The Climate Foundation seaweed permaculture project is scaling up, to tackle climate change
Climate Foundation, Marina Permaculture.
This year, the Climate Foundation is planning to further develop their marine permaculture project. They are planning to double the size of their seaweed array and build on the foundation of building blocks for their research into carbon sequestration capabilities.
The team is developing their collective understanding of the scalability and cost-effectiveness of marine permaculture as a carbon sequestration solution.
What is marine permaculture?
With the assistance of kelp (a type of seaweed), marine ‘permaculture’ (farming in a sustainable way) provides a solution to save not only the oceans, but the planet as well. This is as a result of multifaceted nature of kelp. Kelp itself can be used as food, feed, fuel, fertiliser, and it take carbon out of the atmosphere and ocean, to efficiently store it in the deep ocean for thousands of years.
What is the problem and how can marine permaculture help?
The problem lies in the ecosystem, as global warming increases and the oceans become heated, the kelp ecosystem is destroyed. This natural cycle is referred to as ‘upwelling’; where an offshore wind which naturally circulates the ocean to provide nutrient-rich cold waters from the depths of the ocean is unable to function properly as a result of increase ocean temperatures.
What does this carbon sequestration actually do?
The Climate Foundation’s carbon sequestration research harnesses the potential of carbon removal technology with the use of seaweed cultivation which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and helps combat climate change. If the Climate Foundation is able to increase the scalability of the project, then the technology will present a feasible solution to “helping to pave the way to a healthy climate and future”.
Essentially, the bigger the capability of carbon capture potential of seaweed cultivation, the more impact it will have in assisting the environment to slow down climate change. In 2022, The Climate Foundation was awarded the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Milestone prize.
What does this carbon sequestration actually do?
By using marine permaculture offshore and creating an environment where there is a possibility for large-scale cultivation of seaweed forests, there is a possibility to restore and maintain life to ocean regions that have been destroyed by global warming, and simultaneously to remove large amounts of carbon from the oceans and atmosphere.
The project is not just about testing scalability, it is about testing the possibility of carbon sequestration as a potential solution to climate change. From 2009, Climate Foundation collaborated with the University of Hawaii in order to successfully establish the production of algae. Then from 2015, they tested marine permaculture arrays (MPAs) as energy sources in Philippines and Tasmania. Since this time, Climate Foundation has been collaborating in order to test MPA kelp production offshore, to identify how whether this is a sustainable solution for carbon sequestration. The Climate Foundation envisions that they will increase the scalability of the project up to 100+hectares.
The project is but a stepping stone, that aims to create a commercially viable hectare-scale marine permaculture solution which can be replicated thousands of hectares, thus providing a sustainable solution. In addition to this solution, Climate Foundation is initiating a deep cycling project which will comprise of growing seaweed at great ocean depths, in order to complement the carbon sequestration capacity of marine permaculture.
The Climate Foundation is a non-profit that is dedicated to reversing global warming in our lifetime, and we will definitely watch this space.
Sources:
To find out more, please read here:
Climate Foundation: https://www.climatefoundation.org/marine-permaculture.html