Abstract
Is it possible to contribute carbon neutral by yeasts inhabiting in aquatic environments of our neighborhood? In COP26, held from October to November in 2021, various concrete attempts by participating countries were proposed for realization of carbon neutral. However, many people seem to be skeptical about their completions. Especially in Japan, coal demand has increased since a nuclear accident in 2011. It is an urgent need to break away from this dependence because coal has a high emission of air pollutants. Thus, we propose marine biomass-utilization of both processing seaweed waists and wild unused seaweeds for energy resources because the land area of Japan is ranked the 61st, and its exclusive economic zone is the 6th in the world. As many Japanese people ordinally eat seaweeds, a lot of their processing wastes are dumped in the sea. Additionally, abnormal growths of seaweeds and drifting to shores of dead ones are causing marine pollutions and global warning. There is an urgent need to improve this situation. We propose that bioethanol production from marine biomass can contribute to the carbon neutral. It is difficult to incinerate seaweeds with high water content, and treatments by normal microorganisms significantly decrease their activities because seaweeds also contain a high concentration of salt. Therefore, fermentation of marine biomass by wild yeasts is thought to be useful to overcome various problems. We have found that expectations are inhabiting in aquatic environments of our neighborhood, the yeasts are easily isolated, and are effectively available. In this report, we discuss about explanation of the yeast and ethanol fermentation, isolation of aquatic yeasts in our neighborhood, and bioethanol production from seaweeds.
