50 



much as the equivalent value of the same amount of biomass for 

 energy, even assuming a deregulated gas price value of $5, say, a 

 thousand cubic feet. 



Biomass is worth about 1 cent a pound as dry material. That 

 means about a tenth of a cent is fresh weight and there aren't very 

 many crops that are worth much more than that. So it seems to me 

 that it is not realistic to think in terms of growing biomass for 

 energy using materials that already can be used for food or fiber, 

 nor does it seem reasonable to think that you can grow them on 

 land that can be producing food and fiber crops. 



Also, these energy crops would have to be highly productive and, 

 I would think, of the order of 10 tons, at least, per acre per year. 

 This would make them comparable to the best yields of land agri- 

 culture. 



And, finally, they would have to be easy to grow and easy to 

 grow in terms of the energy input. They would obviously have to 

 have a positive energy balance. 



I would submit that most of these requirements would be met by 

 seaweed. Certainly, the oceans are the big unused pastures of the 

 world and seaweeds do have some value as food in some parts of 

 the world, and certain species of algae have value because of their 

 chemicals, but these are limited. 



These markets would be very quickly saturated so it would not 

 be in competition for the food and fiber industry to produce large 

 quantities of seaweed for energy, and they are productive. 



Now, let me get into that business a little bit. There are some 

 commercial seaweed culture operations going on around the world, 

 not in the United States, but in the Orient in particular — China, 

 Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines — the Philippines is where 

 they grow it from marine colloids, one species — and a few other 

 places. 



The yields of these seaweeds — this is usually pretty primitive 

 technology that is used in these countries but, nevertheless, quite 

 effective. The yields are quite variable and they range from about 1 

 ton per acre per year in Japan, for example, to as high as 20 tons 

 per acre per year in China where they grow a species of kelp, not 

 the California giant kelp but a smaller species, Laminaria. 



That 20 tons is quite an impressive number. There is one thing 

 that I ought to point out right away and that is that the seaweeds 

 contain a large quantity of ash or mineral matter and that doesn't 

 do you any good as far as producing energy. So what we should be 

 talking about is ash-free dry weight. 



Seaweeds contain almost half of their biomass as ash from min- 

 erals, so you have to take this high yield of 20 and cut it in half as 

 far as the yield of ash-free dry weight is concerned. 



But, even so, 10 tons per acre per year for kelp in China is pretty 

 good. That is comparable to sugarcane in mainland United States. 

 It is as good as we can do on land. These other yields around the 

 world is intermediate between those numbers of 1 and 20, or one- 

 half and 10, if you are talking about the ash free yield. 



The Fucuma, the seaweed that is grown in the Philippines now, 

 and Gracilaria, another species that is grown in Taiwan, have 

 yields of about 5 tons per acre per year total yield, total dry 

 weight. 



