.
5.3. SCENARIO MATRIX RESULTS
The following table 6 presents a summary of the main results, as discussed in the
previous two sections. Scenarios ONE and TWO are played off against each other,
relative to the descriptions, scenario context and discussions held in the Section 5.2,
SEAFARM development scenarios.
73
SCENARIO
)ONE
SCENARIO
)TWO
Limited'to'kelps,''known'for'their'high4energy'contents'in'the'autumn'and'thus'most'suited'to'AD.
All)known)local)species)from
)any)trophic)level.
Long4line'systems'&'long4term'development'of'automated'systems'to'reduce'harvest'costs.
Complex)and)costly)com
bination)of)fish)pens,)benthic)level)cages,)shellfish)cages)and))seaw
eed)longlines)
Limited:'nutrient'stripping'is'expected'in'the'spring,'thus'limiting'growth'in'the'summer.'Further'research'required.'
Enhanced)by)yearDround)fertilisation)through)the)integration)of)different)trophic)levels.)
FA1)D)Sustainable)AquacultureLim
ited:)not)able)to)partake)in)IMTA)research
Optim
ised:)vanguard)IMTA)cultivation)research
FA2)D)Preservation)&)pretreatm
entOptim
ised:)key)and)prioritised)challenge)to)tackle)Optim
ised:)key)challenge)to)tackle
FA3)D)BiorefineryLim
ited:)biotechnology)only)applied)to)macroalgae)specim
ensOptim
ised:)diversity)of)specimens
FA4)D)Biofuel)feedstockOptim
ised:)key)and)prioritised)challenge)to)tackle)Good:)key)challenge)to)tackle,)though)lim
ited)to)a)smaller)cultivation)w
ithout)econom
ies)of)scale
FA5)D)Sustainability)assessment)
toolsUnaffected
Unaffected
Sea)vegetablesMedium
,)limited)to)kelps
Medium
)D)high,)with)increasing)potential)as)the)European)m
arket)slowly)develops
PhycocolloidsNone,)lim
ited)to)kelpsMedium
)D)low,)a)highly)com
petitive)industry)with)a)saturated)m
arket)in)Europe)
PhycoDsupplements
Low,)lim
ited)to)large)volume)products)such)as)soil)conditioners)and)feeds
High,)rapidly)increasing)with)new
)patents)and)innovative)products,)driven)by)blue)biotechnology
Biogas)feedstockMedium
)D)low,)prom
ising)market)conditions)likely)to)im
prove)in)near)future,)but)there)are)still)m
any)risks)and)questions)that)need)answers
Medium
)D)low,)prom
ising)market)conditions)likely)to)im
prove)in)near)future,)but)there)are)still)m
any)risks)and)questions)that)need)answers
Finfish,)invertebrates)&)shellfish
None
High,)well)established)m
arket)and)local)demand)
On)benthic)environm
entLargely'unknown.'Some'impacts'likely'as'a'result'of'cultivation'installations.'Further'research'required.'
Largely)unknown.)Som
e)impacts)likely)as)a)result)of)cultivation)installations.)Further)
research)required.
On)m
arine)wildlife
Largely'unknown,'most'notably'for'marine'mammals'and'local'food'chains.'Further'research'required.
Largely)unknown,)m
ost)notably)for)marine)m
ammals)and)local)food)chains.)Further)
research)required.
Relatively'vulnerable.'Reduced'growth'rates'and'lost'harvests'from'parasitic'and'bacterial'infections'are'common.
Relatively)resistant.)Multiple)species)com
binations)can)(a))provide)back)ups)in)case)of)the)loss)of)a)particular)crop)and)(b))it)m
ay)improve)disease)and)pest)resistance.
Difficulties'with'making'a'large4scale'cultivation'discrete'are'likely'to'result'in'public'resistance'and'setbacks'to'licensing'process.
SmallerDscale)w
ill)reduce)likelihood)of)public)resistance.)IMTA)m
ay)also)help)to)gain)acceptibility.)
Minimal.'Could'be'affected'by'a'multitude'of'factors'such'as'market'price'fluctuations,'diseases'and'bad'harvests.
Enhanced.)A)diversified)product)range)will)im
prove)the)likelihood)of)overcoming)
economic)setbacks)
Economic)resilience
DESCRIPTION)AN
D)CONTEXT
Cultivated)species
Cultivation)infrastructure
Kostefjorden)environmental)grow
th)factors)
SEAFARM)research)support
Public)acceptability
Disease)vulnerability
Cultivation)impacts
Profit)Potential
Table 6 – Summary of results
74
6. CONCLUSION
The recent increase in publications in this field suggests we are entering a golden
age of sustainable marine resource development -‐ and it is an encouraging prospect
that excellence for biotechnology innovation in Sweden can be applied to blue
biotechnology and guarantee future development through the SEAFARM project.
This thesis initially set out to explore some development pathways for the SEAFARM
cultivation, to inform forthcoming decisions and explore potential for the
development of a new marine resource industry in Sweden.
At first the thesis sought to establish some background: the call for the development
of a sustainable European bioeconomy and the Swedish response to this call in the
form of the SEAFARM project. Thereafter the transdisciplinary merging of
biotechnology, aquaculture and bioenergy research was established in the literature
review, further supported by interviews, with notable emphasis on historical trends,
current practises and the necessity of directing future development toward more
productive, sustainable and lucrative pathways. In order to better inform the
subsequent discussion and analysis of development pathways, a case study of the
Scottish/Irish BioMara project was presented, also supported by interviews. Then
the scenario context was established with emphasis on the selected Kosterfjorden
site, SEAFARM research objectives, some potential algae-‐based products and other
techno-‐ and socio-‐economic aspects. Finally, scenarios ONE (a biofuel optimised
aquaculture) and TWO (a small-‐scale diversified IMTA) were described, weighted
and compared within the scenario context.
The results showed that scenario TWO faired better than scenario ONE, most
notably in the pursuit of economic viability. Both scenarios performed well in the
provision for the SEAFARM focus areas, with a slight advantage to scenario TWO in
FA1 regarding the cutting edge IMTA mode of cultivation and FA3 due to the greater
diversity of specimens that would become available to biotechnological scrutiny.
75
With regards to profit potential, the IMTA scenario provided a far more diversified
set of incomes. It is assumed that, although these revenues would not be substantial,
their breadth would form a more resilient and viable economy. Furthermore,
considerable profits could be expected from the additional revenues from IMTA fish,
invertebrate and shellfish components. Improved harvest would be expected from
the cross-‐species fertilisation maximising growth rates during the summer months,
when natural availability of nutrients is lowest but sunlight availability is at its
highest (see charts 3 and 4 of the scenario context). Finally, the IMTA scenario was
also found to hold other advantages over scenario ONE, namely in the smaller scale
facilitating marine licensing, increased odds for public acceptance, and the
hypothetical synergies such as increased resilience to disease and pests. Overall
scenario TWO was found to be a well-‐rounded and better-‐suited end result through
its diversified products and economy, enhanced resilience, smaller-‐scale, vanguard
IMTA approach and its pragmatically tailored approach to the delivery of the
SEAFARM research objectives (FA1-‐5).
6.1. FURTHER RESEARCH
It is still early days for this new industry, and many questions have yet to be
answered. For a full account of these questions, see the roadmap recently published
by Schlarb-‐Ridley and Parker (2013).
With regards to the SEAFARM cultivation, some more specific areas of further
research can be suggested. It is known and accepted that specific species of
seaweeds are highly adaptable to new environments. For instance, a specimen of
Saccharina latissima from the Bay of Fundy in Canada, or from the Scottish
Hebrides, will not be adapted to brackish Baltic conditions of the Kosterfjorden
whereas the specimens that will be cultivated in the SEAFARM project will be.
