Can We Make Oceans Absorb More Carbon Dioxide with a Giant Antacid? (msn.com) 71
If we dissolve acid-neutralizing rocks in the ocean, will it absorb more carbon dioxide?
Climate ventures and philanthropic funders have been spending millions of dollars to find out, reports the Washington Post. "Researchers have been exploring this technology for the last five years, but over the last two months, at least a couple of start-ups have begun operation along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts." Planetary, a start-up based in Nova Scotia, removed 138 metric tons of carbon last month for Shopify and Stripe. The start-up Ebb Carbon is running a small site in Washington that can remove up to 100 carbon metric tons per year and committed in October to remove 350,000 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere over the next decade for Microsoft.
Proponents of the technology say it's one of the most promising forms of carbon removal, which experts say will be necessary to meet climate goals even as the world cuts emissions. But in order for this to make a dent, it will need to be scaled up to remove billions, not hundreds of thousands, of metric tons of carbon per year, Yale associate professor of earth and planetary sciences Matthew Eisaman said... Removing carbon could also help prevent ocean acidification. Although the ocean's chemistry has varied through geologic time, it has become more acidic as it has absorbed more carbon from human-generated emissions, said Andy Jacobson, a geochemist at Northwestern University. The increased acidity makes it difficult for some marine organisms to build their skeletons and shells...
Researchers are still investigating the best strategy to implement the method. Ebb Carbon, for example, takes existing saltwater waste streams from treatment and desalination plants and uses electricity to alkalize it before returning it to the ocean, said Eisaman, who is the start-up's co-founder and chief scientist. Another method is depositing alkaline minerals or solution into the ocean using a ship; others want to enhance the rock weathering that already occurs on the coast...
The growing evidence from early studies in labs and controlled outdoor settings suggest no serious impacts on plankton, which are at the bottom of the food web.
Climate ventures and philanthropic funders have been spending millions of dollars to find out, reports the Washington Post. "Researchers have been exploring this technology for the last five years, but over the last two months, at least a couple of start-ups have begun operation along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts." Planetary, a start-up based in Nova Scotia, removed 138 metric tons of carbon last month for Shopify and Stripe. The start-up Ebb Carbon is running a small site in Washington that can remove up to 100 carbon metric tons per year and committed in October to remove 350,000 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere over the next decade for Microsoft.
Proponents of the technology say it's one of the most promising forms of carbon removal, which experts say will be necessary to meet climate goals even as the world cuts emissions. But in order for this to make a dent, it will need to be scaled up to remove billions, not hundreds of thousands, of metric tons of carbon per year, Yale associate professor of earth and planetary sciences Matthew Eisaman said... Removing carbon could also help prevent ocean acidification. Although the ocean's chemistry has varied through geologic time, it has become more acidic as it has absorbed more carbon from human-generated emissions, said Andy Jacobson, a geochemist at Northwestern University. The increased acidity makes it difficult for some marine organisms to build their skeletons and shells...
Researchers are still investigating the best strategy to implement the method. Ebb Carbon, for example, takes existing saltwater waste streams from treatment and desalination plants and uses electricity to alkalize it before returning it to the ocean, said Eisaman, who is the start-up's co-founder and chief scientist. Another method is depositing alkaline minerals or solution into the ocean using a ship; others want to enhance the rock weathering that already occurs on the coast...
The growing evidence from early studies in labs and controlled outdoor settings suggest no serious impacts on plankton, which are at the bottom of the food web.
350,000 metric tons of carbon? (Score:2)
That'll put a dent in the 36.6 billion tons of carbon we put into the atmosphere in 2023 alone.
Re: 350,000 metric tons of carbon? (Score:2)
But in order for this to make a dent, it will need to be scaled up to remove billions, not hundreds of thousands, of metric tons of carbon per year, Yale associate professor of earth and planetary sciences Matthew Eisaman said...
