US DoE awards USD 22m to boost marine biomass

The US Department of Energy (DoE) today said it is awarding USD 22 million (EUR 18.3m) in funding under a programme, designed to help make the US a leading producer of marine biomass.

The funding is provided through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) as part of Macroalgae Research Inspiring Novel Energy Resources (MARINER) programme, and will back 18 projects, seeking to accelerated production of macroalgae, or seaweed, which can be used to make fuels, chemicals or other products without the need for land and freshwater.

"From Alaska to the Gulf Coast, the United States has offshore resources capable of producing enough seaweed to handle as much as 10 percent of our demand for transportation fuel," said ARPA-E acting director Eric Rohlfing.

As meaningful macroalgae fuel production is still a distant prospect, the projects aim to tackle a range of challenges. The projects are therefore divided into five categories -- integrated cultivation and harvesting systems, advanced component technologies, computational modeling tools, aquatic monitoring tools, and advanced breeding and genetic tools.

The biggest award, of USD 3.7 million, is for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution of Massachusetts, for a project called Integrated Seaweed Hatchery and Selective Breeding Technologies for Scalable Offshore Seaweed Farming.

Details are available at https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/MARINER_ProjectDescriptions_FINAL.pdf

(USD 1 = EUR 0.833)

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