NTNU Institutt for biologi SINTEF Fiskeri og havbruk

Co-workers: Silje Forbord, Kristine Braaten

Steinhovden, Jorunn Skjermo, Aleksander Handå, Xinxin Wang, Ole Jakob Broch,

Yngvar Olsen

Kjell Inge Reitan

Macroalgae activities in Norway

Cultivation

Global production and harvest of macroalgae

2010: Cultivation: 19 mill ton

Harvest: 0.8 mill ton

Global situation

Europe situation

Why should Norway cultivate seaweeds?

• Geography – Long coastline

– Possibility for fertilization from salmon farms (Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture)

• Knowledge and competence – Aquaculture (fish, mussels)

– Off-shore industry (fish, oil/gas)

– Biotechnology (phycocolloids)

• A biomass with great potentials – 3.generations bioenergy

– Feed and food

– Bioprospecting (new chemicals)

– Fertilizer

Photo: Seaweed Energy Solutions

Seaweed biomass as third generations biofuels

• Suitable composition for conversion into biofuels (ethanol) and biogas (methane).

• High biomass productivity (ca 2 kg C m-2 year-1)(Lüning 1990).

• CO2-consumption: 8-10 tons per ha per year

– comparable to temperate woodlands (Chung et al. 2010)

• No use of valuable human food crops

• No use of productive land area

• No need for irrigation, pesticides or artificial fertilizers (NB! No phosphate)

• Grows in the sea, ¾ of the Earth surface is sea...

Cultivation at Sea

Saccharina latissima

Alaria esculenta

Year round cultivation of seedlings of Saccharina latissima

Forbord et al., 2012.

1. sorus 3. sporofytter 2. Sporer

Current cultivation technology: Long lines with hanging rope cultures

Challenge: Technology for industrial scale

10

Alaria esculenta

Saccharina latissima

Effect of deployment time on growth of S. latissima

Handå et al. submitted

5 m

Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep

Spor

ophy

te le

ngth

(cm)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

AugNovFeb

R2=0.99

R2=0.97

R2=1.0

*

*

*

Aug Nov Feb June (did not survive

Depth and seasonal-dependent growth of S. latissima

Handå et al. submitted

Aug

Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep

Spor

ophy

te le

ngth

(cm

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

2 m 5 m8 m

R2=0.99

R2=0.99

R2=0.97

** *

* **

*

*

*

*

Length of S. latissima cultivated in IMTA 5 m depth At the fish farm

Handå et al. submitted

Aug-5 m

Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep

Spor

ophy

te le

ngth

(cm

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Salmon farmReference

R2=0.99

R2=0.98

* * *

**

*

*

*

*

Reference

Challenge with growth of epiphytes in summer

Some on-going macroalgae activities in Norway • No commercial cultivation yes • Some pilot projects • Some research projects

• The research council of Norway • EU • Industry funded

• Bioenergy – Bioethanol • IMTA • Feed

Projects: • From biomass to biogas • SEAWEEDTECH • SEABREED • SEAWEED-STAR

Industrialization 2017 !

Projects at SINTEF and NTNU

• INTEGRATE (2006-2011): IMTA

• EXPLOIT (2012-2015): Evaluate full scale potential of IMTA in Norway

• Partners: SINTEF, NTNU, IMR, Bellona

• Macrobiomass (2010-2012): Cultivation of seaweed for biofuel

• Partners: SINTEF; University of Oslo, Sylter Algenfarm

• SES finaced projects

• Norwegian Seaweed Technology Center

Partners:

• Salmon Group, Sulefisk, Hortimare and Inovasjon Norge

Aim:

To cultivate seaweed (several species) in close location to a fish farm to assimilate nutrients from the fish farm

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Macroalgae project in Solund, Sogn og Sjordane

Photo Øyvind Kråkås

• Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture

• Cultivation of seaweed

• Food

• Medicine

• Cosmetic

• Bioenergy

• Bioplastic

Ocean Forest Project

The DYMALYS project (2012-2014) IMTA – Lysefjorden

Thank you