How much seaweed is out there?
The sargassum sea contains an estimated 10 million metric tons of seaweed, which naturally moves into the Caribbean and can be collected and harvested to remove several megatons of CO2 annually. This is just one part of one ocean. Of course, seaweeds like Sargassum create their ecosystem for other sea life, so we want to encourage its growth as we harvest a smaller portion for other uses.
How much can we produce?
Using a conservative value of 1000 dry tons of seaweed per square kilometer per year provided by existing seaweed farms, and an average value of 70% carbon in seaweed, we can remove CO2 at a rate of one kiloton per year per 1.43 square kilometer of ocean. How much ocean is there? 361,648,130 square kilometers! Just a tiny percentage of the oceans dedicated to producing seaweeds can not only remove all the excess co2 the world produces but that seaweed to can be used for an incredible variety of beneficial products.
