The BladeRunner Solution for Aquaculture Sustainability

C56-14d-273410Aquaculture has been identified as essential for feeding the world as the population increases towards nine billion by 2050. While aquaculture often comes with environmental challenges, future growth must be done sustainably and equitably. Marine renewable energy (MRE) to power aquaculture is one of the key strategies to meet this growth responsibly. Marine hydrokinetic energy offers immense potential to be a baseload source to the renewable energy mix in both nearshore and deepwater aquaculture, but existing technologies are capital intensive, bulky, and difficult to site, deploy and decommission. In an environment that can be harsh and where equipment is subject to debris interaction and extreme weather, existing technologies offer an alternative at a high cost per kWh unless they are scaled to a size that only amplifies the capital cost and operating challenges. Nearshore and coastal marine aquaculture operations in particular are often geographically distributed and highly diverse in operations. With various energy needs, including pumps, lighting and transportation, tidal currents in these regions offer a relatively untapped resource that can be co-located with aquaculture operations, particularly shellfish. Tapping into this MRE has the potential to disrupt the incumbent technologies that rely primarily on fossil-fuels, be it for electricity generation or as a source of power for producers seeking to electrify vessels. The BladeRunner solution is a unique, capital efficient hydrokinetic system previously developed for riverine applications. Core development of the horizontal-axis rotor system has benefited from the use of biomimetic design principles that will be carried into the execution of this SBIR project. To address the marine aquaculture sector, the technology will be adapted to bi-directional tidal currents to meet the specific needs of an established sustainable aquaculture operation, Starbird Mariculture, which grows oysters in Tomales Bay and Humboldt Bay, CA. This proposed DOE Phase I project, and subsequent Phase II, will support a co-development partnership that can expand across aquaculture operations through a successful pilot demonstration and immersive engagement with stakeholders in Humboldt Bay and other coastal communities on the west coast. In Phase I the team will perform the following activities: 1) Marine spatial analysis of a specific site in Humboldt Bay to determine the deployment viability, 2) assessment and characterization of typical power needs and environmental considerations of shellfish operations, 3) a techno-economic analysis, and 4) initial engineering design of a bidirectional tidal system. Phase II will proceed to in-depth testing and modeling, culminating in a full pilot deployment of an integrated prototype. BladeRunner Energy will prove the feasibility of a near-shore tidal energy system in order to open resource availability and provide ease of deployment, which will: (1) Integrate a biomimicry-based rotor with debris- and fish-friendly characteristics; (2) Is intended for array deployment that will offer resiliency; and (3) Can offer affordable power to many aquaculture operations near bays or tidal zones, particularly those in remote communities.