This is part of "Ocean Shock," a Reuters series exploring climate change's impact on sea creatures and the people who depend on them.
Norway has built the world's biggest salmon-farming industry. But it wants to go bigger. With their lucrative oil fields now in decline, Norwegians have ambitious plans for aquaculture to power their economy far into the future.
挪威建立了世界上最大的鲑鱼养殖产业。但它想变得更大。由于利润丰厚的油田数量正在不断减少,挪威人有雄心勃勃的水产养殖计划,为未来的经济提供动力。
Climate change could make those dreams harder to realize.
Salmon feed is based on fishmeal, produced by grinding up wild-caught fish. With warming waters and ocean acidification pushing underwater ecosystems to the breaking point, Big Aquaculture is seeking ways to feed fish that aren't hostage to increasingly unpredictable seas.
鲑鱼饲料是以鱼粉为基础的,它是用磨碎捕到的野生的鱼来生产的.随着海水变暖和海洋酸化将海洋生态系统推向崩溃的边缘,大型水产养殖业正在寻找方法来喂养那些不再受制于不可预测的海洋的鱼类。
"Feed has a couple of bottlenecks: We're still using marine resources, for example fishmeal and fish oil, to then put into fish. This is not necessarily sustainable in the long term," said Georg Baunach, co-founder of Hatch, an accelerator focused on supporting aquaculture startups. "And that's why we need innovation in feed."
Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and scientists are racing to identify alternatives, turning the Norwegian cities of Bergen and Stavanger into a Silicon Valley of the Sea. Spending on research and development in Norway's aquaculture sector increased by 30 percent to 2.3 billion kroner, or $275 million, between 2013 and 2015, according to official data quoted by Hatch, as startups and research institutes raced to develop disruptive new technologies.
企业家、风险资本家和科学家正在争相寻找替代方案,将挪威的卑尔根和斯塔万格城市变成了硅谷。根据Hatch引用的官方数据,2013至2015年间,挪威水产养殖业的研发支出增长了30%,达到23亿克朗。与此同时,初创企业和研究机构竞相开发破坏性新技术。
The innovators aren't short of ideas. At Norway's biggest oil refinery, a startup called CO2Bio is harnessing greenhouse gases to culture algae that can then be harvested as a sustainable source of fish feed.
创新者并不缺乏创意。在挪威最大的炼油厂,一家名为CO2BIO的初创公司正在利用温室气体培育藻类,然后将其作为可持续的鱼类饲料来源。
At the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, the Aquafly project is investigating whether black soldier flies fed on waste products from the food industry or the seaweed growing off Norway's coast could be another viable feed ingredient.
"The insects are also part of this whole circular economy, where instead of throwing away things you would reuse and recycle and upcycle," said Nina Liland, one of the Aquafly researchers. "Potentially you could use food waste from households to produce insects that could be used for fish feeds: That would be an optimal scenario."
Nina Liland, scientist for the Aquafly project at the Institute of Marine Research investigates how insects can be used to make feed for Norway's salmon farms, in Bergen, Norway, July 31, 2018.
Various companies are working on projects to recycle more of the vast amounts of waste dumped into the sea by Norway's aquaculture industry into products such as biogas or fertilizer.
Researchers are also looking for ways to combat the sea lice parasites that thrive in salmon cages, which are a major brake on the industry's plans to expand.
许多公司正在开展项目,将挪威水产养殖业向倾倒海里的大量废物回收变为沼气或化肥等产品。
Time may not be on the fish farmers' side. With climate change projected to intensify in the coming decades, the challenge will be to turn promising new ideas into viable projects fast enough to shield their dreams of a prosperous future from the growing turmoil at sea.