{"id":145960,"date":"2024-06-17T07:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=145960"},"modified":"2024-06-11T11:50:14","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T09:50:14","slug":"room-to-grow-at-bluff-seaweed-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/room-to-grow-at-bluff-seaweed-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Room to grow at Bluff seaweed plant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

The co-founder of the red seaweed growing facility in the Bluff says they are not trying to mimic the ocean but are trying to create conditions that optimise growing of the methane-reducing bioactives that live in seaweed.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Site
Site manager Tim Pope with NZ native Asparagopsis armata<\/em> seaweed at its pompom stage. The site used to be a freezing works where many Bluff residents worked. The repurposing of the site is good for the community and job creation, Pope says. \u00a9 Gerhard Uys<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Farmer\u2019s Weekly reported Dr Steve Meller, co-founder of CH4 Global, visited NZ last week to give a presentation to a Parliamentary select committee tasked with receiving submissions on the Regulatory Systems (primary industries) Amendment Bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meller is challenging government authorities on the irony of growing tonnes of the NZ native Asparagopsis armata<\/em> seaweed in NZ, while being unable to sell it here as a methane-reducing feed supplement.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Dr
Dr Steve Meller, co-founder of CH4 Global, says the Bluff site will likely always be operational as it serves a specific purpose in the production and research chain. \u00a9 Gerhard Uys<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Meller said CH4 Global chose the Bluff site as it had access to seawater and was already consented for extraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seawater is piped to the site and cleaned of airborne and waterborne pathogens before it is fit to grow seaweed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process of growing and commercially selling seaweed has four sequential stages, three of which are supported at the Bluff facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a hatchery where young seaweed is kept free of contaminants and grown in small tanks as feedstock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A portion of the feedstock is transferred to larger, 3000 litre vessels in a second growing out phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this second phase the feedstock is grown to a certain level of maturity, where the biomass has achieved a certain size and the bioactives are at an appropriate level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seaweed can double in size every week. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Young
Young seaweed is grown in small vessels before they are transferred to 3000 litre tanks. Besides light seaweed needs CO2. Some of this comes from seawater, but additional CO2 and other inorganic nutrients are added for optimal growth. \u00a9 Gerhard Uys<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

This has to be managed as too much biomass can block the light, negatively affecting growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen they are at the right stage \u2026 we harvest them daily at the same rate as the growth rate, and have a sustained production cycle,\u201d Meller said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the third stage the seaweed is processed with the goal to preserve the integrity and bioactivity of the active compounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facility has a commercial freeze drier to process seaweed, but Meller said this process changes the integrity of material and up to half of the bioactives can be lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CH4 Global has filed IP on another process that preserves the integrity of compounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other process is followed at a South Australian site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth stage is formulation and packaging, with the goal of putting a stable product in farmer\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"The
The facility has capacity for 300,000 litres and there is still room for expansion. \u00a9 Gerhard Uys<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Formulation and packaging is done  in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe hard part of business is turning something into a product that fits the purpose of the market, at the right price,\u201d Meller said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said they need to sell methane-reducing products to farmers at a price that allows farmers to still make money, likely by getting a modest premium for the protein they sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reasonable feed savings and the value of carbon on top of this should \u201cadd up to put money in farmer\u2019s pockets\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bluff facility has been in production for two and half years and has 10 staff members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some have aquaculture backgrounds, with others doing more manual labour.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"The
The freeze-dried product is not stable yet, but is used for testing at other sites. \u00a9 Gerhard Uys<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

CH4 global wants to add \u201canalytical capability\u201d to staff soon, as samples are currently sent overseas for specific types of analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The site has a 300,000 litre capacity, with room to expand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meller said the Bluff site will never be a large-scale facility as it will not have large ponds to grow seaweed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is mainly because the water in Southland is too cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heating water is also one of the site\u2019s biggest challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The site is there to provide products to commercial partners and will in all likelihood always operate, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The co-founder of the red seaweed growing facility in the Bluff says they are not trying to mimic the ocean but are trying to create conditions that optimise growing of the methane-reducing bioactives that live in seaweed. Farmer\u2019s Weekly reported Dr Steve Meller, co-founder of CH4 Global, visited NZ last week to give a presentation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":145975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"Seaweed production at the Bluff is going from strength to strength, despite challenges in marketing the end product locally","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[7190,15947,5842,7204,12575,13283],"supplier":[24310,22473],"class_list":["post-145960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-algae","tag-bioactive","tag-biomass","tag-feedstock","tag-nutrition","tag-seaweed","supplier-ch4-global","supplier-new-zealand-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145960"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=145960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}