Re: (Score:2)
TFS is wrong as Berkyjay points out -- it's tens of billions of tons, not billions. And that's just to break even with current yearly emissions. We're going to do that how?
Re: (Score:2)
>> the 36.6 billion tons of carbon we put into the atmosphere in 2023
According to the IEA; "CO2 emissions reached a new record high of 37.4 Gt in 2023".
3.67 tons of carbon dioxide has one ton of carbon. So the fraction of actual carbon is about 10 billion tons. Still quite a large amount.
https://www.iea.org/reports/co... [iea.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Thx for the clarification
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but you also need to remove the oxygen as well as the carbon, otherwise we're going to end up with dragonflies with 16 foot wingspans and cockroaches the size of horses again.
Re: 350,000 metric tons of carbon? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The growing evidence from early studies in labs and controlled outdoor settings suggest no serious impacts on plankton, which are at the bottom of the food web.
If they're wrong, and the method they use to accomplish this is successful and expanded many times, won't that pretty much doom all life on the planet?
If there is anything to be upset about it is making mention of a "bottom" to a "food web". I remember as a student many years ago how the idea of a "food chain" was outdated since that implied a "top" and "bottom" while in reality it's more a "circle of life" where any apex predator would eventually become food for insects and bacteria, thus creating a "web" that connected itself into something of a sphere than a "chain" that had a top and bottom.
If this is a successful process to remove CO2 from the air t
Re: (Score:2)
"... then presumably people would be intelligent enough..."
I was with you to this point. I mean, we know that driving fat oversized trucks and SUVs and the like is bad for us in a lot of ways... and yet we do it anyway.
But it's so big?! (Score:2)
We can't change the sky because it's so huge... we can't be causing global warming... etc. Then it's the sky is so vast it would cost too much to change it so give up....
So the larger oceans with their relatively extreme density is something we can engineer and do so affordably? Even so, if you think the risk to geo-engineering the sky is great, then it's earth shattering to think of messing with the oceans...where our O2 largely comes from.
Also, when we kill everything the remaining life will evolve back
Re: (Score:2)
Re:But it's so big?! (Score:5, Insightful)
And specifically, trying to titrate the ocean's pH would be a disaster.
Not really. The thing is affecting the ocean pH is a ridiculously infeasible thought. At best you could create small regions where the pH of the water is slightly increased temporarily.
Even if we were to drop all the Calcium carbonate powder the human race has access to; the pH of the ocean will not change, and the alkalized fluid will rapidly diffuse reversing the pH change entirely or almost entirely.
Also, the energy consumed performing the tasks intended to try to alkalize the ocean is likely to result in releasing more CO2 in a greater amount than any increase of dissolved CO2 in ocean water caused by the dumping.
Re: (Score:3)
Also, the energy consumed performing the tasks intended to try to alkalize the ocean is likely to result in releasing more CO2 in a greater amount than any increase of dissolved CO2 in ocean water caused by the dumping.
Came here to say pretty much this. In general the source of the problem is that, when it comes to global warming, we keep trying to spend our way out of debt instead of sucking it up and tightening our belts several notches.
As long as our economy and our entire way of life are predicated on limitless growth, we'll be continuing to drive hard and fast toward the edge of the cliff.
Re: But it's so big?! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say you can expect a negative environmental impact on sea life near your mineral dumpers.
Perhaps you can reduce that by having your ships dump the pH-lowering materials solely near underwater volcanic eruption sites.
These volcanic eruption sites are constantly venting toxic pH-lowering plumes into the ocean which already exterminate any sea life in their path due to sulfur content and cannot be overcome by any amount of material humans are capable of dumping, but you would effectively offset the loweri
What about an autonomous mining robot? (Score:2)
It goes along the ocean floor looking for minerals to expose the ocean to. If it finds basic materials it tries to dig them up to get ocean water to dissolve them.
No idea how hard it'd be to sample stuff over and over like that. Nor how to power it long term down there. Mostly just spitballing for a way that's not impossible.
