August 2024 Edition
A monthly round-up of news and trends important to the AltaSea community.
AltaSea Community Spotlight
An estimated eleven million metric tons of plastic waste enters the oceans annually, adding to the estimated 200 million tons already polluting the world’s waters. The impacts of plastic pollution on ocean animals is already known—largely thanks to photojournalism documenting marine life caught in abandoned fishing nets or eating plastic trash. But we are only just beginning to understand the impact of microplastics—plastic debris the size of a pencil eraser or smaller—on both marine life and humans.
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Representatives Nanette Barragán (CA-44) and Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01) introduced the Marine Energy Technologies Acceleration Act, legislation that would invest $1 billion to advance marine energy toward full scale commercialization. Marine Energy harnesses the power from waves, tides, currents, and other water-based resources to generate a clean energy resource that can provide reliable 24/7 clean power to communities.
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Eco Wave Power has been floating its wave energy system for more than 10 years, where the rise and fall of coastal waters drives hydraulic pistons that run a generator to produce electricity. Now the company is getting ready to build its first megawatt installation.
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AltaSea hosted more than a dozen high school students — hailing from San Pedro, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Compton and Whittier — on Thursday, Aug. 1, to celebrate completing a six-week summer mentorship program during which they learned to build underwater robots.
Their handiwork was tested out in pools and in the ocean channel in what was a fitting end-of-summer event.
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The president and CEO of AltaSea has dedicated his career to balancing economic and environmental goals by leading various initiatives to combat ocean pollution and climate change, advancing renewable energy projects, and fostering innovative technologies for sustainable business practices.
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Congratulations Jyotika Virmani – Jyotika Virmani took the helm of the non-profit Schmidt Ocean Institute as COVID-19 reached the U.S. She was responsible for guiding the organization so that scientists and marine technology developers—who use the institute’s assets in exchange for making their data and findings public—could continue their work.
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Are you ready to dive into the future with us? Join our wave of change and be a part of the oceanic transformation that will sustain generations to come. Together, we can turn the tide towards a more sustainable, just, and equitable world.
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AltaSea Events
- 10th Anniversary of AltaSea
- Opened in 2024 the fully remodeled Berth 58 (Mayor of LA attended along with several major officials)
- Official opening of Lands End, Berth 60, the furthest West point at AltaSea with majestic sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean (hosting Blue Hour here)
Aug 17th | 10:00am to 12:00pm
You’re invited to AltaSea to learn about how innovative technologies from the TRACER Project to Captura aim to achieve climate goals. This is a great opportunity for students of all ages to learn about ocean-based careers that turn to the ocean to develop solutions for some of the planet’s most pressing challenges, such as climate change, energy supply, and global food security.
Marine Science
A mysterious phenomenon first observed in 2013 aboard a vessel in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean appeared so preposterous, it convinced ocean scientist Andrew Sweetman that his monitoring equipment was faulty.
Sensor readings seemed to show that oxygen was being made on the seabed 4,000 meters (about 13,100 feet) below the surface, where no light can penetrate.
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The largest sharks, including species such as tiger sharks and great whites, play a pivotal role in maintaining the health of marine ecosystems. Despite their importance, these apex predators are significantly impacted by fishing activities. Their feeding habits help maintain ecological balance, and their presence alone can deter prey from over-consuming essential plant life. However, various shark species that are essential for ocean health are under increasing threat from overfishing, climate change, energy extraction, and shipping activities.
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Luke Gardner, a research faculty member at San Jose State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and an aquaculture specialist with California Sea Grant, says there is a lot of promise about seaweed, but little data to cite so far.
“We’re just starting to discover seaweed aquaculture in the U.S. and California. It can be a very low-impact way of producing resources that we need, whether it be food or things like biomaterials,” said Gardner. “I definitely think one of the exciting things about seaweed is all that stuff we don’t know about yet.”
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A new report from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, has found that more fish were farmed worldwide in 2022 than harvested from the wild, an apparent first.
Last week, the FAO released its annual report on the state of aquaculture — which refers to the farming of both seafood and aquatic plants — and fisheries around the world. The organization found that global production from both aquaculture and fisheries reached a new high — 223.3 million metric tons of animals and plants — in 2022.
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Sustainable and Innovative Business
Advancement in technologies that make it possible to produce hydrogen with zero or little greenhouse gas emissions is fueling much of its popularity, along with help from some hefty U.S. government subsidies and investments. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) also recently set national goals to increase annual “clean hydrogen” production from nearly zero to 10 million metric tons by 2030; and to 50 million metric tons by 2050.
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The 826-ton wave energy convertor buoy, the OE-35, was deployed at the U.S. Navy’s Wave Energy Test Site (WETS) on the windward coast of the Hawaiian Island of Oahu, and will, after commissioning and testing onsite, be connected to the Hawaiian electricity grid by subsea cable in the coming weeks.
The utility-scale wave energy device measures 125 x 59 feet, has a draft of over 30 feet, and a potential rated capacity of up to 1.25 MW in electrical power production.
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After missing out on a portion of $504 million in federal funding, the Ocean Tech Hub received a recent $500,000 award as part of a $9.5 million funding round reaching a total of 19 tech hubs nationwide.
The Economic Development Administration, an agency under the U.S. Department of Commerce, announced the round of Consortium Accelerator Awards on July 29, following its announcement earlier that month on the distribution of the initial, larger funding available.
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When a wasting disease began decimating the sunflower sea star population along California’s coastline in 2013, sea urchins — a main food source of sea stars — took over. Unusual ocean warming beginning in 2014 combined with “urchin barrens” on the ocean floor — which suffocated the nutrient cycle — have reduced cold-water-loving kelp forests in Northern California by more than 95%.
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Education
In a new study, marine biologists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and Arizona State University are providing a first-of-its-kind glimpse into coral “bleaching” responses to stress, using imaging technology to pinpoint coral survival rates following multiple bleaching events off the island of Maui.
Using a time series of coral reef 3D models from Maui, a team of researchers led by Scripps Oceanography’s Smith Lab tracked the bleaching response of 1,832 coral colonies from 2014 to 2021. The seven-year data set provided detailed imagery of the reefs year-by-year, allowing the team to identify patterns of coral growth and survivorship through sequential bleaching events that occurred in 2015 and 2019.
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You are probably familiar with the smell…. Maybe it was the last time you were pumping gas into your vehicle or maybe you were grilling on the BBQ and forgot to turn the gas tank off. In either case, we know what gasoline smells like—some people hate the smell, while others quite enjoy it! But I doubt many of us have thought about eating it. That’s because we aren’t microbes. And we are definitely not oil-eating microbes. Hi, my name is Juli Panehal, I am a PhD student in the Earth Sciences Department at USC, and I am here to introduce you to the world of oil degraders!
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Jasmin Graham has an unparalleled passion for sharks, but a few years ago she started to feel that the traditional path in academia wasn’t designed for her to succeed. Instead of giving up, she forged a path of her own. And now she’s bringing other young researchers of color along with her.