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Most of the €5bn or so worth of warm-water prawns that make their way to European plates are imported from South-east Asia, to the detriment of the climate globally and the environment locally. That could change if the work being carried out by two Danish scientists on Bornholm shows they can be raised in tanks on land, close to the markets where they are consumed.
Per Meyer Jepsen and Simon David Herzog, both of Roskilde Universitet, have received €335,000 in funding from Brussels and Copenhagen, to work with partners on Bornholm to determine whether an approach known as biofloc makes it possible to raise them in land-based, closed-loop systems.
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In short, applying biofloc to raise prawns entails using bacteria to convert their excrement back into food. This not only reduces feed costs, but it cuts discharge waste almost entirely, nearly eliminating one of the biggest environmental impacts prawn-farming has.
“Our goal is to test different ways of using biofloc technology for warm-water prawn production,” says Mr Jepsen. “With fish stocks dwindling, we must find alternatives that don’t further deplete marine ecosystems.”
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Nexø Vodbinderi, a Bornholm firm that has transitioned from net-making to aquaculture, is taking part in the project. Klaus Hjort Hansen, the manager of the firm, reckons it could result in locally-branded products for export. “We want to develop better, more sustainable ways to produce food. If we can do it here, we can create jobs and help sustain the local community.”
For Messrs Jepsen and Herzog, the project will only be a complete success if it yields a product Bornholm wants to claim as its own.
“From the start, it was crucial to anchor this project locally,” says Mr Jepsen. “We want these shrimp to be associated with the island’s reputation for quality. That’s why we’ll be working with a chef to evaluate the taste.”
The project is still in its early stages, but it aims to scale up to full commercial production at Nexø Vodbinderi. Mr Jepsen sees no reason why it can’t inspire similar ventures elsewhere.
If the project is successful in combining local expertise with cutting-edge techniques, it would set a precedent for sustainable seafood production, in the process turning the scientists behind it into prawn stars.
UPDATE | Finland and Estonia on Friday have agreed to increase the security of their subsea infrastructure, which includes power and telecommunications cables as well as the Balticconnector gas pipeline that was damaged a year ago.
The agreement, announced in Helsinki on Friday, will see the two countries join forces to on things like technical surveillance, patrolling and repair capacities of subsea infrastructure in the Baltic.
It comes amid what Tallin and Helsinki say has been an increased number of threats against subsea infrastructure, and as countries around the Baltic rim are looking to expand all manner of subsea connections.
Finnish police continue to investigate cause of the Balticconnector damage, while Estonian police are looking into damage to subsea telecommunications links that occurred around the same time. Police in both countries have yet to provide their conclusions.
Shore-side power has become a major focus of the cruise industry’s efforts in recent years to reduce its environmental impact. It should come as no surprise, then, that Ports of Stockholm, the port authority overseeing the Swedish capital’s three main ports, made a big deal out it when it inaugurated the country’s on-shore power supply (or OPS) facility for international cruise ships on 17 September, making Stockholm the first port in Sweden—and one of just a handful in Europe—to allow cruise ships to power down their engines while in port.
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Unlike a lot of other environmental initiatives, the benefits of on-shore power are immediately visible. For ships, being able to plug in, rather than run their engines, means no exhaust belching out of their smokestacks while in port.
This is because, in addition to propulsion, the diesel-electric engines that power most modern cruise ships also generate electricity. Often, more than half of an engine’s output is used for things like charging phones and keeping the lights on. Those are things that cannot be shut off entirely when the ships are in port.
Being able to plug in, more or less the way you would plug in an electric car, means less air pollution in the immediate vicinity of the ship, just as it also cuts out the noise the running engines generate. In places where the power is generated using renewable energy—such as Sweden’s hydroelectric or wind power—switching to on-shore electricity from on-board bunker brings down carbon pollution.
For now, about half of the cruise ships that land at one of Port of Stockholms’ ports can connect to electricity. This is more than double the amount that could a few years ago. By 2028, three quarters of the world’s cruise ships are expected to be able to plug in, according to CLIA, an industry group.
For cruise operators, there is an incentive in being a first mover, if it makes it possible to attract those who are turned off by the industry’s tarnished image. The promise of financial gain will undoubtedly speed the process along, but ports themselves can also play a role, either by directly mandating that ships be able plug in or by holding carrots.
Ports of Stockholm, for example, already offers discounts on port fees for ships that exceed emissions standards for carbon dioxide and soot. These could be extended to include on-shore power.
Paying ships to run cleaner makes more than just environmental logic, according to Jens Holm, the chair of the Ports of Stockholm board. It and three other Baltic Sea ports, Copenhagen/Malmö, Aarhus and Helsinki, all received funding from the EU to install OPS—amounting to 20% of the total €76mn the four port authorities will spend to do so—and he reckons this can help the Baltic Sea region market itself as a green cruise destination.
Mixing water and electricity may, in this case at least, not be such a bad idea after all.
Most of the €5bn or so worth of warm-water prawns that make their way to European plates are imported from South-east Asia, to the detriment of the climate globally and the environment locally. That could change if the work being carried out by two Danish scientists on Bornholm shows they can be raised in tanks on land, close to the markets where they are consumed.
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