How a smelly seaweed may quickly gasoline vehicles

When giant swathes of invasive seaweed began washing up on Caribbean seashores in 2011, native residents had been perplexed.

Quickly, mounds of unpleasant sargassum – carried by currents from the Sargasso Sea and linked to local weather change – had been carpeting the area’s prized coastlines, repelling holidaymakers with the pungent stench emitted because it rots.

Exactly the right way to sort out it was a dilemma of unprecedented proportions for the tiny tourism-reliant islands with restricted sources.

In 2018, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley declared sargassum a nationwide emergency.

Now, a pioneering group of Caribbean scientists and environmentalists hope to show the tide on the issue by remodeling the troublesome algae right into a profitable biofuel.

They not too long ago launched the world’s first automobile powered by bio-compressed pure fuel. The modern gasoline supply created on the College of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados additionally makes use of wastewater from native rum distilleries, and dung from the island’s indigenous blackbelly sheep which gives the important anaerobic micro organism.

The staff says any automotive will be transformed to run on the fuel by way of a easy and inexpensive four-hour set up course of, utilizing an simply out there equipment, at a complete price of round $2,500 (£1,940).

Researchers had initially appeared into utilizing sugarcane to cut back reliance on expensive, imported fossil fuels and assist steer the Caribbean in the direction of its final goal of zero emissions.

Nonetheless, regardless of Barbados being one in every of few islands nonetheless producing sugarcane, the amount was deemed inadequate for the staff’s formidable targets, explains the mission’s founder Dr Legena Henry.

Sargassum however, she grimaces, is one thing “we are going to by no means run out of”.

“Tourism has suffered rather a lot from the seaweed; inns have been spending tens of millions on tackling it. It’s brought about a disaster,” Dr Henry, a renewable power skilled and UWI lecturer, continues.

The concept that it may have a priceless objective was urged by one in every of her college students, Brittney McKenzie, who had noticed the quantity of vans being deployed to move sargassum from Barbados’ seashores.

“We’d simply spent three weeks researching sugarcane. However I checked out Brittney’s face and she or he was so excited, I couldn’t break her coronary heart,” Dr Henry remembers.

“We already had rum distillery waste water so we determined to place that with sargassum and see what occurred.”

Brittney was tasked with gathering seaweed from seashores and establishing small scale bioreactors to conduct preliminary analysis.

“Inside simply two weeks we obtained fairly good outcomes,” Brittney tells the BBC. “It was turning into one thing even larger than we initially thought.”

The staff filed a patent on their formulation and, in 2019, introduced their mission to potential buyers throughout a aspect assembly on the UN Normal Meeting in New York.

Upon landing again in Barbados, Dr Henry’s cellphone was “buzzing” with messages of congratulation – together with one from US non-profit Blue Chip Basis providing $100,000 to get the work off the bottom.

Biologist Shamika Spencer was employed to experiment with differing quantities of sargassum and waste water to determine which mixture produced essentially the most biogas.

She says she leapt on the likelihood to participate.

“Sargassum has been plaguing the area for a number of years,” Ms Spencer, who’s from Antigua and Barbuda, explains. “I had all the time puzzled about this new seaweed ruining the seashores in Antigua, and once I got here to Barbados to check I seen it right here too.”

The algae don’t simply threaten tourism. In addition they pose a menace to human well being by way of the hydrogen sulphide they launch as they decomposes, together with native wildlife like critically endangered sea turtle hatchlings which get trapped in thick mats of beached seaweed.

Water air pollution and warming seas are credited with the upsurge in sargassum, one other cataclysmic results of local weather change that the Caribbean has carried out little to contribute to however typically bears the brunt of.

Requires eco reparations from leaders together with Barbados’ chief Mia Mottley and Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne have been clamorous lately because the area battles ever-rising sea ranges and worsening storms.

Whereas ready for these to bear fruit, this mission represents one instance of the Caribbean taking its environmental future into its personal fingers.

“I realised it was vital that after eradicating the sargassum from seashores, it doesn’t simply go to landfills,” Ms Spencer continues.

“By repurposing it in automobiles you shield tourism and stop individuals from inhaling it. After we scale as much as gasoline extra automobiles it should require a really giant quantity.”

Watching the profitable check drive of a biogas-charged Nissan Leaf – equipped by the Caribbean Centre for Renewable Vitality and Vitality Effectivity – was totally exhilarating, smiles Dr Henry.

The MIT-educated mechanical engineer knew she was risking her repute ought to the enterprise fail.

“We didn’t sleep the evening earlier than the check drive occasion,” she admits. “I used to be placing my entire life’s work on the road.”

Dr Henry and her husband, profession information scientist Nigel Henry, created deep tech agency Rum and Sargassum Inc and are on a mission to vary the face of power manufacturing within the Caribbean.

Each are initially from main oil producer Trinidad, studied within the US and had been decided to convey their abilities again dwelling.

“My objective is to assist construct up this area,” Dr Henry says. “We at the moment are establishing a four-car pilot to show actual life working prototypes to persuade funders that that is workable and scalable.”

She estimates it should price round $2m to show preliminary industrial exercise and $7.5m to succeed in the purpose the place the corporate is ready to promote fuel to 300 taxis in Barbados.

Potential funders embody the US Company for Internationals Growth, the European Union and worldwide improvement banks by way of debt financing.

The staff plans to develop its work by establishing a biogas station to switch its small present facility.

UWI hopes to introduce different sargassum-based improvements too, akin to pest management merchandise.

Ms Spencer says it’s been “heart-warming” to witness the outcomes of the staff’s analysis.

“Simply seeing the precise potential is motivating me to maintain working,” she provides.

As for Brittney, 5 years after her eureka second, she says she’s nonetheless “pinching” herself.

“To see the automotive in motion was mind-blowing,” she grins. “I’d encourage all younger scientists to press forward with their concepts. You by no means know if you would possibly make the following huge discovery.”

“It’s taken years of labor, loads of grit and pushing in opposition to partitions to succeed in this level,” Dr Henry concurs. “It’s an instance of UWI innovation and is exportable to the broader world, as a result of it’s not simply the Caribbean that’s affected; sargassum additionally impacts elements of West Africa, South America and Florida.

“These small islands have created expertise that may profit the remainder of the world; this can be a huge win for the Caribbean.”