"Kelp elevator" for biofuel production boosts growth by four times

So far as feedstocks for the production of biofuels go, kelp is a highly promising one on many fronts, and a new technology promises to boost its credentials even further. Scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) have demonstrated how raising and lowering it in the ocean environment with a "kelp elevator" can significantly boost biomass yield, by maximizing its exposure to both sunlight and nutrients.

One of the key reasons kelp is seen as potentially greener source of biofuel is because unlike other feedstocks, such as corn, sugarcane or canola, it doesn't require any land to grow. This is good news for both the preservation of vital natural habitats that might otherwise be cleared away and farmers who can instead use their precious space for agriculture purposes. Further to that, it doesn't require freshwater, pesticides or fertilizer, instead growing naturally within the marine environment.

So much so, kelp is one of nature's fastest-growing plants, but raising it in controlled aquaculture settings raises a few challenges. The plant needs to be fixed to a substrate within sun-drenched waters to really thrive, but these parts of the ocean don't offer the same abundance of nutrients found in deeper waters. So the USC team came up with an idea to get the best of both worlds, called the kelp elevator.