Can seaweeds feed the world? Modelling world offshore seaweed production potential

van Oort, P.A.J.; Verhagen, A.; van der Werf, A.K.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2023.110486

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Research has described a range of resilient foods (Tzachor et al, 2021;Winstead & Jacobson, 2022), especially for abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios (Denkenberger & Pearce, 2015;Denkenberger et al, 2019). Resilient food solutions include leaf protein concentrate (J. M. Pearce et al, 2019), greenhouse crop production (Alvarado et al, 2020), single cell protein from natural gas (García Martínez, and hydrogen (García Martínez et al, 2021), sugar from lignocellulosic biomass (Throup et al, 2022), synthetic fat from petroleum (García Martínez, Alvarado, & Denkenberger, 2022), and wild edible plants (Winstead & Jacobson, 2022).…”

Section: Why Seaweed?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One promising candidate is seaweed (D. Denkenberger et al, 2019;Tzachor et al, 2021). It is fast growing and highly scalable (John et al, 2011;Yarish et al, 2016), and has been highlighted as a valuable addition to the global food supply by the FAO for decades (DeBoer, 1981;Ferdouse et al, 2018;McHugh, 2003), since it is not competing with conventional agriculture when it comes to freshwater, land, fertilizers or pesticides (Fedoroff et al, 2010).…”

Section: Why Seaweed?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Good research to build on here would be a recent paper by van Oort et al. (2023) where they discuss the potential of seaweed species to contribute to global scale food production. Iodine is the main limiting factor when it comes to using seaweed for human consumption. The amount of iodine in seaweed varies strongly depending on species, preparation and environmental factors.…”

Section: Preparations To Ensure Successful Seaweed Production After A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Good research to build on here would be a recent paper by van Oort et al. (2023) where they discuss the potential of seaweed species to contribute to global scale food production.…”

Section: Preparations To Ensure Successful Seaweed Production After A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seaweed as a Resilient Food Solution After a Nuclear War

Jehn,

Dingal,

Mill

et al. 2024

Earth's Future

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Abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios such as a nuclear winter caused by the burning of cities in a nuclear war, an asteroid/comet impact or an eruption of a large volcano inject large amounts of particles in the atmosphere, which limit sunlight. This could decimate agriculture as it is practiced today. We therefore need resilient food sources for such an event. One promising candidate is seaweed, as it can grow quickly in a wide range of environmental conditions. To explore the feasibility of seaweed after nuclear war, we simulate the growth of seaweed on a global scale using an empirical model based on Gracilaria tikvahiae forced by nuclear winter climate simulations. We assess how quickly global seaweed production could be scaled to provide a significant fraction of global food demand. We find seaweed can be grown in tropical oceans, even after nuclear war. The simulated growth is high enough to allow a scale up to an equivalent of 45% of the global human food demand (spread among food, animal feed, and biofuels) in around 9–14 months, while only using a small fraction of the global ocean area. The main limiting factor being the speed at which new seaweed farms can be built. The results also show that the growth of seaweed increases with the severity of the nuclear war, as more nutrients become available due to increased vertical mixing. This means that seaweed has the potential to be a viable resilient food source for abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios.

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Section: Why Seaweed?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Why Seaweed?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Preparations To Ensure Successful Seaweed Production After A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Good research to build on here would be a recent paper by van Oort et al. (2023) where they discuss the potential of seaweed species to contribute to global scale food production.…”

Section: Preparations To Ensure Successful Seaweed Production After A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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