Ocean Farm 1 is the world’s first deep-sea aquaculture farm. It is designed by leading salmon farmer SalMar ASA (of Norway). They paid China Shipbuilding Industry $300 million for six facilities.
The first pilot system is 67 meters (220 feet high) and a diameter of 110 meters (football field length). It has the volume of over two hundred Olympic swimming pools. The pilot system can withstand 50 foot (15 meter) waves.
Movable, submerged valves disperse food to allow fish to live at depths instead of clustering near the surface for feeding. The ocean current helps clear out the waste to keep low mortality and healthier fish.
The production unit will be around 70 meters high and will have a diameter of around 160 meters. the production unit will be able to produce 12,000 tons of fish each year. The production system can withstand 100 foot (31 meter) waves. The systems can be put anywhere in the open sea.
The new system will be able to grow 3 million salmon each year. The production ocean fish farm will cost 157 million euros.
Back in 2006, I had a prediction that there would be a cubic mile of deep ocean fish farms by the end of 2025. It would take about 2,500 of the production sized ocean fish farms to reach that volume. The number of fish farms and reaching the overall volume now seems likely. It is a matter of when. It could be in the 2030-2050 timeframe.
China is also deploying these large fish farms in the Yellow Sea.
A 35-meter-high cage will be deployed in the Yellow Sea about 130 nautical miles east of Rizhao where the cold water is believed to be a suitable habitat for the fish. Wang Yu, head of the Hubei Marine Engineering Equipment Research Institute, said the cage had a volume of 50,000 cubic meters and could generate a harvest of about 1,500 tonnes of salmon per season.
More open sea farms in China and other locations could follow. China estimates the Yellow Sea could support an industry of more than 100 billion yuan (US$15.7 billion). This would be about 1000 of the large Salmar production sized systems.
The value of the global fish trade was about $150 billion in 2017. This was an increase of about 7% compared with 2016. Global aquaculture production is anticipated to exceed the 100 million tonne mark for the first time in 2025 and to reach 102 million tonnes by 2026.
Salmon is growing in popularity in China, with the country consuming about 70,000 tonnes of the fish each year.
There are over 1000 ocean oil platforms. Ocean oil platforms are even larger than the ocean fish farm.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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This is not the first one. Hawaii has been doing deepwater offshore aquaculture reasearch for decades. kona kamapachi even commercialized it. http://ocean-era.com/our-fish
I don’t see why we can’t use soy and wheat and meat byproducts to feed the ocean farmed fish…. trout and salmon would eat that up like they do in hatcheries.
I don’t see why we can’t use soy and wheat and meat byproducts to feed the ocean farmed fish…. trout and salmon would eat that up like they do in hatcheries.
If you watch the clip, you will see they use a chemical from Monsanto in the fish fodder. The salmon is shock full of this chemical and it was never intended for that purpose. It is normally used to spray vegetables to protect them from insects and stuff. The effects higher up the food chain are unknown. It passes the blood brain barrier, so much is known. Scientists trying to research this and actually test it are fired immediately and their work is covered up. This happens in Norway no less. The responsible politician (and her clan) turns out to have huge economic interests in the fish farming. As soon as questions are asked, she teleports out of there. Watch the film ! I can promise you, you will hesitate to use that food source again unless questions are answered.
If you watch the clip you will see they use a chemical from Monsanto in the fish fodder. The salmon is shock full of this chemical and it was never intended for that purpose. It is normally used to spray vegetables to protect them from insects and stuff. The effects higher up the food chain are unknown. It passes the blood brain barrier so much is known. Scientists trying to research this and actually test it are fired immediately and their work is covered up. This happens in Norway no less. The responsible politician (and her clan) turns out to have huge economic interests in the fish farming. As soon as questions are asked she teleports out of there.Watch the film !I can promise you you will hesitate to use that food source again unless questions are answered.
By the way, you can click on your name in the comment list, then you can select MY PROFILE and change the name that you are posting under.
By the way you can click on your name in the comment list then you can select MY PROFILE and change the name that you are posting under.
can’t seem to edit comments, lots of you’re yours and a few typos like raising* apologies.
can’t seem to edit comments lots of you’re yours and a few typos like raising* apologies.