Although part of the same species, the variation and adaptability within it makes it
76
hard to estimate growth rates and potential yields. Some preliminary experiments
should be conducted to estimate potential yields from the SEAFARM cultivation.
Such information would provide a much stronger basis for the estimation of
potential revenues, than was possible to undertake in this thesis.
As suggested by Michele Stanley, perhaps the greatest challenge for these sorts of
cultivations lie in the marine licensing sector, which in the UK, remains largely
undecided due to a lack of knowledge and evidence regarding environmental
impacts. Further research should therefore be undertaken, not just in the UK but
anywhere prospecting for cultivation sites, as to the potential impacts of cultivations
on benthic environments, as well as local species of fish, mammals, birds, vegetation,
in fact any species present in that area. This should inform decision makers with
regards to the renewal of marine licensing policy, and accelerate the development of
new cultivations.
One of the most discussed forms of value amongst ecologists today, is the value of
ecosystem services (see: Smith and Higson, 2012). As seen in the report by Nobre et
al. (2010), some aquaculture investigations attempt to estimate some values for the
ecosystem services provided by seaweeds. Indeed for scenario ONE, an operational
large scale macroalgae farm on the west coast of Sweden would be extracting vast
amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus from those waters. It could be suggested that a
nutrient credits scheme could be applied, inspired from carbon credits, potentially
adding a significant amount of value to scenario ONE and potentially overall making
it viable. The potential for such nutrient trading schemes should be investigated
urgently and thoroughly in such a context, as it could tip the balance in favour of
scenario ONE, and make it a profitable business enterprise.
77
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8. APPENDIXES
8.1. APPENDIX A – VARIABLES AFFECTING SEAWEED GROWTH RATES
Seven key environmental variables affecting growth, assembled from Gröndahl and Blidberg (2012)
i. Sea action – coastal areas fit for algae can be sheltered as well as exposed to wave action and currents, each offering distinct advantages. Where currents and waves are active the water and fresh nutrients are cycled continuously, however only plants adapted to rough treatment by heavy storms can survive in these conditions. Where an area is sheltered, algae can grow without risk of being torn from their anchorage, however stagnation can cause greater temperature fluctuations, lower nutrient content and exposure to diseases or pests.
ii. Water depth and turbidity – the transparency or turbidity of the water is of vital importance for the growth rates of the algae: murky water will block out some light, reducing available energy to feed photosynthesis, however crystal clear waters provide ideal conditions. Further, water is not fully transparent: it absorbs a portion of light so usually the deeper the habitat, the less light available and thus the lower the growth rates.
iii. Salinity – at a biochemical level, salt is perhaps one of the most important environmental factors for macroalgae. It holds essential roles in metabolic functions and in algal cell biology.
iv. Nutrient availability – like any other plant, if all the essentials for photosynthesis to take place are present, as well as all the nutrients required for growth, the macroalgae will thrive. Where there are high levels of nutrients, it is possible for other organisms such as microalgae to thrive in competition and increase turbidity; however where nutrients are in low concentration, growth rates will be limited. A fine balance must be struck, and where control is not available, careful monitoring of the balance is essential.
v. Unwanted species – competition by organisms such as microalgae can be a big problem as previously established, but so can pests, for instance sea snails.
vi. Bottom type – sea floor typologies vary a lot and play an essential role in determining the type of benthic ecosystem will be present. Rocky bottoms provide anchorage for microalgae, while sandy or muddy bottoms can increase water turbidity as sediments are thrown up in suspension when sea action is elevated. It also affects the costs of mooring systems for eventual macroalgae cultivation.
vii. Anthropogenic uses – some estuaries or coastal areas may be unsuitable for macroalgae farming based on other anthropic uses of the space, such as fishing and tourism, while other spaces may be designated as natural reservations, creating difficulties when applying for construction permits for the necessary infrastructure.
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8.2. APPENDIX B – QUANTIFYING IMTA SYNERGIES Measuring the efficacy of finfish wastes as fertiliser for shellfish and seaweed cultivation The research presented in this paper was conducted off the coast of Chile in Metri bay, using Gracilaria chilensis grown on ropes to reduce eutrophication and use wastes from a salmon cage farm between January and March 1995. Note: no shellfish were involved in this particular experiment, only seaweeds and finfish. Gracilaria was selected for its tried and tested bioremediation abilities (Buschmann et al. 1994). Metri bay has pronounced tides between 5 and 7m of amplitude driving east-‐west tidal currents averaging between 0.03-‐0.12 m/s, with a salinity between 28 and 30 PSU and water temperatures between 8 and 15°C (Toledo and Toro 1985). “Nutrient concentrations in the farm area vary during summer between 0 and 3.6 pM for nitrate, 0.03 and 0.09 FM for phosphate (molybdate reactive phosphate) and 0.7 1 and 2.1 FM for ammonia” (Troell et al. 1997). The established salmon farm species were Oncorhynchus mykiss and Oncorhynchus kisutch and production averaged around 227 metric tons per annum. (Troell et al. 1997)
In order to measure the fertilisation of the G. chilensis, two test sites and a reference site were proposed at different distances from salmon cages: the two test sites, stations A and B, were positioned 10m and 150m respectively to the west of the salmon cages to maximise exposure of algae to the effluents as carried by the currents; the reference site, station C, was positioned approximately 1km away to the south of the fish farm. Each site was identical in terms of the layout of the seaweed: each was composed of 30 bundles of Gracilaria, attached to 3 circular frames (10 bundles per frame, each plant spaced out every 25cm) with a diameter of 80cm. The frames would be fixed at depths 1m, 3m and 5m. Two experiments lasting 2 weeks each would be conducted, one in February and the other in March, with the objectives of (a) measuring specific growth rates, as described in Lobban and Harrison, 1994; (b) analysing agar content expressed as percentage of dry weight according to Cancino and Orellana, 1987; (c) determining levels of total carbon and total nitrogen, by means of a Leco CHN-‐900 elemental analyser; and (d) measuring total phosphorus, as extracted using hydrochloric acid in Aspila et al., 1976. (Troell et al. 1997)
The mean specific growth rates varied from 3 to 7.1% per day between the stations and at different depths. The growth rates were significantly (20-‐40%) higher at station A at all depths and both in February and March, with the highest recorded at 1m depth in February. The growth rates at stations B and C were almost the same, with slight variation and no observable trends. No trends emerged from total N and P content at different depths within each station, however samples at station A showed significantly higher levels of both total N and P content compared to stations B and C. Carbon content varied from 25-‐29mmol C g-‐1 dw-‐1 and no noticeable differences occurred in depth or between stations. Agar content, measured as a percentage of dry weight, ranged between 16.9% and 22.6%, and was
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lowest at station A. However the higher biomass yield at station A resulted in higher levels of total accumulated agar. (Troell et al. 1997)
From the results it is understood that nutrient availability, specifically of N and P, is one of the major limiting factors to the growth rate of Gracilaria chilensis in these waters. Thus where N and P are in higher concentrations (in direct proximity to the salmon cages at station A) growth rates were on average 20-‐40% higher, while N and P content in the algae was also higher. Similar experiments have documented the effects of nutrient availability on macroalgae growth, as well as significantly increased macroalgae growth rates in proximity to coastal finfish cages (Leskinen, 1985; Leskinen et al., 1986; Ruokolahti, 1988; Rijnnberg et al., 1992). (Troell et al. 1997)
Agar content however yielded very different results, as agar content is known to decrease with increasing tissue nitrogen concentrations (DeBoer, 1979): the experiment showed that at station A the agar content was consistently less concentrated than at stations B and C, yet the overall net yield at station A was greater due to the higher biomass yield. This illustrates the complexity of the biological processes governing algae growth and substance content, and it demonstrates that decisions regarding cultivation techniques should be made based on a range of factors, most notably the desired end-‐product. For instance in the above case, if agar were to be the desired end-‐product, then sites B and C might be preferable despite lower net agar yield, because their higher concentrations are cheaper to extract than the more diluted but higher net yield at site A. That said it has been reported that the quality of agar is greater when Gracilaria is grown in proximity to salmon cages (Martinez, 1994), a commercially significant find which adds to the complexity of the decision situation. If however the end product were biomass for biofuels, site A would be preferable given the higher biomass yields per m2 of cultivated sea.
