Japan to Build Large-scale Seaweed Ethanol Plant in Ocean

A group of Japanese scientists have announced the development of a large-scale ethanol manufacturing plant with seaweed as the feedstock.

Plans are underway to build a 3,860-square-mile seaweed farm in the middle of the Sea of Japan.

The farm could produce 5.3 billion gallons of bioethanol a year, enough to meet one-third of Japan’s gasoline requirements for a year.

The feedstock is Sargasso seaweed. Floating bioreactors using enzymes would convert the seaweed to sugar and then into ethanol. It would then be shipped by tanker to land.

The seaweed “plant” would also clean up the polluted Sea of Japan, by eliminating nutrient salt run-off from the coasts of Japan and Asian mainland.