A bold experiment to use seaweed as part of a solution to climate change is underway in Iceland, where millions of basketball-size buoys seeded with seaweed will be dropped into the ocean in the coming months
A bold experiment to use seaweed as part of a solution to climate change is underway in Iceland, where millions of basketball-size buoys made of wood and limestone and seeded with seaweed will be dropped into the ocean in the coming months.
Natalie Colao, a technician at the Running Tide macro algae hatchery in Brunswick Maine, weighs and photographs individual kelp pieces weekly. But if seaweed turned out to be an effective tool for stabilizing the climate, the industry would need to expand on a massive scale. Some scientists, small-scale harvesters, and environmental groups are cautioning against rushing ahead before fundamental scientific, environmental, regulatory, and ethical questions are answered.
Running Tide team members search for and collect kelp souris tissue and a variety of algae samples off of Jewell Island in Casco Bay, Maine. Souri are the reproductive tissue on kelp blades and are used to propagate kelp in the hatchery. About 15 years ago, Odlin heard a talk from Klaus Lackner—the physicist who popularized the idea of removing carbon from the atmosphere. It clicked.