Mussels as a barrier for finfish pathogens In the last few years the sea louse, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, has developed resistance to the drug SLICETM and begun to seriously threaten the cultivation of Atlantic salmon. There are known biological controls, such as several native species of wrasse used in northern Europe (Treasurer 2002) which could participate to a solution, however keeping tiny wrasse in proximity to salmon in sea cages is impractical. Alternatively, researchers hypothesised that the blue mussel may act as a biological control thus reducing infectious pressure if mussels can consume the sea louse in its ineffective copepodid life stage. Thus the authors joined a team of researchers developing an IMTA combining salmon, kelp and mussels in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, with aim of modelling disease dynamics and testing their hypothesis.
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Local mussels were introduced into a closed seawater system maintained at 10°C. Separately, local sea lice were collected from an infected farm and reared to copepodid stage. The lice larvae were stained red, then counted for use in the experiment. 10 beakers of 0.5L of seawater, containing 105 cells/ml algae and 100 copepodids were used. 1 mussel was placed in each beaker and left for 30mins or 60mins. Immediately after removal, the mussel stomach contents were removed, stained copepodids were counted, then contents were processed for DNA isolation. Results show that mussels indeed ingested the copepodids. The number of free swimming copepodids were counted after the removal of the mussels after 30 and 60mins: in the 30min exposure beakers, 87-‐98 remained; in the 60min exposure beakers, 38-‐100 remained. In the 30min exposure mussels, all were found to contain stained copepodids further confirmed by DNA analysis. The 60min exposure mussels all contained copepodids except for one (mussel number 10), also confirmed by DNA analysis. It is thought the exception, mussel number 10, was not feeding at the time of the experiment. Overall it is clear that feeding mussels ingest sea lice copepodids in the controlled conditions of the experiment, however it is not known if they can ingest sufficient amounts to be a practical biological control agent in open water cultivations. Trials are needed to determine their efficacy at sea. IMTA vs. Monoculture in the Bay of Fundy: ten-‐year economic feasibility modelling and public opinion survey In this report two vital questions are addressed. First a model is developed to determine economic feasibility of salmon monoculture versus IMTA; second, industry and public opinion are consulted over the two cultivation practises. The authors modelled the profitability of salmon monoculture versus IMTA, through 3 plausible scenarios. The base-‐model was built from technical data of a salmon farm in the Bay of Fundy, thus replicating expenses and revenues of an established farm of 500’000 smolt. Total costs were estimated at US$1.4 million and revenue would be calculated based on an assumed selling price of fresh salmon at US$2.60 lb. Thereafter the costs and revenues had to be valued for labour, mussels and seaweed farming: for mussels the total 10 year cost was estimated at US$85’000 and for seaweed cultivation it was projected at US$28’000. Revenues and the Net Present Values for all three species were also anticipated. (Ridler et al. 2007) With the base-‐model complete, it was now essential to introduce risks in the form of scenarios, which are detailed in the table below. Risks were assumed to be uncorrelated between species, a plausible assumption as motivated by Ridler et al. (2007:105).
Scenario Salmon Harvest Mortality rates Probability of Occurrence
1 (best) 5 in 10 years 11% at each harvest 20%
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The results from running the model through the scenarios showed that IMTA always results in a higher NPV, motivated by the income from mussels and seaweed that buffer the effects of salmon losses. Principally the results show that one bad salmon harvest can suffocate profits of a salmon monoculture over a ten-‐year period, whereas IMTA provides the diversity of economy to maintain a positive balance sheet and sustain the business. This was further tested in a subsequent re-‐run of the model, this time incorporating market risks subjected in the form of an immediate 12% decrease in salmon market value carried over a ten-‐year run, mimicking a similar price drop in the 1980s (Whitemarsh et al., 2006). Similar to the first results, the IMTA coped better yielding a profit margin of 3.2% compared to 0.3% for the salmon monoculture. (Ridler et al., 2007) Thereafter two opinions surveys were conducted by the authors, in light of the knowledge that public perception can, and has, jeopardized finfish aquaculture in the past (Katrandis et al., 2004); and given the key goal as stated in the Millenium Conference on Aquaculture, that “technological progress in the next millennium has to go hand-‐in-‐hand with social and ethical acceptability” (Pillay, 2001). In essence, social acceptability is seen as an essential prerequisite to sustainable aquaculture. The first random survey of 1220 people took place in New Brunswick, Canada, in 2003, with 110 respondents taking time to answer, of which 53 were from professional organisations or companies and 2 were from environmental NGOs. Overall there was a positive attitude displayed by both public and industry toward salmon monoculture and IMTA, however it was significantly higher for the latter. The former was appreciated for its benefits to the local economy and community employment; the latter even more so due to a trust in science and the development of the latest farming practises, even when the respondent lacked familiarity with IMTA principles. This highlights the fact that although the public trusts that IMTA is ‘better’, a substantial proportion are not interested in the multi-‐trophic nature of the system nor the benefits of such principles. The second survey aimed to identify differences in attitude once IMTA principles have been communicated to respondents, and was conducted in the same locality as the first in 2005. 5 focus groups were held with 23 participants, in the wake of a 12-‐minute video outlining the IMTA pilot project in the Bay of Fundy. All respondents agreed that profit, quality produce and reduced environmental impacts were key to success, and that success should be proportional to sustainability. Areas of uncertainty included the potential of IMTA to reduce disease outbreaks, replenish natural stocks or improve quality. However areas where respondents were most positive included “potential to reduce environmental impacts of salmon farming
2 (worst) 4 in 10 years, with one lost
11% in 4 harvests, 100% in one
40%
3 (intermediate) 5 in 10 years 11% in 4 harvests, 70% in one
40%
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(65%), while improving waste management in aquaculture (100%), employment opportunities (91%), community economies (95%), industry competitiveness (95%), food production (100%) and sustainability of aquaculture overall (73%).” (Ridler et al., 2007:108) Another key find of public perception was that consumers would be willing to consume mussels and algae co-‐cultured in proximity to salmon cages, an issue previously identified as potentially problematic (due to perceptions of increased disease transfer) but hereby disbanded as a non-‐issue (Ridler et al., 2007). Discussions also took place on willingness to pay (WTP) extra for environmentally friendly seafood. Results were as varied as are usually to be expected regarding WTP, but were generally split into three more or less equal groups: one third would pay more willingly, up to 10% extra, particularly restaurateurs; one third were adamant that all seafood should be environmentally friendly, thus there should not be two tiers of price; and the final third were either unwilling to pay more, or simply could not afford to (Ridler et al., 2007). Overall public attitude toward both salmon monoculture and IMTA was positive, with a significant preference toward IMTA based on an overall improvement in sustainability. Consumers disbanded the erstwhile issue of opposition to locally co-‐cultivation of products. And finally WTP discussions for environmentally sound seafood yielded a variety of results, ranging from ‘yes’ to a 10% increase in price, to an outright refusal of environmentally unsustainable seafoods, and ‘no’ from low income families. Abalone monoculture vs. IMTA in South Africa This report is the first detailed economic and environmental comparison between land-‐based IMTA and abalone monoculture systems. The authors based the methodology on a recent modification of the DPSIR framework, the Differential Drivers-‐Pressures-‐State-‐Impact-‐Response (ΔDPSIR) proposed by Nobre, A. (2009) to support sustainable coastal management decision makers. “The aim of the DDPSIR approach is to screen the ecological and economic evolution of an ecosystem during a given time period (Dt) that is relevant from a management perspective (response implementation period). This approach includes an analysis of the drivers, pressures and state before and after the response. The impact on the ecosystem (positive or negative) corresponds to the changes of state during the study period, Dt” (Nobre 2009:186). The specific advantage is that this new approach uses differential values over time and can include the Response (incorporating IMTA), thus providing an informed analysis of change of state, which is particularly relevant to ecosystems and economic components. The details of the methodological procedure of the paper are too lengthy to present in this review, and it was decided to leave them out while recommending the report for detailed instructions.
