Coates made the case for seaweed as a 'third-generation feedstock' needing no farmland, freshwater or fertiliser and containing no lignin, using Indonesia — where permits take 24 hours and only 1.6% of 12 million suitable hectares are used — as a benchmark. He estimated a ~$370 million annual market for a Polynesian seaweed industry and advocated a cascading biorefinery extracting high-value products before energy.

Summary derived from the conference transcript; not an author-supplied abstract of record.