Our ocean covers 70% of the Earth's surface, but currently accounts for only
2% of human food. With limited land and freshwater available for farming, people
are looking to other sustainable solutions to feed a growing world
population. What if we could farm the open ocean, the
home of ferocious storms and giant waves? To do that it would take some serious
high-tech.
This robot, which crawls along the netting of a fish pen to clean it,
looks a bit like a space rover. So it shouldn't be surprising that Forever
Oceans, a start-up company based out of Kona Hawai'i, has a background in space
tech. Outer space is a terribly unforgiving environment. You've got to
survive phenomenally tough conditions but really is not that different from
what we do in the oceans: that you're in saltwater; you're in a very destructive
environment. We've got to build everything to survive the worst
conditions. We just completed a number of different simulations so the results
look really good. As the wave comes through we can zoom in here and we can
see there's a bit of a stress concentration that happens right in the
front of the cage. We use a comprehensive modeling and simulation tool to test and
verify all the components that go into a Forever Oceans cage. This is similar to
what you would see with a jet fighter or Space Shuttle. We use real-world storm
conditions so what you're looking at here is similar to hurricane Iniki
that Hawai'i saw a number of years ago here, rolled directly over a wave buoy. We
incorporate that data into the models. The tool not only allows us to verify
our current designs but allows us to quickly develop new open ocean gauge
technology for storms of the future. This simulation shows a Forever Oceans fish
cage placed in deep offshore water.
These cages can hold 700 tons of fish,
like these Amberjack.
These high-tech fish pens can be submerged under the
water during big storms to avoid destructive waves. Shorelines can be a
very popular place, so sighting offshore helps these farms avoid shipping lanes
and crowded areas. Since they're so far offshore the systems can be fully
automated and controllable from land. Inside the container behind me you see
one of our command and control units. It's essentially an entire data center
inside. It controls every aspect of the husbandry from the feeding to the
cleaning to the removal of fish. We're good. Turning on water now. Water is coming on.
Looks good. Perfect.
It's transformative when we talk about being able to take out your cell phone and
control robots that are 20 miles offshore in the middle of the ocean.
That's what this system gives us the power to do and that changes how we can
conduct aquaculture. On the robotics and manipulators the high-end sensors all
those equip us to operate in a better location in nature in deeper waters, and
operate in a manner that allows conservationists like myself as well as
a general public, to sleep well at night knowing you're being fed by the ocean in
a sustainable manner. In fact the U.S. exclusive economic zone spans 13,000
miles of coastline, but contains 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean–
larger than the combined land area of all 50 states. So there is indeed plenty
of open ocean available for remote-controlled fish farms to grow
food while also keeping our ocean healthy and clean.