Undercurrents: May 2025

SeaGen's roundup of company news and perspective on all things climate.

Blythe Taylor, Chief of Staff

We’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with Innovate UK over the last couple of years on projects that have facilitated the development of our tech, and helped shape our path of progress. So it’s such a pleasure to be able to share some news about two further Defra and Innovate UK grant funded studies that SeaGen will be working on over the coming 18 months.

Nutrient Cycling with automated Seaweed Cultivation

Regular readers will know our passion and enthusiasm for seaweed and all its wonderful remediation benefits. Seaweeds absorb in-water nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphates and use them for growth. These nutrients are often leached into our waterways and oceans from the agricultural overuse of synthetic fertilisers. This causes significant damage to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the nutrients that seaweed naturally absorb, could be put back into the soil through the creation of seaweed based biofertilisers and biostimulants? Well that’s what we’re examining in this project! We’re partnering with three UK farmers to understand how a biostimulant produced from seaweed grown on our automated cultivation rig (the AlgaVator) could benefit plant and soil health and form a conduit for on-farm nutrient cycling.

Modular Marine Monitoring Buoy (M3B)

We’ve been so excited to share our progress with the Baseline Buoy over the last couple of months. If you’ve missed it just check out some of the amazing footage we’ve captured here.

Well we’ve learnt an incredible amount with these deployments, and we’ll be continuing our environmental monitoring development journey with our M3B project. In partnership with Exeter University we’re developing and deploying a new modular monitoring system that’s designed to be truly flexible in configuration and use case. At the heart of the M3B will be an innovative power and data management system. Machine learning algorithms will ensure only ‘interesting’ data are transmitted (lowering power and data costs) and the collected data run through AI models to identify marine species and quantify biodiversity. This processed information is made accessible to stakeholders through SeaGen’s Baseline app, allowing for easy access, analysis and cross-referencing. It’s going to be a real game changer!

Both projects are underway and we’ll keep you updated on our progress, but for now, and to whet your appetite, take a look at our current AlgaVator prototype off the coast of Fowey…

SeaGen

Progress & Press

This month SeaGen’s co-founder and CSO Professor Mike Allen spoke to The Conversation’s Anna Turns about his seaweed journey in her new series Secrets of the Sea. The series is being broadcast on BBC Radio Devon and features Scientists in the South West doing amazing work into sea-based solutions to climate change.

Read the article here or listen to the series on BBC Sounds.