When large swathes of invasive seaweed started washing up on Caribbean beaches in 2011, local residents were perplexed.
Soon, mounds of unsightly sargassum – carried by currents from the Sargasso Sea and linked to climate change – were carpeting the region’s prized coastlines, repelling holidaymakers with the pungent stench emitted as it rots.
Precisely how to tackle it was a dilemma of unprecedented proportions for the tiny tourism-reliant islands with limited resources.
In 2018, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley declared sargassum a national emergency.
Now, a pioneering group of Caribbean scientists and environmentalists hope to turn the tide on the problem by transforming the troublesome algae into a lucrative biofuel.
They recently launched one of the world’s first vehicles powered by bio-compressed natural gas. The innovative fuel source created at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados also uses wastewater from local rum distilleries, and dung from the island’s indigenous blackbelly sheep which provides the vital anaerobic bacteria.
The team says any car can be converted to run on the gas via a simple and affordable four-hour installation process, using an easily available kit, at a total cost of around $2,500 (£1,940).
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Gemma Handy
Reporting from St John’s, Antigua
25 November 2024, 00:09 GMT
From eyesore to asset: How a smelly seaweed could fuel cars