The case study data applied to the ΔDPSIR is from a South African 240-‐ton year-‐1 abalone farm, Irvine & Johnston Cape Cultured Abalone Pty, Ltd. and aims to
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compare the sustainability of different aquaculture configurations for that case study. The abalone species in question was Haliotis midae, while the integrated component of the two IMTAs was the seaweed Ulva lactuca, selected for this abalone’s affinity for consuming it, its high protein content and for its local availability. In 2007 a downstream U. lactuca culture pond was integrated to the farm to bioremediate part of the effluents and to provide 10% of the farm’s seaweed requirements (abalone consume algae). The farm managers decided to expand the seaweed ponds to supply 30% of the required seaweed in 2009. Thus the three configurations that were input to the ΔDPSIR analysis were the shift from the original monoculture (scheme 1), to the 2007 system (scheme 2), to the 2009 system (scheme 3). (Nobre et al., 2010)
Source: Nobre et al., 2010
The results were formulated according to the DPSIR framework and are summarised hereafter, as the analysis is too extensive and complex to present in full.
• Drivers – first and foremost comes profit, which was estimated to be higher in the IMTA schemes due to a variety of identified synergies and cost reductions, despite higher labour costs.
• Pressures – N and P discharges were reduced by 44% and 23% respectively in the shift from scheme 1 to scheme 2, and further reductions are predicted beyond that. Natural kelp harvesting will also decrease by an estimated 2.2 ha year-‐1 due to in situ production, reducing pressure on those ecosystems. Furthermore the GHG emissions balance indicates a net reduction in emissions relative to scheme 1 of 345 and 268 CO2e year-‐1, mainly from reduction in pumping heights in the new IMTA configurations but also a small amount from seaweed CO2 uptake.
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• State and Impact – the four identified reduced environmental impacts were: reduced N discharge, reduced P discharge, reduced natural kelp harvesting and reduced CO2 emissions. “The quantified environmental externalities [of these reductions] corresponded to an overall economic benefit to the environment and thus to the public, of about 0.9 million and 2.3 million USD year-‐1 upon shifting the farm practice from abalone monoculture (scheme 1) to the IMTA schemes 2 and 3, respectively” (Nobre et al. 2010:123).
• Response: Retrofitting the monoculture and integrating seaweed ponds cost an estimated 12 and 36 thousand USD year-‐1 in schemes 2 and 3, respectively. The estimated immediate financial benefits of increased profits (0.20 and 0.72 million USD year-‐1) were found to recover the implementation costs within the first financial year.
To summarise, the economic and environmental impacts of retrofitting an existing on-‐shore abalone monoculture with seaweeds were estimated using the ΔDPSIR framework. It was found that the costs of the upgrade were far outweighed by the increase in economic return in the first year alone, and that the environmental impacts of the IMTA schemes were much lower than of the monoculture. The IMTA schemes proved both more profitable and more environmentally sustainable.
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8.3. APPENDIX C – MAPS OF KOSTERFJORDEN SITE FOR SCENARIOS ONE AND TWO SCENARIO ONE
SCENARIO TWO
SVEN LOVÉN CENTRE FOR MARINE SCIENCE
Kostefjorden
STRÖMSTADDominant Currents
Shellfish longlines
Seaweed longlines
Fish pens
Key:
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8.5. APPENDIX E – INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS Göran Nylund & Fredrik Gröndahl – Tjärnö – 19th of April 2013 [Discussion has already begun – discussing potential SEAFARM products post-‐refining] Göran – It could be very attractive to look at Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids, Omega 3. Look toward literature for examples of Omega 3 being extracted from different seaweeds. Lets say species A may have a high amount of Omega 3 and it might mean that algal biomass volumes would be reduced. This could be a way to make the farm economically viable. Fredrik – Yes I agree. And with Omega 3, there is already a large market for it and you could get a price for it. Also for the biofuels there is already a market that you can get a price for. Choose a few markets and restrict yourself to them. Then you could look at these scenarios and say, in order to produce biofuels maybe you need huge cultures, but if you make Omega 3 you need maybe less… maybe that could be interesting. JB – [Talking about different markets, food, high value stuff. How do companies get to a profitable state of economy?] Fredrik – First you need to see, how you…. First you put up a farm with certain products and you can make estimates on those revenues. How unprofitable is it to make this farm. Then you look at different production scenarios. If you look at some other product, we could get very profitable with a very small farm. Definietly just a biofuel farm will need a huge area to turn a profit, like this has been done with reeds (PAPER), and that was similar, they wanted to harvest reed to make biogas. We could see these scenarios where it started to be profitable. Something like that is interesting to explore. Like I guess if you build a IMTA, it will be very costly, is it attractive and can it be profitable? JB – [Discuss risks associated with high value extractions, saturation of markets of high value goods] Fredrik – It will be possible to get some production per acre figures from BioMara. Göran – Yes it seems that that is what you need. If you have some figures for the cost of production, the cost will be related to ….. if you have a specific surface area, from that you can calculate things. Those numbers from BioMara could be very good for your basis. It costs so much to collect 10Kg of seaweeds. Then look at the products to see how you can break even.
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Fredrik – If you compare the conditions between here and BioMara there could be some more conclusions or guesses, estimations made. JB – Yes that reminds me is there some data about local water samples that we could use to compare with BioMara. Göran – Yes, SMHI make water samples, just outside the bay here. I will email you those details. Fredrik – another thing to think about is space availability. We did this for Mussels and we found that we used only a tiny amount of space of total coastal areas to produce a huge amount of mussels. Anyway this project will be good. JB – Yeh lots of questions, few answers! Another last quick thing is to do with product diversification again. I wonder about the market potential of species like sea cucumbers and urchins. That could be a good question for your contact at Leroy? Göran – yes I can have a chat with him. JB – Looking back at the document ‘Seaweeds for a biobased Swedish society’ the 3rd focus area is the Environmental Impacts. There seems to be in the literature, an overwhelming assumption that seaweed cultivation has almost no bad impacts, only good from nutrient stripping, which I think is perhaps quite naïve. There must be some bad things… Göran – Potential negative impacts on the area around the harvest, it could affect the benthic organisms. Fredrik – this new book at the conference, it mentions that the advantage of using local species so its not affected by invasive species… Goran – Lunch time!
