A recent article in The Sunday Times indicates that seaweed could hold the key to carbon capture. Kelp forests have potential to hold close to 2 million tons of carbon a year, while the seabed could store more than 2 billion tons, significantly more than the 1.6 billion tons in peatland.
“Seaweed cultivation has the potential to sequester large volumes of blue carbon quickly while improving water quality, providing habitats for marine species, increasing employment and producing carbon-neutral products.”
Blue carbon is the carbon stored and sequestered in coastal ecosystems. These valuable ecosystems hold vast carbon reservoirs, they sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide through primary production, and then deposit in their sediments.