Buckle up team, the damn IPCC report just dropped and we need to get our collective shit together or we are going to be inhabiting some kind of Kevin Costner’s WaterWorld that’s on fire. Sheesh, way to start all gloomy much?

Yeah well we don’t need to stir a martini and sink into oblivion just yet. Plenty of bright sparks have been innovating ways that we can unstick our Carbon freight ship from the Suez Canal and get ourselves on course to a more habitable tomorrow.

Whilst there a multitude of areas that require rapid rethinks in the decarbonisation spectrum, I will be splashing around in the realm of food production, which makes up for 15 percent of Global carbon emissions and examining how seaweed can solve some problems here, and pronto!

I recently visited the production warehouse for Phycohealth Products which is located on the South Coast of NSW. This is where Director and Scientist Pia Windburg creates nutritious food, supplements and beauty products made from Ulva84 which is a specific type of seaweed that she identified. The seaweed is grown utilising the waste stream of a near by Manildra plant which distills ethanol. Intercepting this waste means our coast doesn’t cop the run off and an efficient crop can be grown that has excellent carbon capture capabilities.

In comparison to wheat, seaweed grows 50 times quicker and in a scintilla of the space. Check out the video below to see how this inconspicuous pond of seaweed ends up as food and other goodies.

Pretty neat eh? Not only is seaweed a viable crop, it’s packed full of nutrients and protein and is a great remedy for gut health. Phyco Health’s farm is a scalable idea, meaning it can be adapted to much larger scale and implemented globally. By integrating this technology into current food systems we have the potential to take the load of land based agriculture that has heavy environmental implications such as deforestation, irrigation and the creation of dead zones.

Stay tuned for a discussion on how seaweed compares to land based agricultural practices as we imagine our solar punk future into the now. #thefutureisnow