I’m not sure the waste stream actually makes it where it is supposed to go though. That certainly isn’t in evidence in the article. and the most cost effective farm management would be close to shore, where the waste stream likely is either not needed or very likely to be detrimental and cause the same issues as it does on land streams. Where you’d want it would be 100s of NM from all sources of nutrition such as the great dead regions of the indian oceans or the hotter regions of the atlantic or Mediterranean. likewise, unless your rasing vegetarian fish (like talapia, who aren’t ocean fish) you’re not maximizing fish growth, your just finding another, more productive (by product, not by efficienty) way to basically net subtract from global fish growth.
I’m not sure the waste stream actually makes it where it is supposed to go though. That certainly isn’t in evidence in the article. and the most cost effective farm management would be close to shore where the waste stream likely is either not needed or very likely to be detrimental and cause the same issues as it does on land streams. Where you’d want it would be 100s of NM from all sources of nutrition such as the great dead regions of the indian oceans or the hotter regions of the atlantic or Mediterranean.likewise unless your rasing vegetarian fish (like talapia who aren’t ocean fish) you’re not maximizing fish growth your just finding another more productive (by product not by efficienty) way to basically net subtract from global fish growth.
Mosanto is a huge farm supply company. I’d be surprised if they didn’t supply stuff for fish farms. Some people have a trigger reaction to the name, because of something Monsanto did once, I can’t be bothered looking it up. Probably some hippie thing. Your huge multinationals are omnipresent. You can probably find that Exxon for example supplies a bunch of stuff to any given industry. Or GE. Or SinoPec. Or Microsoft. You can tie a big multinational to anything you want, because they are everywhere.
Mosanto is a huge farm supply company. I’d be surprised if they didn’t supply stuff for fish farms.Some people have a trigger reaction to the name because of something Monsanto did once I can’t be bothered looking it up. Probably some hippie thing.Your huge multinationals are omnipresent. You can probably find that Exxon for example supplies a bunch of stuff to any given industry. Or GE. Or SinoPec. Or Microsoft. You can tie a big multinational to anything you want because they are everywhere.
This depends on what your baseline is for comparison. If your baseline is: we have an ocean with no farming, how do you maximise fish growth? Then I agree that adding bulk, cheap minerals to the mineral poor areas is the best way to go. But if your baseline is: we have an ocean with a bunch of fish farms already in place, how do you maximise fish growth? Then I’d say that moving the farms off-shore so that the waste stream spreads out into relatively poor waters will produce more growth, compared to the current practice of concentrating them in estuaries where the water becomes overloaded, oxygen starved and dead, and the overcrowding can lead to disease spread.
This depends on what your baseline is for comparison.If your baseline is: we have an ocean with no farming how do you maximise fish growth? Then I agree that adding bulk cheap minerals to the mineral poor areas is the best way to go.But if your baseline is: we have an ocean with a bunch of fish farms already in place how do you maximise fish growth? Then I’d say that moving the farms off-shore so that the waste stream spreads out into relatively poor waters will produce more growth compared to the current practice of concentrating them in estuaries where the water becomes overloaded oxygen starved and dead and the overcrowding can lead to disease spread.
I think a key difference here is that the input, not being a basic mineral like say an iron oxide. makes all the difference for this approach being the opposite of sustainable and productive as open fertilization would. Now lets get to why. The basic forms of iron that benefit iron poor regions of the ocean (that’s our first key difference here, coastal areas are already relatively fertile ecosystems) are cheaply aquired from industrial by-products and volcanic ashes available in the trillions of tons, not already doing productive work. Fish food comes from….other fish usually, especially in the case of a predator fish like salmon…so at perfect efficiency, you’re just trading resources laterally for one kind of fish from another, in practice it takes 3-10x the fish to raise mass to raise just 1 mass ratio of salmon. So the inputs are vastly different and not likely to see huge benefits as coastal regions are already well supplied. That’s not to say farming is universally bad, its good and it would be better to manage human intake in the closed circuit way we do with advanced forms of agriculture…but that a different argument and not one that results in greater natural abundance. The final result is that waste is just one problem with large scale open aquaculture, another is that populations (due to density) tend to spread parasites and disease at ridiculously high levels you would not find due to isolated populations, it also raises the risk that farmed varieties interbreed with wild and you run the risk of creating hybrids that are much less able to cope with true wilderness conditions. Eh…..I could go on and on…but no, this is categorically different from ocean seeding in my view. .
