Growing up with seaweed

In 1978 the founder of SES, Pål Bakken, was working part time at his father's seaweed meal factory at the island of Frøya in Norway.

At the age of 13, he and a friend harvested about 1.5 tons of seaweed in less than 2 hours, including delivering the seaweed to the factory with a small boat powered by a 4 HP outboard motor.

Now 30 years later, this is what SES is all about. The fact that it is possible to harvest a wild resource with such a low input of energy and cost is a strong indicator that large scale cultivation of seaweed offers a compelling alternative energy resource for the world. Utilizing the full momentum of modern technology, large scale cultivation of seaweed has unmatched potential as an energy crop.

It all started in 2006 when Bakken contacted Dr. Svein Jarle Horn who in 2000 completed his PhD on bioenergy production from brown seaweeds, following a seaweed research tradition that started with the Norwegian Institute of Seaweed Research in 1950. Mentz Indergaard, who worked extensively with seaweed cultivation research and development from the 1980’s, also joined the team during this first stage of SES' history.