[carvink]

I saw a presentation about marine permaculture arrays (MPA) recently, which are floating kelp farms. Floating, but submerged, using wave action to power pumps that provide nutrient laden cold water to help the kelp grow. These pumps are like the flaps valves in your toilet tank. Kelp could provide biostock for fuel among other economically valuable commodities. There has been prototype work done in Indonesia and the Philippines. The next implementation looks like it will be in Tasmania. There are a couple of challenging technical obstacles - the cost of current (ocean current) sensors, and nutrient sensors is too high now to make this scale. Some innovation is needed to bring the cost of those sensors down.

From some notes: The long range vision is to create an industry that will provide a range of ecosystem services that would supply food, fuel, fertilizer, fiber, farmaceuticals (nutraceuticals). Not just along the coasts, but in the open ocean. Think of it as biorefinery management. An MPA would likely have a 3 month service interval, and 3 year overhaul schedule to deal with things like biofouling that are part of maritime activities.

A one sq kilometer MPA might generate $1 million a year in value from kelp, maybe another $1 million a year from fish. The fish part is an unknown.

The best way to ride out an ocean storm is to submerge, like whales do. They could adjust bouyancy of an MPA if satellites tell them a storm is coming.

They intend to use mesoscale ocean current eddy shear levels to move MPA's to different locations in a region (imagine using foils to tack across the difference in current layers speeds, or to keep them circling in a small area, and want to develop cheaper marine vessel navigation automation [This means they won't need to anchor or tether the arrays to the bottom of the ocean]