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Greg Reid, University of New Brunswick – Telephone Interview – 6th of May 2013 JB & Greg– Introductions, explain Seafarm and my project. JB – What is your area of focus in research Greg – The last few years it has been mainly IMTA in the context of Canada, but alsolooking at the system efficiencies, like recovering nutrients, how much is reasonable and practical, so im looking at scales as well. On the East coast we’re looking at the removal of nutrients from Atlantic Salmon, on the West coast other species… Most of the shellfish on the East coast are Blue Mussels, and we are also looking at Sea Cucumbers and Sea Urchins. JB – So your main area is the nutrient uptake role of these species? Greg – Yes, kind of… it also feeds into the economics of the system too, directly or indirectly. Canada and Norway and a few other countries are regulated on the benthic impacts, and out here the main measurement and challenge is to stay below threshold levels of allowed Hydrogen Sulphide. So if you exceed that threshold, you are expected to take mitigative action. In IMTA, hydrogen sulphide release is a function of how much fish poo is getting to the bottom, so if you have cucumbers or urchins down there capable of targeting that waste, then you can stay within the threshold and even increase fish production at that same site without needing to apply for a new site licence, all the while developing new revenues from the urchins and cucumbers. So the economic aspects come through at that level. JB – Are there any specific cultivation sites you are involved with? Greg – I’m involved with all of them. On the East coast here… Well before I get to that you should know that there are 3 basic types of IMTA you should be aware of, of which we have 2 here in Canada. The 1st is where you already have a full scale finfish aquaculture, in this case Atlantic Salmon, and then you are adding on species to the site. So I call that an ADD ON APPROACH. The 2nd is a site which is being custom designed for the purpose of IMTA, and in that case you have more control over the scale, the ratios, and a physical location more appropriate to IMTA with for instance less strong currents. And we have one major one on the west coast, with Black cod. In terms of nutrient uptake, the CUSTOM DESIGNED IMTA will be more effective, but if you are looking for a larger scale IMTA to mitigate aquaculture, then it’s the add on approach. So those are two types of IMTA we have in Canada. The 3rd type is what I call the INCIDENTAL IMTA, and its common in places like China, and even in Spain, where because of the way that site lease areas work, that you already have other species being cultivated in the same area, that through trial
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and error they come up with a functioning system with cross feeding between the different cultivated species. JB – That’s great thanks. Now going back to the species types, are the cultivations you are involved with actively working with S. latissima or L. digitata? Greg – Yes both are involved somewhat here on the East coast. Thierry was also experimenting with another species, I cant remember what though. Heres where the economics come in to play, trying to figure out which market your kelp is going to is how you will determine the scale of operations, how long they need to grow for and when you are going to harvest, etc… Here they are being used for high end products, as opposed to something like a fertilisers. So here we need high quality kelps harvested before there is any form of “frond erosion” (that’s what is sounds like), so out here it goes in the water in November and gets harvested around now, May or June. That’s actually a big thing that gets overlooked quite a bit. Scenario A – you are trying to mop up nutrients and produce lots of kelp, lots of mass, then you lose quality, its going to be damaged and the end product is almost free, totally worthless, something like $10 per ton. But Scenario B – if you keep high quality and you sell it while its still quite small, then its more of a ‘high value specialty rather than a low value commodity’, at least from the economic perspective. It’s a real challenge too to get high volumes of kelp so cheaply, because for every 100t of wet mass you harvest, you can only get about 10-‐15t of dry mass… JB – with regards to the algae at these sites, which of your colleagues is in charge of the seaweed aspects of the cultivations and the high end products? Greg – Well the seaweed person here is Thierry Chopin, and he grows kelp in his lab and deploys them in the East coast, but on the West coast it would be Stephen Cross. So he has found a few market for specialty products, but the amount of kelp grown on an IMTA here is pretty insignificant, and not much of it is grown in Canada when compared to the rest of the world. JB – Water quality comparison with other sites. I’ve been asked to compare with other projects. Is there an agency in Canada that collects water samples or something? Greg – well it depends really. Environment Canada are supposed to be the ones doing that, but I don’t know if they have a database or anything. Depending on what you are looking at… In the East coast, the water quality is good, so are nutrient levels, the oxygen is an issue here especially in the spring with all the melt water from the rivers here. What sort of things to do with the water quality were you thinking of? JB – Well here the concern is salinity.
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Greg – well here it is near a stream that comes, so Stephen Cross has had to deal with salinitiy issues and he may have data on salinitiy tolerance for S. latissima. I know he’s had to drop the cultivation lines to below 5m to saltier waters. JB – Wow very interesting. Ok well the main point of this is to try to learn from others experience, and of course if Stephen Cross has had past encounters with salinity issues it would be in our interest to talk to him about it, and how he overcame it. The other major part of this project is the economics of the project. Are you familiar with the budget sheet of cultivations, or have these cultivation sites been privatised at all? Greg – within the network in Canda we have a big partnership with industry, academia and government, so at the moment the finfish is commercial, they have also taken over the mussels. The kelp is still produced in university labs, and deployed by researchers, you can ask Thierry Chopin about the future plans for that as he is working on commercialisation of it. JB – So which company is in charge with this? Greg – On the East coast COOKE Aquaculture, on the west coast its KYUQUOT SEAFoods. JB – Do you have contacts? Greg – Sure I’ll email those to you now. JB – [Closing chat…]
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Stephen Cross – Telephone Interview – 7th of May 2013 [Introductions] JB -‐ I spoke to Greg Reid yesterday and he mentioned you would be an ideal person to speak to regarding some of the questions I have. As I understand it, IMTA research in Canada is split between the East and West coasts. Which side are you on and what’s your background? Steve – I’m on the West coast, and mine is the only licensed IMTA here. I’ve been studying and researching the principles of IMTA before it was called that, for the last 13 years. I was actually in the room when a DFO [Department of Fisheries and Ocean] spokesperson came up with the IMTA acronym. So in the last 5 years I’ve moved to a truly ‘from the ground up’, designed and tailored IMTA aquaculture, so its not ADD ON. We’ve designed an entirely new production system called ‘SEAfoods’, that’s Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture foods. The reason we’ve given it this new name is because the average consumer doesn’t usually understand the multi trophic concept. I came up with the SEAfoods, and have just published a chapter in the Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science explaining how it is different to IMTA. The main difference is that we try to meet social criteria, as well as the environmental and economic aspects. For instance we only use local species. We also use new types of cages to reduce chemical use to only organic practises, no antibiotics, alternative energies to operate the winches for shellfish for instance, and so on. All in all it’s a much more sustainable way of doing things from a holistic perspective. JB – So SEAfoods is on a higher level than IMTA, in essence going beyond just the cross species and looking at higher order problems that emerge from the application of IMTA. Steve – Yes that’s right. I consider it a new system overall. When we’re finished it will look quite futuristic. From the academic side its easy to sit around and say we need to do this that and the other, but none of them really have a clue what you need from an on the ground perspective. It takes almost the same equipment and resources to grow one line of kelp that it does to grow 70, but the profit margin goes up a hell of a long way between the two. These are the realities on the ground that are often not considered in university offices. JB – This is actually one of the core things I’ve been requested to look into, the economies of scale that can be achieved here. But I have very little to work with, absolutely no numbers from the Swedish project because it is still in the starting block, and again, almost none at all from published papers or conversations I’ve had so far. I think its also to do with the fact that this is still uncharted territory, commercial scale IMTAs haven’t been made operational yet, except those across the continent with your colleague Thierry Chopin.
