US e-commerce and technology giant Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced today it is funding the world’s first commercial-scale seaweed farm located between offshore wind turbines as part of a Dutch project called North Sea Farm 1.
More specifically, Amazon is providing a EUR-1.5-million (USD 1.6m) grant to a project managed by a consortium of scientific researchers and partners led by non-profit organisation North Sea Farmers (NSF). The project is seen to become operational by the end of 2023.
The grant, coming from Amazon’s USD-100-million global Right Now Climate Fund, is intended for the creation of a first-of-a-kind seaweed farm spanning 10 hectares and for a year’s scientific research into carbon reduction through seaweed farming.
It is estimated that if scaled, seaweed farming in Europe could cut carbon dioxide (CO2) by millions of tonnes a year by 2040. In addition to that, seaweed can be used in the production of packaging, food and clothing.
“Potentially, up to 85,000 full-time jobs could be created in the European seaweed sector by replicating North Sea Farm 1 across the North Sea, re-purposing the space amongst wind farms. These jobs would not only be in the farming process but also in the production and sales of seaweed-based products,” commented Eef Brouwers, Manager of Farming and Technology at NSF.
(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.073)
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