**Title**: Energy in the North - Chandler Kemp
**Date**: December, 10 2025
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Chandler Kemp

00;00;00;06 - 00;00;06;05 [Chandler Kemp] So one of the opportunities that kelp farmers have mentioned to us is having an electric kelp hauler

00;00;06;05 - 00;00;29;05 [Amanda Byrd] This week on energy in the North, I speak with Chandler Kemp, assistant professor of sustainable energy at UAF Bristol Bay campus. Chandler started working at UAF back when he was a summer intern at ACEP, and now he's back as an assistant professor leading research and mentoring students on energy in the mariculture industry. I began the conversation by asking Chandler if mariculture is a growing industry in Alaska.

00;00;29;05 - 00;01;31;04 [Chandler Kemp] It's growing. It's also really experimental. And there's a lot of uncertainty. And I think that environment can be stressful, especially as farmers are making investments of their time and money to develop these farms while markets are still growing. And there's been, some growing pains, I would say there's been times when the farmers have grown faster than the markets. And so that's challenging. But at the same time, like, now that those farmers have established themselves and markets can be confident in buying from them. Now we see like more sales coming into the state. So it's an exciting, tumultuous time in that respect, but also because it's so new, people are there having to innovate and try new things just to figure out how to farm kelp in Alaska in the first place. They're trying new, different species, or they're trying different techniques, experimenting with different timings of when they put out kelp lines or seed line and when they harvest. So it's a really, dynamic space and people are willing to try new things and so as a person working for the university, it's a good time to be involved because there's a lot to learn, a lot of opportunity to try to do things that are helpful.

00;01;31;04 - 00;01;46;02 [Amanda Byrd] You've kind of come full circle a little bit and you have been mentoring interns looking at the fishing fleets, looking at the marine energy systems and their fuel efficiency or their onboard energy efficiency.

00;01;46;02 - 00;04;09;29 [Chandler Kemp] Yeah. So that's been really exciting and really essential for some of the research projects that I've been involved with in the last two years.
 I've been working on a project that's funded by the Economic Development Administration, the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, and the Southeast Conference. And that project is called the Green Energy Mariculture Project. The project is funded as part of a broader effort to accelerate growth in the shellfish and seaweed farming sector in Alaska. And we've adopted a somewhat similar approach to the fishing vessel projects in the past, where we've, worked with
 farmers and processors of kelp and shellfish to understand how they're using energy, establish a baseline. And now we're using that data to identify opportunities for efficiency improvements.
 At this point, I've now worked with three interns on that project all through ACEP. And they've been really critical to some of the things that we've been doing. In the very first year I worked with the Kristian Nudlash-Barger, he lived in Dillingham. So we got to meet in person at the Bristol Bay campus every day and work together. We wanted to start establishing a baseline of energy use. And so Kristian designed a data logging system that allows us to connect to the engine control unit on most outboards, which makes it a really easy way for us to measure fuel use and record how boats are working in the mariculture space. And then just this last summer, I worked with two students - Emma Kehoe and Shane Morris. So one of the opportunities that kelp farmers have mentioned to us in a few context is having an electric kelp hauler right now; people often run a diesel engine to power a hydraulic pump to then use a hydraulic hauler to pull the kelp in, but that means they have to run this engine all day long. And so this summer we worked with the kelp farmer and logged the tension in the kelp hauling line. And Emma used that data to, design select components for variable speed electric hauler. And then we got to test that over the summer, and we're aiming to have that deployed in time for the next harvest in the spring. So there's been a really fun project that Emma was able to push through. And then working with Shane this summer, we went to Homer and worked with the processor there to understand the energy use for kelp drying especially. They were testing out a couple of different drying methods, and Shane put together a report comparing those different methods and identifying where the energy was going each drying technique. It's been really fun working with interns over the summers, and they've made that really critical contributions to the projects and working on.

00;04;09;29 - 00;04;23;16 [Amanda Byrd] Chandler Kemp is an assistant professor of sustainable energy at UAF Bristol Bay campus, and I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.