“HAEJO’s offshore seaweed cultivation technologies could unlock new opportunities for the energy sector. They will both reduce the strain on land and freshwater resources and enable a new, domestic, megaton-scale supply source,” said ARPA-E Director Evelyn N. Wang. “Leveraging work efforts in this field from around the world gives HAEJO technologies the potential to accelerate US energy independence and secure US leadership in ocean industry and technology.”
The HAEJO program will work to overcome challenges in creating an economically viable seaweed industry by developing new sensors for autonomous systems, ocean engineering approaches for supplying nutrients offshore and efficiently dewatering harvested biomass, and market-enabling technologies for deep-water seaweed cultivation. Through HAEJO, projects will involve technical partnerships with South Korean experts in seaweed cultivation to accelerate US industry development. Technologies are intended to reduce the cost of seaweed cultivation by a factor of four, develop energy-centric seaweed markets in the US, and increase the scale of the domestic seaweed cultivation market by at least three orders of magnitude.
Visit the ARPA-E eXCHANGE website for more information about HAEJO, including key guidelines and the program description.