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Steve – I know exactly what you mean, and because this is all so vanguard, literally the forefront of the technologies, all the investors in these projects have maintained strong proprietary rights over the information and I’m unfortunately not in a position to give you numbers either. Although I can give you some stuff to work with. For instance the biggest cash flow comes from the fish you work with. Fish are the products that offset the cost of installation of the system, so the way we see it, everything else we grow around them is pure profit. That’s a nice way of looking at it. JB – What with the synergies that you are experiencing, in terms of cross species fertilisation? I know of an example in Chile where growth rates have increased up to 50%. Steve – Yep that’s what we’re getting too, between 45 and 50% increase in growth rates in practise. I have a student who is working on a project, he’s taken 40 vertical lines of kelp and placed them downstream of the fish, and over a growing season, he went out every couple of weeks to measure the growth rates of the various kelps and then used GIS to map it all out to look at differential growth. Sure enough the nutrient plume near enough matched the tidal flow conditions, and he was able to map out where the enrichment zone was, as such indicating where you would want to position kelp long lines if you want to do that. JB – Could you tell me the name of the student, I would love to find this paper. Steve – Well he’s just finished the experiment but he’s in the process of writing it up, but I can pop you an email when its ready! And if your professors ever need an international consultant, tell them to give me a ring! […Selling himself!..] JB – Well thanks for all of this, I would like to move on to another area which I’ve prepared a few questions for you about. This is water quality. In essence there is water sample data for the area where the farm here might be located. I sent you some graphs of this data, most notably covering the yearly fluctuations of salinity, temperature and nutrients gradients. Steve – Yes I saw them and had a look. JB – Is there anyone that you could recommend I could talk to regarding these things? Steve – No we don’t bother with nutrient levels because they are so, so low here, hence the whole reason why IMTA was an interesting option for here. What we’ve been focusing on is how we can recycle nutrients based on local currents and dilution patterns. The key for kelp in my mind is knowing the site and it can be different from one to the next, we have 3 sites within 1km of each other and each are very different. One has a seasonal fresh water influence and an associated increase in turbidity. Another has a much stronger ocean influence with much
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higher growth rates. Surface heating is affecting the 3rd site, so we have to grow it at a depth of 5m so that slows down growth too. Overall the big factors are light, salinity, temperature and nutrients, and of course the position in the water column. JB – Ok well what can you tell me looking at the graphs that I sent you? Steve – Well I recon you would need to have the kelp species on a system that can be lowered, because lower salinity can cause big problems for kelps. That way you could drop them if need be. Temperature looked fine and nutrient availability looks decent in the spring but pretty bad in summer, but that shouldn’t matter too much particularly if you have cross species fertilisation going on. What about light penetration? JB – I don’t have much information about that, but I had some conversations with marine biologists on the site, and they mentioned some kelps can grow quite low down. Steve – OK well that sounds good. It probably will do well then. You also have to be concerned about the pollution levels, because they do absorb heavy metals and such, which will reduce the quality of the products depending on what you use them for, particularly food and so on. But another important thing to note is that species of kelps here in Canada are very different to those where you are. Local adaptation to conditions should play a big part, and I’m sure the growth rates of your local species will be different to ours, even in exactly the same conditions. They will have adapted to your environment, there is no doubt there. JB – Ok thanks for that. Well before we wrap up I’d like to talk to you about another aspect. My professor sees two routes to take for economic viability. The first is to go large scale to produce kelp for biogas production, the other is a smaller scale IMTA which is diversified. Can I ask you what you think about those two pathways? Steve – Yes both sound familiar in theory, although the first, as far as I’m aware, is un-‐trialled in practised. For my part I’m familiar with the second option. We deal with high value niche products like fish, sea cucumbers, shell fish, sea urchins, and some kelp for high value products in the west coast markets of California and so on. JB -‐ So in your view pathway two is more realistic at the moment? Steve – Certainly, its not just more realistic, its happening. The 1st I’m not so sure about yet, there is some research coming out at the moment about that and there are a lot of projects trying to iron out the last bits, but as far as I know its not a tried and tested ‘profitable’ venture yet. JB – [Wrapping it up, goodbyes, etc…]
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Per Nehrlund, Leroy AB – Telephone Interview – 14th of May 2013 JB – [Introductions] Hopefully this interview shouldn’t last more than ten minutes or so, I just have some very specific questions regarding algae based products, and the state of the Scandinavian market for them. Per – Ok well perhaps you want to know a bit of my background first. [Background] JB – Great ok well it seems that I am talking to the right person then! Per – I hope I can help. JB – So what is your view, generally speaking, of products that can be derived from algae? Is Leroy AB working with such products? Per – Yes, I am personally involved in the research and development of phyco products, specifically for food. Over the last ten years or so, the European food market has opened up significantly to foreign foods, especially Asian foods. Algae are becoming common on supermarket shelves and Leroy AB has a large part of the distribution share. JB – What sort of products are you talking about here? Per – Well the real money earners seem to be things like the snacks that you can find, vegetarian chips made from kelps and things. Also food supplements and additives are quite important. Raw seaweeds or dried seaweeds are less valuable and not as sought after as other products, but all of them are on the rise. We are also working with high end restaurants, providing different types of seasoning packages, like seaweed flavoured salts and things, which seem to be working quite well too. JB – So you say the market is on the rise… Per – Well yes, it is hard to say how much the market will grow, and how quickly it will grow, but these are products that had to be imported from Asia and by Asian companies ten years ago, but now predominantly it is European based companies bringing them in, or producing them here. Again as I said, there was very little interest in seaweed ten years ago, but certain types of food have become very fashionable. For example, Asian foods, Japanese restaurants etc. Sushi restaurants
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are a big customer for algae, but most Asian food restaurants require some sort of algae, whether its for miso soup, sushi rolls or other more fancy products. JB – Great, can you give me any sort of numbers on the state of the market, how much your sales are in the sector for example? Per – Not at the moment. Most of the information in Leroy AB is proprietary, so I am not free to disclose data to you unfortunately. But if your project kicks of to a start in the next year or so, we could place orders through you for different types of products, and certainly could help you by being a good customer! After that, once we would be in collaboration, Leroy policy would allow for certain exchanges of information, but unfortunately not before. JB – I was kind of expecting to hear something like that. I haven’t been very lucky with obtaining numbers from my interviews, but not to worry! Ok well in my report I have had to simplify certain things in order to make the analysis more manageable. One such thing is that I have had to simplify phyco-‐products into different categories and assign them, generally speaking, some sort of value. What I would like to do now is explain these four categories and discuss in general terms how you feel their values are relative to each other. Per – I can probably help with that. JB – So the first category is sea vegetables, the second is phyco-‐colloids, the third is very broad and is phyco-‐supplements, and the last is biogas from algae. When assigning them relative values, I’m thinking a basic rating of low, medium or high will do. Per – Well first of all I would consider sea vegetables to high value products. You can get quite a good price selling small quantities, but it always must be of high quality. Quality also varies year to year, some might be bad years, others may be very good. It depends on a lot of things. So maybe this would have a medium to high value. I am not sure what you mean by the second one. JB – Well by phyco-‐colloids I mean things like agar agar, or any product that is based on the binding properties or hydrocolloid properties in seaweed compounds. Per – Ok, so this includes food additives and things. Well again this is fairly high value, but the problem for producers is that the market is very saturated, there is a lot of competition. These products values also vary a lot depending on quality, but if we compare it to sea vegetables for example, I would not say it is as lucrative. I would assign it a medium value. Profits will be hard to achieve on a small scale with phyco-‐colloids, because a lot of investment is needed and economies of scale, in order to compete with the big commercial competition.
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JB – Ok that’s great. Now with the third products category, I encompass many different things. It is phyco-‐supplements, so any algae based product that improves the performance of a substance or product, by adding compounds found in algae with advanced properties. Food wise, the only one is food supplements, but the category also includes things like fertilisers, bioactive compounds, pharmaceuticals, etc… Per – Well food supplements are very valuable. Some are quite simple to extract, just dry the seaweed and grind it up, then sell it in tablets with concentrated enzymes, vitamins and minerals as a dietary supplement, for pregnant women for example. There is a big market for this already, but it is growing rapidly. People are becoming more and more concerned about what they eat, and providing the body with nutrients. I would give supplements a high value because they are cheap to produce and sell at a good value-‐added price. JB – I though that would be your answer, but I needed to hear it myself. Any idea about the other products, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, etc… and also the fourth category, biogas? Per – No, sorry. Again we only work with food products for humans. JB – That’s ok, again I thought so, but there is no harm in asking! Well again this was a short interview, and I was just curious to ask you a few basic questions. But before we wrap it up, I have a few more queries about other seafood products. Per – Yes seafoods is something we work with JB – What about high-‐end products like sea urchins, sea cucumbers, clams, mussels and shellfish? Per – That is something we don’t do much of, but the team I am working with is indeed looking at expanding into this realm. I know there are some really high value products that come from these, or they can be sold fresh to restaurants for a good price. Also the market is growing for these things, and currently most are imported from Asia. We hope to find local producers of these so we can provide local fresh alternatives for the EU market, but I cant give you any values as I’m not sure. But hazarding a guess, I would call them very high value. JB – Great! Well do keep in touch about the developments of these products. If you hear anything at all that you think may be of interest to me, please do get in touch! Also, I may contact you again when I get to my analysis. It was great talking to you and having this brainstorming, and if you don’t mind I will call you again in the coming weeks as things progress on my end.
