The global push to protect the environment and cut carbon emissions has opened a host of ocean-based commercial opportunities — from seaweed farming to wind and water turbine energy production — that can be rewarding, but challenging to execute, said speakers at a Tuesday session of the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit.

Obstacles to this “blue economy” include maneuvering through the demands of multiple stakeholders, resolving technical problems and securing the support of government agencies, according to speakers on a panel about the potential of the ocean for commerce. The newness of the technology itself can create difficulties, said Emily Morris, CEO of EMRGY, which designs and constructs hydro kinetic devices, or water turbines.

Some problems “we really don’t even know yet, because we don’t have the decades of operational experience in those areas that provide us that intelligence,” said Morris, one of five speakers at the session looking at the energy and climate opportunities of the blue economy. “Unfortunately, too many companies or technologies or startups have ventured into those spaces, still with many lingering product challenges [and] technical challenges to solve, where environmental challenges sort of cause those [initiatives] to break down.”

The Department of Energy and its Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) have only recently begun to explore the huge potential of ocean-based clean energy production. A 2020 study by the DOE and National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that the tidal energy resources in the United States, most of which are in Alaska, could be as high as 445 TWh per year.

ARPA-E has provided funding for research and development for floating offshore wind turbines and seaweed farming and, last November, announced $35 million in funding for 11 projects as part of its Submarine Hydrokinetic and Riverine Kilo-megawatt Systems (SHARKS) program. EMRGY received $3.6 million to develop control systems and new hardware that will improve performance and lower the levelized cost of energy for its turbines.

The company’s hydro turbines are the size of a large SUV and can generate 10 to 40 kW, she said. But “there are many, many environmental challenges that must be considered for ocean energy to become a standard practice.”

According to a 2017 ARPA-E study, environmental concerns about water turbines range from potential alteration of currents and ocean sediment to impacts on the migration patterns of fish.

Wind Sector Growth

Entrepreneurs in the offshore wind sector have faced such factors for a while, with some success. The offshore wind energy sector is growing dramatically, said Laura Morton, senior director for offshore policy and regulatory affairs for American Clean Power Association, a trade association. She cited the example of President Biden’s announcement Tuesday of an agreement with California Gov. Gavin Newsom to open two areas off the state’s northern coast for offshore wind projects as part of the president’s plan to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030.

Yet the United States lags the rest of the world in offshore wind power generation, she said, referring to statistics from the Global Wind Energy Council’s 2021 Global Wind Report that found of 35,293 MW of installations worldwide, the U.S. accounted for just 30 MW.  Europe has 24,837 MW of installations, and Asia-Pacific has 10,414 MW, she said.

Paul Dobbins, senior director of impact Investing and ecosystems services, aquaculture for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said the challenges facing ocean-based projects often include competing demands for space on the ocean. WWF has invested heavily in seaweed farming because of the potential to generate a source of food and industrial feed stocks from the high yields of biomass in the weed, while also cutting carbon emissions and creating jobs, he said.

The seaweed sector, where demand is rising at about 8% a year, provides building blocks for everyday products such as toothpaste, milkshakes and processed foods, Dobbins said. But it is not without its difficulties.

“When you stand at the beach and you look out over the horizon to the ocean, it looks like a pretty empty place,” he said. “But when you’re working on the ocean, in the ocean, and next to the ocean, you realize that it’s an incredibly busy place. And there are a lot of stakeholders … their concerns need to be addressed and taken into account when we’re doing marine spatial planning.”

Seaweed can help mitigate the economic pains of coastal communities, especially those where fishing has declined, he said. And in the United States, the growing season — from October to June — is usually the off-season for coastal activity, he added.

“However, conflicts still exist,” he said. “There is concern that seaweed farming will impinge upon [fishermen’s] ability to make a living. Recreational boaters are concerned. There are defense areas out in the ocean that have to be taken into account — transportation and logistics areas.”

Shipping Fuel Transformation

The shipping sector is grappling with how to comply with the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) greenhouse gas reduction strategy, while maintaining its position as a major commercial sector, said Sotirios Mamalis, manager of sustainability, fuels and technology for the American Bureau of Shipping. The IMO’s goal is to reduce the carbon emissions of the international shipping fleet by 40% of its current emissions by 2030, and 50% by 2050, he said.

“Compared to other industries, such as the automotive industry or the stationary power generation industry, the shipping sector has been lagging in terms of enforcing emissions regulations and efficiency regulations,” Mamalis said.

Shipping companies are looking at a variety of methods to cut emissions, including alternative fuels and energy sources, such as methanol, biofuels, hydrogen, liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas, he said. The IMO in 2020 also required vessels to cut sulfur oxide emissions, mainly through the use of low-sulfur fuel.

Technological improvements, such as energy-saving devices, new propeller designs and wind-assisted propulsion systems, are also being studied, Mamalis said.

“We basically have a world of opportunities in front of us in shipping,” he said. “And I think this is driving a lot of, I would say deployment and scale-up of [synthetic] fuels or renewable fuels, which we’ll see in the future.”