NewsBits…August 26, 2021

WWF Invests in Seaweed Farming via Ocean Rainforest

World Wildlife Fund with support from The Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, has announced an $850,000 investment in Ocean Rainforest, to accelerate growth of offshore seaweed production for the benefit of people, communities, and climate gains. Earlier this week, the Faroe Island-based company publicized the closing of an investment round to enable the scaling of seaweed farming operations in the North Atlantic, which was led by WWF. Through impact investments like this, WWF is advancing the technologies and processes needed to meet the conservation and societal challenges facing our planet while also helping Ocean Rainforest collect data that will inform and benefit the future of offshore seaweed farming.
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Cermaq Cooperates with Norwegian Kelp Producer Folla Alger

Salmon producers Cermaq, and kelp farmers Folla Alger in Norway have entered into an agreement to test in full scale a new type of plant for integrated production of salmon and kelp. The companies will utilize nutrients from the salmon cages to fertilize the algae and lead to increased carbon capture. They will also develop kelp into a new raw material feed for salmon. “Integrated salmon and kelp farming enables us to both utilize nutrients around the farming cages as a resource and produce more alternative feed. It is a circular economy, and will help reduce the footprint from salmon farming,” says Knut Ellekjær, managing director of Cermaq.
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Sargassum Seaweed to Power Vehicles in Barbados

The University of the West Indies (UWI) is launching a project that will see vehicles running on a fuel made of sargassum seaweed and wastewater from rum factories, with the goal of having a quarter of Barbados’ cars eventually using it. The Principal of The UWI’s Cave Hill Campus, Professor Clive Landis, said the university will be doing more to foster a climate of entrepreneurship and innovation among its students, faculty and staff. “With this project, we are hoping to have one quarter of the vehicles in Barbados powered by a natural fuel made up of sargassum seaweed and wastewater produced by our rum factories. The sargassum seaweed will act as an accelerant, and we will also be using manure from black belly sheep as bio-methane in this fuel, which will be similar to compressed natural gas,” he said.
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Cyanotech Reports Financial Results

Kailua Kona, Hawaii-based Cyanotech Corporation has announced financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2022, ended June 30, 2021. The company reported net sales of $8,964,000 for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 compared to $7,352,000 for the first quarter of fiscal 2021, an increase of 22%. Gross profit was $3,672,000, with gross profit margin of 41.0%, compared to gross profit of $2,975,000, with gross profit margin of 40.5%.  Operating income for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 was $619,000 compared to $268,000 in the same period of the prior year. Cyanotech’s Chief Executive Officer, Gerald R. Cysewski, said: “We had a good start to the year with strong sales and an improvement in gross profit margin. Climatic conditions were generally stable during the first quarter on Hawaii Island, and we saw cultivation and production metrics above trend.”
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This $110 Black T-shirt Is Made with Algae-Based Dye

UK-based clothing designer Vollebak, which bills itself as making “clothes for the future,” created a black T-shirt dyed with algae, which naturally produces oxygen and absorbs carbon dioxide. That algae dye isn’t just for the sake of photosynthesis, though. Many black inks are made with a material called carbon black, which is produced by burning petroleum to create a black powder used in pigments. Vollebak’s design for the Black Algae T-shirt instead uses algae that it says is grown in open ponds to create the black pigment for the shirt, which it did in partnership with a U.S. biomaterials company called Living Ink.
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