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Per – Sure that sounds fine to me! Also I will look into these high value products, the fresh seafoods and algaes, and see if there are any numbers I can disclose to you without breaching any rules. [Wrap up, goodbyes, etc…] Michele Stanley, SAMS – Telephone Interview – 15th of May 2013 JB – [Introductory chat] … If BioMara can be seen as a project in reaction to the EU Directive on sustainable sourcing of 10% of transport fuels by 2020, then SEAFARM is a reaction to the call for more research on an EU Bioeconomy. 1st Question for you – When you speak of BioMara today, do you say BioMara IS or BioMara WAS. Has the project itself come to an end, or is it continuing under a different name? M – It’s ongoing, so we are involved in another set of projects, one is ENERGETIC ALGAE. Within that we are v interested in how people are going to keep their stock cultures. Again one thing that came out of BioMara is that people aren’t thinking about how you underpin this hole. What I mean by “stock cultures”, its like your cell lines, so if you take a traditional biotech view of things, if you were growing bacteria or yeast industrially, you would have cultures that have been cryogenically-‐preserved so you’ll have something to go back to, in case of your main culture crashes. This is something which is becoming a bit more relevant with algae because the culture collections are few and far between. Its not always clear how the industry is going to look at this. I do know that Craig Venter has people who runs his culture collection. At Energetic algae we’re very much looking at that is going to underpin a potential algae industry. One thing I have noted that has changed since BioMara is that there has been an expansion from biofuels and bioenergy into biotechnology, to find out what else we can do with algae. JB – That is indeed very true! One of the things that F has asked me to look into is to find a range of products, which could potentially be produced through biotech, and specifically which of these could produce a revenue to sustain a cultivation. SEAFARM will have biotech teams working at institutions across Sweden, notably on the pre-‐treatment and how to store the stuff. M – that is another thing that not a lot of people have given much thought to, the storage aspect. So another project that I’m involved with, AtSeas is actually an SP7
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but its an SME FP7. It’s a textile company from Belgium leading the project, and that’s looking at different surfaces for growing the algae on -‐ because it could be that long lines within a European context aren’t going to be financially viable as you start to try and expand the industry because of labour costs involved. So can you take a textile? Can you seed it more naturally? Can you coppice it? Instead of having to pull it all up to harvest it, can you just cut the seaweed? And how do we store the seaweed? These are all questions we’re looking at today. JB – Great hadn’t thought of the coppicing before, and it makes sense that it would reduce costs dramatically if you didn’t have to use a hatchery for the full cultivation every year… and make the labour less intensive… M – Yep. So that’s one of the problems – if Europe is to compete with the far east, or even with Chile, its going to have to massively reduce costs and look at those things. Those places have very cheap labour costs, whereas here its simply not an option so we need to look at mechanisation options or develop new, less labour intensive ways of cultivating and harvesting. Is there a better way of doing this? How can we reduce our costs? JB – Certainly from a biofuels as the end-‐product perspective costs need to be reduced, unless huge economies of scale are achieved by giant cultivations… but even that is only in theory at the moment, there’s no evidence that it can work yet. But another way of breaking even and improving the balance sheet, and that would be through higher value products. M – So I have another job. I have 2 jobs. I work for one of the research councils here in the UK, so allocating funding to research projects. So I work for Natural Environment Research Council and also the Technology Strategy board. So its sort of research ßà business interface. What we have just done, and this corresponds with micro-‐ and macroalgae, we last year produced a strategic research agenda. So what we needed to do research wise to make algae and established industry within the UK. That’s been expanded out into a road map, which we are launching on the 3rd of June. That having a look at what is achievable in the short and long term. So there’s been an increase in people wanting to eat “sea things” like sea vegetables. There is growing interest in hydrocoidals, but mostly in higher end hydrocoidals. There’s a certain amount of bio-‐prospecting which is needed to identify certain bio-‐actives in seaweed, whether you can couple them into fractioning or thermochemical conversions, and getting products out. One of the partners of BioMara at Dundork was looking at supercritical which was a good way of extracting polyphenols, which can be easily fit into an antioxidant market. The material was dried cheaply, so you would then end up with the issue of storage, but that could then be fed in. So its how you look at it. JB – Ok thank you for that. Lots of things to look into there… So if I’m not mistaken the Lynn of Lorn was the site for the cultivation with BioMara, was it not?
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M – The Lynn of Lorn has kind of been a dead site. We now have our own site which is kind of near by. Its off an Island called Kerrera. So as I said, it was a bit of a dead site, we did an EIA of the Lynn of Lorn, but the Crown Estate still haven’t put any hardware in there. They have their Marince licence, but its still in development stage. JB – Where are the hatcheries? M – So for us its done at SAMS. The hatchery phase is actually very low tech. One thing we’ve gotten into more is gametophytes. Trying to find new ways of doing it and lowering costs. JB – Contact? M – That’s LARS BRUNNER. Lars is very good. And you can also talk to him about cultivation at Kerrera. JB – Cultivation at the Lynn of Lorn M – Well that would be someone at the Crown Estate, so Alex Adrian. JB – There must be some sort of history of the harvests at the Lynn of Lorn? M – No. So let me be clear. We never actually used it as a site. It wasn’t operational. We did do an EIA on the site because then it was suggested we were going to cultivate, but we never did. They didn’t get licences for a long time, and weve had to change sites. We had to beg borrow and steal from all sorts of places. We have our own site only since February, when the hardware went in for the first time and the seaweed the week after that. JB – So its getting somewhere in that sense. M – I think that’s part of the problem, the actual licensing… its actually where the problem is, licensing seaweed farming. Nobody is actually thinking of that, but that will vary from country to country as well. JB – Ok thanks for those answers. Now I made an assumption that you had operations that were active today as leftovers of BioMara, whereby you would have a hatchery, cultivation, harvesting, pretreatment, processing and resale in the form of a supply chain – a wrong assumption. M – Its always very difficult with the funding situations… We do hatchery, ansd we do cultivations, but our project never went beyond the experimental stage. We have been talking to big companies for two years about taking this further, but nothing has happened. There is an [anaerobic digestion] AD plant and a report about using
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seaweed as a feedstock. I can send you that report. So we’re waiting for these other companies to make up their minds… Another thing is we’re in semi-‐competition with a small company looking at fermentation so at the moment when we have material we freeze it and just take what we need. JB – Ok. Biogas digestion was one of the big parts of the project. M – There is actually a paper written on the techno-‐economics of the biogas digestion from seaweeds. It’s very recent. Neil Hewit from BioMara was involved. Its just out in Bio-‐resource technology. First author is Ashok, David. JB – Great I’ll look that up. What were David Ashok or Neil Hewit roles in BioMara? And who would be good for Biogas? M – DA and NH were in charge of the techno-‐economic aspects of the research. A good person to talk to about Biogas would be John Bartlett from “Sliga” (sounds-‐like), although he’s even harder to get a hold of than I am. If you cant get a hold of him, look for his student, 1st name is Carlos* but I cant remember his surname… Someone else is “Paul McCarton from DunDork” JB – Question in terms of water quality at cultivation sites. M – Nave Edwards at Gallway, he is meant to be taking in that kind of information for Energetic Algae. Talk to Nave, I will send you his contact details. JB – Now going back to my thesis, the path I’ve taken so far seems to indicate that economic viability is only achievable, at the moment, through small scale cultivation and high value products… What products are you looking at? M – A range of things anything from food to potential feed for the shellfish industry. It could be that its not necessarily kelps, other types of species are more specialised for products. More effort needs to go into species selection and which species have higher volumes or densities of quality products. JB – Ok, well following from that in terms of product diversification, I’m looking at IMTA. Was IMTA ever looked into for BioMara. M – No because of the way we were funded. You need to make sure you are ticking all the right boxes. You can look at these retail companies though: In Scotland there is a company called Bodayre who are reselling a specific condiment for £8 per 100grams. For that go to www.seaweedproducts.co.uk. Another one is Ocean Harvest who are specialised in terms of animal feed for pigs for instance. Another is SEAHorse who started up providing supplement for race horses.
