The energy consumed during shellfish farming mainly includes diesel and electricity. The diesel is applied for transportation and vessel consumption. The electricity is mainly consumed for pumping sea water and aeration during the hatchery culture stage.
Exploring the carbon sink potential of the ocean is essential to achieving the ambitious goal of carbon neutrality. This study proposed a new concept, carbon sequestration via shellfish farming (CSSF), which is a potential negative emission technology driven by natural processes.
Based on these investigations, shellfish farming has the potential to be a net CO 2 sink in the specific ocean and atmosphere carbon cycles. In conclusion, the majority of the models that consider shellfish farming as a carbon source ignored the ecosystem function of shellfish farming.
Shellfish mainly absorb and utilize carbon in two ways, that is, via by carbon input from DIC uptake and organic carbon through ingestion. First, dissolved HCO3− is absorbed from seawater to generate calcium carbonate shells: (1) C a 2 + + 2 H C O 3 − = C a C O 3 + C O 2 + H 2 O Additionally, organic carbon is utilized for the growth of shellfish.
The carbon in shells and the carbon that enters sediments via bio-deposition are long-lived forms of carbon. Using China as a case study, a preliminary estimation suggests that the carbon sequestration efficiency and intensity of cultivated shellfishes are much higher than those of artificial forests.
In addition, the farmed shellfishes provided 0.37 Mt of harvested protein, and approximately 37.39 Mt CO2-eq a-1 were reduced compared to the same amount of protein provided by beef, and thus, shellfish farming has the win-win benefits of carbon sequestration and high-quality food provision.