Bivalve, mollusk, and microalgae farming enterprises provide viable profitability and sustainability alternatives to other industrial carbon capture and storage technologies currently being promoted. These “unfed” species filter feed on nutrients from the environment and commonly act as a carbon sink taking up aqueous carbon. Shellfish rely on calcium carbonate to create their shells while algae absorb dissolved carbon, similar to how vegetation acts on terrestrial environments. It is estimated that a mussel farm can sequester three times the amount of carbon to a comparable terrestrial ecosystem. Along with the carbon and nutrient eutrophication reduction benefits, commercial “unfed’ aquaculture has been shown to be the ONLY industry that can massively expand without damaging the atmosphere in some aspect. Comparisons between “unfed” aquaculture vs. other carbon sequestering techniques have all shown a favorability towards the aquaculture.
- Produces a food security benefit
- Provides a eutrophication reduction benefit
- No conflict with other land usage.
Other carbon sink industries have failed in the past because they often do not provide any additional benefits other than carbon sequestration alone and often times benefit directly from the ADDITIONAL carbon emissions because of the “carbon markets”
There have been attempted methods to reduce the abundance and release of carbon and other greenhouse gasses into the environment, but they have been proven to be highly costly or ineffective. These “Deep-rooted, widespread institutional failure” is a headline of the Dasgupta Review by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta from the University of Cambridge, in the Economics of Biodiversity. This review was commissioned by the UK Treasury to measure the full economic assessment of the importance of nature and the economic subsequent implementations of climate change. The general findings showed that there has been a significant change in many aspects, and it has been of primarily negative effects.
Sources:
Farmed Seafood 