Each spring University of New England researchers, faculty, and students hit the ocean and travel out to the University’s kelp farm in Saco Bay to harvest the seaweed.
Our team is in the middle of a three-year research project funded with a $1.3 million grant from the Department of Energy to develop a tool for modeling open ocean seaweed farms. The goal of the project is to use large-scale seaweed farms in the open ocean to grow seaweed for a variety of uses, including food, fuel and other commercial products. The project is led by Professor David Fredriksson of the U.S. Naval Academy and Professor Barry Costa-Pierce of UNE, in collaboration with Maine Marine Composites and Callentis Consulting Group.