A novel nutrient upwelling solution to enable large-scale offshore aquafarming

为了恢复我们的气候并在2050年实现净零社会，我们需要能够隔离至少与我们排放的二氧化碳一样多的二氧化碳。没有足够的土地来通过植树来实现这一目标，而且现有的碳去除技术，如直接空气捕获(DAC)或碳捕获和储存(CCS)，成本高昂，而且具有规模挑战性。修复气候迫切需要能够封存数十亿吨二氧化碳的解决方案。马尾藻是自然界解决气候挑战的最佳候选者之一。马尾藻是自由漂浮的，具有很高的碳营养比，每两周大一倍，几乎可以无限规模生长。碳占马尾藻干质量的30%，在相同营养素的情况下，它可以比浮游植物多吸收10倍的二氧化碳。此外，马尾藻提取物可以取代化石燃料衍生产品作为塑料、化肥和燃料的原材料。海田正在开发模块化的近海水产养殖场技术，以可持续地规模化种植马尾藻。水产养殖场基础设施包括由可持续材料制成的低成本浮动屏障，并由近海洋流或通过系留在现有近海基础设施上加以遏制。海藻生物质将被收获，在母船上加工提取有价值的产品，富含碳的残留物将被打包并储存在深海中长期(1000年)碳封存。创新英国项目将开发一个突破性的科学测试设施，使可扩展的基础设施得以验证，该基础设施需要持续为表层水产养殖场提供丰富的深层海水营养。该项目将加快经济上可行的近海水产养殖业，是我们在2035年之前每年封存10亿吨二氧化碳的目标的关键一步。Seafield将是第一个驯化马尾藻的公司，成为碳捕获市场的全球领导者，预计到2050年，市场规模将达到4.4万亿美元，同时对我们的气候和海洋生物多样性产生重大积极影响。

To restore our climate and achieve a Net-Zero society by 2050, we need to be able to sequester at least as much CO2 as we emit. There is insufficient land available to meet this target through planting trees, and existing carbon-removal technologies, such as direct air capture (DAC) or carbon capture and storage (CCS), are expensive and challenging to scale. Solutions capable of sequestering gigatonnes of CO2 are urgently required to heal the climate.Sargassum seaweed represents one of nature's best candidates to solve the climate challenge. Sargassum is free-floating, has a high carbon-to-nutrient ratio, doubles in size every two weeks, and can grow with almost unlimited scale. Carbon accounts for 30% of the dry mass of Sargassum, and it can sequester 10x more CO2 than phytoplankton with the same amount of nutrients. Furthermore, Sargassum extracts can replace fossil-fuel derived products as raw materials for plastics, fertilisers, and fuels.Seafields is developing modular offshore aquafarm technology to sustainably grow Sargassum at scale. The aquafarm infrastructure comprises low-cost floating barriers made from sustainable materials and contained by offshore currents or through tethering to existing offshore infrastructure. The seaweed biomass will be harvested, processed onboard a mother-ship to extract valuable products, and the carbon-rich residues will be baled and stored in the deep ocean for long-term (\>1,000 years) carbon-sequestration.The Innovate UK project will develop a groundbreaking scientific test facility, enabling the validation of scalable infrastructure required to continuously supply the surface aquafarm with nutrients abundant in deeper layers of seawater. The project will accelerate economically feasible offshore aquafarming and is a key step in our mission to sequester 1Gt/year of CO2 by 2035\. Seafields will be the first to domesticate Sargassum, becoming a global leader in a carbon-capture market forecast to reach $4.4 trillion by 2050 whilst having a major positive impact on our climate and ocean biodiversity.