I think a key difference here is that the input not being a basic mineral like say an iron oxide. makes all the difference for this approach being the opposite of sustainable and productive as open fertilization would. Now lets get to why. The basic forms of iron that benefit iron poor regions of the ocean (that’s our first key difference here coastal areas are already relatively fertile ecosystems) are cheaply aquired from industrial by-products and volcanic ashes available in the trillions of tons not already doing productive work. Fish food comes from….other fish usually especially in the case of a predator fish like salmon…so at perfect efficiency you’re just trading resources laterally for one kind of fish from another in practice it takes 3-10x the fish to raise mass to raise just 1 mass ratio of salmon. So the inputs are vastly different and not likely to see huge benefits as coastal regions are already well supplied.That’s not to say farming is universally bad its good and it would be better to manage human intake in the closed circuit way we do with advanced forms of agriculture…but that a different argument and not one that results in greater natural abundance. The final result is that waste is just one problem with large scale open aquaculture another is that populations (due to density) tend to spread parasites and disease at ridiculously high levels you would not find due to isolated populations it also raises the risk that farmed varieties interbreed with wild and you run the risk of creating hybrids that are much less able to cope with true wilderness conditions. Eh…..I could go on and on…but no this is categorically different from ocean seeding in my view. .
Still got to catch them and there is no control on the genetics. Fish is the only large remnant of the human hunter gatherer culture.
Still got to catch them and there is no control on the genetics. Fish is the only large remnant of the human hunter gatherer culture.
Moving to deep sea eliminates the current problems of shallow water fish farming per the article. Monsanto?
Moving to deep sea eliminates the current problems of shallow water fish farming per the article. Monsanto?
I don’t see why we can’t use soy and wheat and meat byproducts to feed the ocean farmed fish…. trout and salmon would eat that up like they do in hatcheries.
If you watch the clip, you will see they use a chemical from Monsanto in the fish fodder. The salmon is shock full of this chemical and it was never intended for that purpose. It is normally used to spray vegetables to protect them from insects and stuff. The effects higher up the food chain are unknown. It passes the blood brain barrier, so much is known. Scientists trying to research this and actually test it are fired immediately and their work is covered up. This happens in Norway no less. The responsible politician (and her clan) turns out to have huge economic interests in the fish farming. As soon as questions are asked, she teleports out of there.
Watch the film !
I can promise you, you will hesitate to use that food source again unless questions are answered.
By the way, you can click on your name in the comment list, then you can select MY PROFILE and change the name that you are posting under.
can’t seem to edit comments, lots of you’re yours and a few typos like raising*
apologies.
I’m not sure the waste stream actually makes it where it is supposed to go though. That certainly isn’t in evidence in the article. and the most cost effective farm management would be close to shore, where the waste stream likely is either not needed or very likely to be detrimental and cause the same issues as it does on land streams.
Where you’d want it would be 100s of NM from all sources of nutrition such as the great dead regions of the indian oceans or the hotter regions of the atlantic or Mediterranean.
likewise, unless your rasing vegetarian fish (like talapia, who aren’t ocean fish) you’re not maximizing fish growth, your just finding another, more productive (by product, not by efficienty) way to basically net subtract from global fish growth.
Mosanto is a huge farm supply company. I’d be surprised if they didn’t supply stuff for fish farms.
Some people have a trigger reaction to the name, because of something Monsanto did once, I can’t be bothered looking it up. Probably some hippie thing.
Your huge multinationals are omnipresent. You can probably find that Exxon for example supplies a bunch of stuff to any given industry. Or GE. Or SinoPec. Or Microsoft. You can tie a big multinational to anything you want, because they are everywhere.
This depends on what your baseline is for comparison.
If your baseline is: we have an ocean with no farming, how do you maximise fish growth? Then I agree that adding bulk, cheap minerals to the mineral poor areas is the best way to go.
But if your baseline is: we have an ocean with a bunch of fish farms already in place, how do you maximise fish growth? Then I’d say that moving the farms off-shore so that the waste stream spreads out into relatively poor waters will produce more growth, compared to the current practice of concentrating them in estuaries where the water becomes overloaded, oxygen starved and dead, and the overcrowding can lead to disease spread.
I think a key difference here is that the input, not being a basic mineral like say an iron oxide. makes all the difference for this approach being the opposite of sustainable and productive as open fertilization would. Now lets get to why.
The basic forms of iron that benefit iron poor regions of the ocean (that’s our first key difference here, coastal areas are already relatively fertile ecosystems) are cheaply aquired from industrial by-products and volcanic ashes available in the trillions of tons, not already doing productive work. Fish food comes from….other fish usually, especially in the case of a predator fish like salmon…so at perfect efficiency, you’re just trading resources laterally for one kind of fish from another, in practice it takes 3-10x the fish to raise mass to raise just 1 mass ratio of salmon. So the inputs are vastly different and not likely to see huge benefits as coastal regions are already well supplied.
