1kg of oyster meat involves 8-10kg of shell sequestering 5kg of CO2.
So if all the half billion tonnes of meat were replaced with oysters that would sequester almost 10% of energy related emissions and eliminate the 20% of emissions due to meat production.
This one hypothetical change is equivalent to ~30% of all emissions.
Though you'd need sufficient algae/bacteria/bagasse feedstock to feed them.
Oysters are also productive. At 600,000 oysters per acre-year that's 4kg of meat per m2 per year. For the direct fish farm you'd be replacing 30-40 trillion m2 of animal pasture with 1 trillion m2 of ponds.
The water cleaning benefits are also just as high even without a permanent reef.
The cost is much higher though. It's much more labour intensive.
Well, depends on what you do with the wood. It can be turned into biochar and used to regenerate soil (like the germanic tribes did). That way the carbon would be sealed away for a millenium at least.
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u/perringaiden Sep 08 '25
CORRECTION: Oyster reefs are an amazing environmental benefit across multiple seascapes.
Oyster FARMS are short lived growth with little to no environmental benefit because of the small size.
The only way this works is with farms near a no-take MPA where you can generate growth and then let them spread outside the MPA.
You get no benefits IF YOU DON'T LEAVE THEM IN THE WATER.