Imagine a U.S.-led, sustainable hydrocarbon supply, from the deep-water offshore cultivation of seaweed, at the gigaton scale. Such an industry would not require fresh water, artificial fertilizer, additional land use, and would not preclude any existing industry. Despite possessing the world’s largest maritime Exclusive Economic Zone, the U.S. seaweed cultivation industry is still in its infancy, harvesting just 971 tons in 2023 at a cost of >$1000 per dry metric ton. It faces scaling challenges in reducing production costs and developing offtake markets that will grow demand to the megaton levels seen in overseas domestic markets, a necessary stepping-stone on the way to achieving the gigaton scale required to create a sustainable hydrocarbon industry. The Republic of Korea enjoys a scaled seaweed industry that cultivates approximately 1.8 megatons of seaweed biomass per year for food purposes. Leveraging knowledge and expertise from the scaled Korean seaweed cultivation industry could be a way to expedite technical solutions that reduce costs to parity with terrestrial sources of organic carbon. As such, ARPA-E has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Institute of Marine Science and Technology (KIMST) promotion of the Republic of Korea (ROK) to support parallel, synergistic R&D and collaboration. Three broad areas of potential technology development will be discussed during this seminar: ‘smart aquafarm’ sensors, offshore infrastructure, and enabling markets.
Speaker Name:
Dr. Simon Freeman
Affiliation:
Dr. Simon Freeman currently serves as a Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA‑E). His focus at ARPA-E is on maritime energy and environmental sensing technologies.
Biography:
Freeman previously worked as a civilian oceanographer for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport. Freeman was Principal Investigator in the development of inflatable and bioinspired soft robotic systems for underwater vehicle and sensor design, new signal processing methods for acoustic sensing, detection and environmental exploitation, and pressure-tolerant technologies to enhance our access to the seabed.
Freeman earned a B.E. with Honors in Mechanical Engineering and a B.S. in Marine Science from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and a Ph.D. in Oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
