Aquaculture America 2023

February 23 - 26, 2023

New Orleans, Louisiana USA

SCALE EFFECTS AND PRODUCTION COSTS FOR MACROALGAE FARMS

Hauke Kite-Powell1, Erick Ask2, Simona Augyte3, David Bailey1, Julie Decker4, Clifford Goudey5, Gretchen Grebe6, Yaoguang Li3, Scott Lindell1, Domenic Manganelli5, Michael Marty-Rivera3, Crystal Ng3, Loretta Roberson6, Michael Stekoll7, Schery Umanzor7, Charles Yarish3

 

1Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA

2International Flavors and Fragrances, New York, New York USA

3University of Connecticut, 1 University Place, Stamford, CT 06901-2315 USA

4Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, Wrangell, AK 99929 USA

5C.A. Goudey & Associates, 21 Marlboro Street, Newburyport, MA 01950 USA

6Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA

7University of Alaska Southeast, 11066 Auke Lake Way, Juneau, AK 99801 USA

 



Seaweed farming has the potential to produce feedstocks for many applications, including food, feeds, fertilizers, biostimulants, and biofuels. Seaweeds have advantages over land-based biomass in that they require no freshwater inputs and no allocation of arable land. To date, seaweed farming has not been practiced at scales relevant to meaningful biofuel production.  Here we describe a techno-economic model of large-scale seaweed farms and its application to the cultivation of the cool temperate species Saccharina latissima (sugar kelp) and the tropical seaweed Eucheumatopsis isiformis. At farm scales of 1000 ha or more, our model suggests that farm gate production costs in waters up to 200 km from the onshore support base are likely to range between $200 and $300 per dry tonne. The model also suggests that production costs below $100 per dry tonne may be achievable in some settings, which would make these seaweeds economically competitive with land-based biofuel feedstocks. While encouraging, these model results and some assumptions on which they are based require further field validation.