Archive for the ‘Investment’ Category


Aquaculture Power Generation via Wave Energy

October 28th, 2008 by Andrew

Wave energy is a form of renewable energy source generated by the ocean’s wave, and potentially could be used to generate electricity, as well as the free source of energy used for water purification.

The World Energy Council estimated that around 2 terawatts (2 million megawatts) could be produced from the oceans via wave power. This is figure is two times higher than the current world electricity production. It is also estimated that 1 million gigawatt hours of wave energy hits Australian shores annually [1]. Note that wave power is to be differentiated with tidal power [2], which is based on the tidal movement due to relative motion of moon and earth .

Wave energy generation is suitable to be implemented Western Australia, since our wave current is quite strong. Other part of Australia that has strong wave current is Tasmania and eastern side of South Australia. This is quite interesting, since most of the aquaculture industry are located around this area. 

There is one Western Australian company called CETO, which is having the technology to harvest the energy from the ocean’s wave for water purification and power generation.

http://www.ceto.com.au

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V27ZBODcv0c

Perhaps, CETO technology could be used to help aquaculture industry.

[1] CETO: http://www.ceto.com.au

[2] Tidal Power: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power

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Posted by Andrew Tags: , , ,
Posted in Environment, Hatchery R&D, Innovation, Investment, Open Innovation, Technology, Value-add | 11 Comments »


Financial crisis, commodity price drop to impact on innovation?

October 27th, 2008 by Andrew

Reuters recently ran a shortarticle regarding the continued surge in food prices, despite a drop in commodities like grain, as well as energy prices:

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE49K6ZE20081021

Despite dropping costs of transport and feed (e.g. grains), the prices are not expected to be passed on the consumer due to continued demand and limited supply – the US Department of Agriculture estimated a surge in food prices be  by 5.5 percent in 2008 and 4.5 percent next year – the third year in a row when US food prices will use at least 4 percent.

Specifically,  fish are forecast to rise 3.5 percent during this year.

To put this in context, fish prices are to continue increasing as production (e.g grain feed) and transport fall – This may make certain types of innovation more attractive (e.g using Lupin protein rather than fish protein as feed), and others less so (e.g energy source innovation in the face of cheaper oil).

Does anyone have any data on both the reactions and longer term projections of the grain / lupin market (or other fields discussed in this forum) in the face international financial crisis? This may help in selecting the innovations that best fir the new macroeconomic climate.

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Posted in Economics, Investment | 2 Comments »


Water Treatment in Aquaculture

October 12th, 2008 by Andrew

Water quality is major issue for closed aquaculture systems and management can be constant battle against a number of factors.  

An emerging technology that has had success in the agriculture sector could be the next big thing in aquaculture.

 Hydrasmart is used in water systems as a defence to the formation of minerals and chemicals in water.  It does this by using a series of computer generated resonance frequecies to disrupt electron bonding between particles.  

It has been sucessful in the wine industry by preventing calcium scale built up in drip feed reticulation systems and also been used in water remediation of waterways by removing algae and mould.  The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABC) presented a story on its landline program in 2007.

At the moment the South Australian company is going through a private equity raising exercise to commercially develop the technology for the Australian and Asia markets.  Applications to aquaculture at the moment are limited, however it is only a matter of time until the technology takes hold within the industry.

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