The Company Leading the Industrial Revolution Is Aquamarine

Taking a biennial trip to the Atlantic Ocean was a tradition for my family. We took a cruise there every year. This time would be different, I was 15 and finally of age to go deep sea diving with my family. I was very wondrous of our world today and very curious of plants, animals, and organisms. There I was finally time to depart from the docks of my homeland to find out what the sea had in store for me. The twin 250 horsepower mercury engines shot back and forth through the Atlantic sea waves.

I didn’t know what to expect. There was just so much to look at, the thousands of gallons of saltwater, the hundreds of fish underneath our boat, but what really caught my attention the most was the seaweed. Why do you ask? As we hovered across the sea for what felt like hours, thousands of seaweed bits floated by our boat. I really got to see the seaweed up close, and personally, when we went deep sea diving.

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The touch of the seaweed felt kind of slimy, and rubbery. What is the point for these “plants” I thought? Are they productive, or do they affect our environment? After several minutes of brainstorming, I had came up with nothing, deciding to classify them as useless. Man, could I have been more wrong about my assumptions. Most plants cannot survive in saltwater because the water drowns their roots and the salt poisons their systems. However, seaweed is not a true plant; it is a complex algae, and therefore it does not use systems that can be waterlogged.

Seaweed is comprised of thick rubbery stems that protect it from the corrosive ocean water, and uses simplified versions of roots and leaves to hold it together and absorb sunlight. Seaweed can survive in many different water environments but almost always requires some type of solid surface from which to grow. The organism grows a structure called a holdfast that structure will then cement it to a rock or into soil, and absorb nutrients from the water around it. Some types of seaweed can grow up to hundreds of feet to reach near the water’s surface. Many types, eventually develop into entire colonies or forests, which can grow for miles.

So this question may come to mind, how do we get this underwater plant? Seaweed harvesting has a very rich tradition, dating all the way back to the late seventeenth century in rural Japan. Farmers would cut off large pieces of bamboo and drop them into the water, the seaweed would grow onto the bamboo and after a few weeks the farmers would pull up the poles with the organism attached. With new advances in mechanical technology, people are designed with two ways to harvest seaweed: manually and mechanically. One company leading the way in this industrial revolution is Aquamarine with their H-series aqua tractors. Newer models such as the H8-650 can harvest half an acre per hour. Although it may not sound like much, compare it to a single person, barely doing half of that in an entire day.

The production of seaweed has an interesting history, most of it occurring in the Asia-pacific region, but within the past fifty years the industry has been rising in America. All though Japan and China are leading contributors, America isn’t too far behind. Alginate, agar and carrageenan are thickening and gelling agents extracted from seaweeds and make up the main bases of industrial uses of seaweed. Today approximately one-million tons of wet seaweed is harvested and extracted to make up those three hydrocolloids. Alginate production is worth 213 million dollars and is by extraction from brown seaweeds. Agar production, worth 132 million, and which is primarily from two types of red seaweed. And carrageenan production, worth 240 million, was originally dependent on wild seaweeds, however since the early 70’s the industry has expanded rapidly because of the availability of other carrageenan-containing seaweeds. Today the total value of the industrial products from seaweed is 590 million dollars, and the all together value of all products from the seaweed industry is estimated as a U.S. 5.6 billion dollars.

As time advances, people explore new practices of different ideas, aside from technology, oil and natural gases are the next big thing in human innovations. In 1974 scientists were on the hunt for a new renewable source of methane from the seas. Their data showed that high levels of methane could be produced from seaweed. However, at this point in time, seaweed farms offshore were a failure. Since seaweed farming has come such a long way in terms of mass production a whole new window of opportunity has come about in the field of natural gas. Since modern cars can already take 10% ethanol, you already have a way of using seaweed as fuel. As more and more land crops are being used for biofuel it only seems logical to use seaweed. Why not save our food and use this plant that has an abundance of supply? Many see huge potential in this opportunity. The UK government has actually set back up to 4,700 square km of seaweed farming cultivation area for future energy scenarios. One study has shown that the amount of seaweed existing in the Earth’s oceans could in theory supply the world’s needs for energy. Seaweed can be used to produce ethanol, which can be mixed with petrol, or methane, the main component of the natural gas heating the UK’s homes.

Seaweed isn’t all it's cracked up to be. This organism has a tendency to wash up on the shores of any land around it. The plants then rot and give off a horrible odor until completely evaporated or removed. All though not as much seaweed is washed up as seaweed that is cultivated, it can still all be harvested and turned into fuel. If people were to start using seaweed for fuel then we could save so much more food as a whole, by halting the use of corn for ethanol. Every year more than one- third of our corn crop is used to feed livestock. Another 13 percent is exported, most of it used to feed livestock as well. Another 40 percent is used to produce ethanol. The remainder goes toward food and beverage production. That leaves us with about 14 percent of corn crop to be used towards our own consumption. Now days, since there is an abundance of seaweed it only seems logical to use this resource, using seaweed as a biomass for fuel, will save an exceptional amount of corn that could easily be used in areas such as aiding world hunger.

Everyday an opportunity arises to use seaweed as an alternative for overused product ingredients. By opening the eyes of producers of the many advantages of seaweed, it could become a widely used resource, sparing un-needed waste of products such as corn. One small step for man one giant leap for mankind, and eventually a booming new industry will arise. So the next time that you are watching tv and see a commercial about a starving young kid, filling your car with gas, turning on the lights , or maybe you’re on the beach and you happen to come across some seaweed, don’t forget this wide market just waiting to be explored.