But an academic says the company’s ambitions, while worthy of serious engagement, remain vague and questionable in practice.
Gigablue co-founder and chief commercial officer Ori Shaashua said their work could benefit Dunedin in the ‘‘hundreds of millions’’ of dollars and create thousands of jobs across various sectors.
Gigablue, which describes itself as a marine carbon dioxide removal company, is developing technology it claims could remove excess carbon dioxide from the ocean.
The company said it had completed three deep ocean trials in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone, about 200km southeast of Dunedin, and had invested about $12 million in New Zealand businesses and organisations to date.
Mr Shaashua told the Otago Daily Times the company aimed to deacidify the ocean and reverse the damage caused by humans.
‘‘For the past hundred years, we have been drilling into geological layers below the ocean, extracting carbon from there and putting it in the atmosphere through engines and factories and other activities.
‘‘We need to reverse that.’’
Gigablue was founded in 2022 by a group of Israeli entrepreneurs.
The company’s activity was based on the methodology of ‘‘microalgae carbon fixation and sinking’’ (MCFS) which, Mr Shaashua said, mimicked the natural carbon cycle involving phytoplankton and ocean sediment, or ‘‘marine snow’’.
It had developed small carbon-carrying pods made of plant-based cellulose fibres that acted as homes for colonies of phytoplankton to grow and thrive within.
‘‘It’s an elevator for CO2.’’
Mr Shaashua said a third of the world’s oceans, including the area between Antarctica and New Zealand, did not have meaningful exposure to the essential minerals necessary for photosynthesis and had unfulfilled potential.
Gigablue was targeting the ocean near Dunedin as the pods could yield a much more positive impact there.
The trials, which began in 2024, focused on measuring samples using research vessels and remotely controlled submarines in the open ocean.
Gigablue had worked with research institutes in Nelson and Wellington, but its main operation was centred around Dunedin, Mr Shaashua said.
There was economic potential to New Zealand; the market for carbon credits was huge and could have a big impact on GDP.
Asked about how big of an opportunity this was for Dunedin, Mr Shaashua said, ‘‘I think we're talking about hundreds of millions’’.
As the site scaled up, they were ‘‘looking at thousands of jobs across a variety of different sectors’’, he said.
University of Otago department of botany Associate Prof Linn Hoffmann said the world was at a stage where carbon dioxide removal was ‘‘unavoidable’’ as a complement to emissions reductions, if global warming was to be limited to 2°C.
‘‘Emissions reductions remain the priority, but progress has been too slow and we now urgently need to also actively remove carbon from the atmosphere.
‘‘Companies like Gigablue are, therefore, important and their work deserves serious engagement.
‘‘However, Gigablue is currently very vague about the exact method they are proposing for MCFS.’’
Assoc Prof Hoffmann, who has a background in biogeochemistry and phytoplankton ecophysiology, had several concerns.
That included the reliability of the mechanism in open ocean conditions, the risk of ingestion by seabirds or fish and the carbon footprint of manufacturing and deployment on a large scale.
To her knowledge, there were no published studies describing the company’s method.
‘‘At this stage, I am very sceptical.
‘‘Without transparency about the underlying method and openly shared testing results, it is not possible to assess whether the Gigablue approach could work and is environmentally safe.’’