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JB – So when you set up BioMara you didn’t expect it to end up with operations that could continue when the funding ended? M – No we still had a lot of questions to answer, like storage and pre-‐treatment, and we didn’t think it would take off quite yet. JB – Ok I’m looking at my notes and I think we’ve covered it all. We can wrap it up I guess. If you could send me those links that would be great. Thanks a lot for your time! [Closing chat] *Carlos Vanegas Lars Brunner, SAMS – Telephone Interview – 19th of May 2013 [Introductions] JB – So as I mentioned in our email exchanges, the reason I have asked you to meet with me is that I have been trying to gather some information regarding the achievements and shortcomings of BioMara, but also to discuss different types of IMTA products and growth conditions for kelp species. So first of, can I ask you to let me know a little about your background, how you have been involved with BioMara and what you are now up to in the wake of the BioMara project? Lars – My background is quite long, but basically I have been working at SAMS for some 15 or 20 years now looking at cultivation methods for seaweeds, particularly kelps. For BioMara I was going to lead operations at the cultivation site, however as you now know from Michele, the original site wasn’t granted a marine license. Only recently have we finally been granted permission to set up a site, but this one is on the Northern tip of the outer Hebrides. We finally have our first lines in the water, and we’re due to harvest our first batches of seaweed at the end of the summer. My team still works in close collaboration with Michele Stanley, but it is no longer a part of the BioMara project, although other projects are pending application and we would supply those with samples. JB – Ok, what sort of a cultivation will this be? Are you just focusing on kelp species? Lars – That’s correct, although the integration of multiple species is part of one of the projects we may become a part of in the coming months. JB – What sort of other species would you be bringing onto the site? Lars – A variety, namely fish and shellfish, mimicking the principles of an IMTA style cultivation. I don’t have much of an idea of which species yet, I’ve only read a brief
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memo about these projects. As I said before, my area of expertise is seaweeds so it will be colleagues of mine dealing with the other components. JB – Great, ok. Well can I ask you then some more specific questions about the site. It is called Kerrera, is that correct? Lars – Yes. JB – What would you say the limiting factors, or major challenges to growth at your site are? And do you collect water samples for salinity and nutrient content? Lars – We haven’t begun regular water sampling, but we have undertaken a few surveys yes. Overall we have fairly good conditions here for seaweed growth. Very salty water with a fair bit of current and wave action. It almost never freezes at the surface, although we have some concerns with floating ice blocks that we have to tackle. Also wildlife here is diverse and a bit of an issue. We have lots of marine mammals, birds and big fish to consider during operations, particularly when we install our long-‐line infrastructure. JB – Well that already answered my next question, which was about what sort of infrastructure you are using. Lars – Yes we are using long-‐lines. They are fairly low tech and quite cheap to set up, its not a complicated system, its tried and tested, and I’ve been working with it for years. JB – So back to the limiting factors for growth, what is your major concern? Lars – At Kerrera? I’m not sure yet, but evidently it would seem a lack of nutrient could be problematic. The water is quite clean here in relative terms, very little pollution and plenty of exchange with the sea through strong currents. Yes I think a lack of nutrients would be our major limiting factor. JB – So do you think IMTA will help with that, in theory cross fertilisation between species should help improve nutrient content if the fish cages are carefully positioned. Lars – Indeed this is something we are collaborating with other faculties, particularly with Thierry Chopin in Canada. He is a good person to talk to about that. JB – Yes I have already interviewed one of his colleagues on the Canadian west coast, Steve Cross, as well as Max Troell of the University of Stockholm who has participated on cross-‐species fertilisation research in Chile. Lars – Yes the name rings a bell.
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JB – Ok. Well regarding the cultivation site here on the west coast of Sweden, I have found some water sample data, that I plotted on graphs for you to look at. Did you get my email yesterday? Lars – Yes but I have not had the time to look at them. JB – That’s fine, well I would like you to have a quick look at them now please. The idea here is that you can get an idea of the conditions at the site, and I hope that your expertise can shed some light on the potential challenges for growth we might have. Lars – Well by the looks of it, temperature looks fine although I would recommend checking the data over longer periods of time to check for extreme cold spells. By the looks of it, the samples are collected every month or so. If you look back over the years, missing samples during the winter period are probably due to winter freezes. You need to check long term how likely freezes are because they can damage infrastructure and winter cultivations. Might even be worth trying to call the sample collectors to find out if frozen surface waters are a major concern there. JB – Great thanks for the tip! Lars – With regards to the other factors, nutrients show the classic problem of being in surplus in the winter, being quickly used up in spring by blooms, and remaining at low levels until the autumn/winter. That said the nutrient levels still seem to be alright, with a decent baseline, although they will most certainly be a limiting factor when light is aplenty in the summer months. The salinity gradient chart is also quite interesting. Here salinity is quite pronounced, but your site seems a little on the low side. It may be worth having a long line system that can be lowered to where salinity is greater, in case of sudden drops in salinity which have the potential of ruining a harvest. This would also help solve the problem of the odd surface water freeze. JB – Ok. Do you have any other comments about the graphs? Lars – Not that I can think of now, but If anything else comes to mind I’ll let you know. Overall the conditions seem more or less suitable, particularly if you use species already found in the vicinity. JB – Before wrapping up, I’d like to have a final discussion regarding economic viability. Now I know this isn’t your area of expertise, but as you said before you’ve been working on seaweed cultivation for many years, both in academia and the private sector, so perhaps you can enlighten me. As a part of my report, I have two development scenarios. The first would see a large scale cultivation of kelps only, primarily for the provision of biogas feedstocks. The second scenario would see a much smaller scale IMTA style cultivation, also of local species. In your opinion, which of these two scenarios would be the more achievable?
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Lars – What do you mean by achievable? JB – Well a variety of things: profitable, manageable, costly, etc? Lars – Well mono-‐cultivations are quite easy to set up. The long-‐line technology is simple as chips to organise, the seeding systems that have been developed even in the last few years are very successful, cheap and simple. Once in the water there isn’t much to be done until harvest time, and that isn’t too difficult either. IMTAs however require years of optimisation, constant monitoring and tweaking, and given that the environment is dynamic and ever changing, the system has to be malleable to suit the ever-‐changing conditions. IMTAs aren’t easy to set up either, you have to be aware of currents and so on. That said, the benefits of that can materialise in an IMTA can definitely make the whole process worth doing. To be fair I’m not IMTA expert, though I understand the basics pretty well. I wouldn’t be able to give you much of an indication about economic viability of IMTA systems, but long-‐lines are, as I’ve said before, already well established. JB – So in your opinion the long-‐line is achievable on a large scale? Lars – Yes and No. Yes in terms of the technical aspects, the actual ability for it to be set up. But in practise its hard to get licensing permission for large scale cultivation, particularly in near-‐shore environments. It’s a hard one to answer. Both options have up sides and down sides, I guess it would depend on a variety of other factors, like the market for the products you are aiming for, or the research focus of the projects it would be supplying samples for. JB – Thanks for that. If you don’t mind I may be in touch again soon if anything else comes up! Lars – Sure, just pop me an email and we can set up another phone call. JB – [Wrap up]