That’s not to say farming is universally bad, its good and it would be better to manage human intake in the closed circuit way we do with advanced forms of agriculture…but that a different argument and not one that results in greater natural abundance.
The final result is that waste is just one problem with large scale open aquaculture, another is that populations (due to density) tend to spread parasites and disease at ridiculously high levels you would not find due to isolated populations, it also raises the risk that farmed varieties interbreed with wild and you run the risk of creating hybrids that are much less able to cope with true wilderness conditions.
Eh…..I could go on and on…but no, this is categorically different from ocean seeding in my view. .
Still got to catch them and there is no control on the genetics. Fish is the only large remnant of the human hunter gatherer culture.
Moving to deep sea eliminates the current problems of shallow water fish farming per the article. Monsanto?
I imagine that the plume of waste products that would be spreading downstream from such a structure would serve to fertilize the ocean just as well as deliberate fertilization would. So you’d get a plankton bloom, and then more wild fish in addition to the farmed fish.
The fact that it looks like it was designed by Karl Stromberg or Ernst Stavro Blofeld is just an added bonus.
The attempt is pseudo-offshore to avoid some of the pitfalls of near-shore fish farms. If you have enough depth and current below the cage, all the feces and parasites that normally are problematic get swept away in theory. But you need a fair amount of depth for the currents to work their magic, but not too deep that that mooring system costs aren’t out of the roof. Plus an actual place with that kind of depth that isn’t too far from shore for support/logistics. Similar conditions to floating offshore wind turbines actually.
Basically, this is good for moderately shallow seas (100m+) and ocean continental shelves, which aren’t everywhere.
Hrm, I wonder if you could colocate these cages with floating wind turbines…
325,700,000 American each eat on average 15.5 lbs of fish/shellfish annual.
That is 5,048,350,000 lbs of seafood or 2,524,175 tons.
With each facility producing 12,000 tons, we would need 210 of these fish farms to meet the needs of the US.
Very doable.
Some things about fish farming are not well known. It would be interesting if NBF could do some journalistic digging on this.
There is a film about the detrimental effects of fish farming on Youtube. That story has everything… Mutated deformed fish full of toxins, corrupt politicians, cover-ups, Monsanto, etc.
https://youtu.be/RYYf8cLUV5E
Search for “Farmed Norwegian Salmon World’s Most Toxic Food” on Youtube.
Watch that film and you may never eat farmed fish again.
It would be a lot cheaper to spread iron sulfate in iron poor areas of the ocean, and catch the salmon coming home to breed, and other fish in the ocean. This method is also much closer to natural processes taking place every day, and likely much less disruptive to the ocean’s ecology, and coastal economies. Consider the plume of fish excreta, and wasted food emitted by a confinement operation.
Maybe ocean fertilization is out of favor, because it would remove CO2 from the atmosphere, feed lots of people cheaply, and give socialists/ governments/politicians one, or more fewer reasons to run/ruin our lives.
And now I want Salmon Sushi.
Whether or not it is environmentally friendly has to do with what you feed the fish. If you are taking the lion’s share of the ocean krill and starving whales and other marine life, that would be very bad scaled up to a cubic mile. Now, if you grew seaweed out there, then grew the fish’s food on that, that would be a better scenario for the ocean.
But, I think it is cheaper and better to just fertilize the ocean with iron. Though we could grow kelp as well. Kelp is currently limited to the shallows, but we could suspend a surface for them to grow on held up by inflated balls and grow miles and miles of the stuff. We can use that in many ways, but as part of cattle feed, it virtually eliminates methane production by cows. If it is just a surface suspended and not walled, I think it will serve as a fish nursery enhancing ocean heath.
Good job moving the farm away from shallow water. All the best to China and Norway on this project. Hopefully these types of farms will drop the price of seafood so low that it no longer pays to over-fish our oceans and we’ll start getting marine stocks increasing again instead of risking them going extinct. As a snorkeler and diver that would make me very happy.
Yeah, and not a minute too soon.
In the same way we breed cows, pigs and chickens for eating them instead of hunting them to extinction, we have to do the same with the oceans’ edible fishes and crustaceans.
This will ensure we have reliable and relatively sustainable seafood (because these sea farms will certainly have some environmental impact that we need to understand well). In any case, they are better than just taking without any regard for ecosystems.