Problem:

While trees absorb significant amounts of carbon dioxide, there are issues with deforestation – we need more ways to take carbon out of the air.

Solution:

Seaweed.

Much of the world’s seaweed is produced in large sea-based farms off the coasts of China, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and Japan.

With a global production of 19 million (17.3 million tonnes), seaweed aquaculture is second only in volume to the farming of freshwater fish.

A new study conducted by scientists at UC Santa Barbara found that if 9% of the world’s ocean surface were used for seaweed farming, this would sequester 58 billion tons (53 billion tonnes) of CO₂ from the atmosphere. This is just from the absorption of carbon during the growing process.

What makes seaweed a particularly appealing carbon sink is its growth rate: about 30 to 60 times the rate of land-based plants.

Grown in these quantities, seaweed may be used for the reduction of methane in cows, edible water bubbles, drinking straws and other non SUP materials.

Discover Solution 65: storing carbon dioxide beneath the ocean bottom.

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