Researchers at the University of Southern California are in the early stages of an experiment to farm seaweed for biofuel in the Pacific Ocean. Kelp can grow two to three feet a day without fertilizer, pesticides, fresh water, or arable land — making it an ideal product for the biofuel industry.
“Kelp is transformed into biofuel by a process called thermochemical liquefaction. The kelp is dried out, and the salt is washed away. Then it’s turned into bio-oil through a high-temperature, high-pressure conversion process,” says NPR.
But so far, the process is more an idea than a reality, at least in the United States. Some countries in Asia and Scandinavia have been farming kelp for food for years, and a few, like Sweden, already convert it to biofuel.
The USC scientists, looking to make large-scale kelp farming economically feasible, have invented a device called a kelp “elevator,” which “would raise and lower kelp beds to get sunlight in the shallow water and nutrients in the deep water. This would allow them to farm miles from shore,” says NPR.