I agree mixing huge quantities of random stuff in our only ocean is a "Bad Idea (TM)" to me. But so is slowly making worse and worse acidic solution around all our land masses. Thi
Re: (Score:2)
If it finds basic materials it tries to dig them up to get ocean water to dissolve them.
You're making a machine that walks the ocean looking for rocks to dig up, and hope the water dissolves something off the surface of rocks?
I think the machine will wear out any digging attachment very quickly. Digging up rocks from the bottom of the ocean floor is not a trivial task to mechanize: also the machine will require an enormous amount of power to conduct digging. How would that work? You'll need something
Re: (Score:2)
Move fast and break things! That's what you get when tech bros are in charge. Who gives a shit if it's the oceans that get broken, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately part of the problem is that we HAVE BEEN tinkiering with the ocean's pH. That we haven't been doing it intentionally doesn't alter the fact that that was what we were doing.
OTOH, an "carbon removal" project is going to require stopping the addition of more CO2 to have any effect, because it's a lot cheaper to not add the CO2 in the first place than it is to remove it. So right no these "research projects" are only given prominence in order to decrease the pressure to stop adding more. So cu
More Research Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
The growing evidence from early studies in labs and controlled outdoor settings suggest no serious impacts on plankton, which are at the bottom of the food web.
"Suggests" is not good enough. We need to know with some high degree of certainty that this will not have a serious impact on plankton before anyone thinks of doing this on a large scale. Removing CO2 at the cost of crashing the marine ecosystem is not a good trade off.
Re: (Score:2)
Not just plankton, but also shellfish and corals. Many plankton have silicate shells, so those likely wouldn't be excessively sensitive to acidity.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean ignore incomplete climate models when billions of dollars of profits are at stake, something that is continued to this day. And "incomplete" here doesn't mean wrong, climate models are not wrong, just not exactly right.
But your post is probably good enough for a paycheck, right comrade AC?
"...not to mention human lives hung in the balance."
What human lives, the ones destroyed by ignoring climate models because they are "incomplete"?
Science is Incomplete (Score:2)
Why? It was good enough to use incomplete climate models
You wrote your reply relying on devices built using an incomplete model of physics and yet it clearly worked absolutely fine. Just because a model is incomplete does not mean that it is not correct in a wide variety of circumstances. The question here is how well can we trust a model's predictions. For the climate it is clear that humans are having a significant impact in warming the planet and at a rate that is much faster than any natural process. That it is enough for me to indicate that we have to do s
Re: (Score:2)
The article says it "could also help prevent ocean acidification". The ocean's pH level dropped from 8.15 in 1950 to 8.05 in 2020. Acidification might reduce the ocean's ability to absorb CO2, but also negatively affects marine ecosystems threatening fishing, coral reefs, etc...
Re: (Score:2)
The article says it "could also help prevent ocean acidification". The ocean's pH level dropped from 8.15 in 1950 to 8.05 in 2020. Acidification might reduce the ocean's ability to absorb CO2, but also negatively affects marine ecosystems threatening fishing, coral reefs, etc...
The lower the pH of the sea drops the more rapid erosion of minerals in the sea becomes.
In the sea is a lot of volcanic rock, some of this rock is something called basalt. Basalt is rich in CaO, the same minerals that make up the shells of shellfish. The concern is that the more CO2 dissolved in the sea means more shellfish have their shells dissolved. There's a lot of basalt in the sea, and more is introduced with every volcanic eruption in or near the sea. There must be some kind of equilibrium in thi
Re: (Score:2)
The climate deniers : we’re not absolutely 100% sure human emissions is the problem, therefore we can change nothing.
The frightened scientists : we’re not absolutely 100% sure we understand geoengineeri
Re: (Score:2)
"Suggests" is not good enough. We need to know with some high degree of certainty that this will not have a serious impact on plankton before anyone thinks of doing this on a large scale. Removing CO2 at the cost of crashing the marine ecosystem is not a good trade off.
We need to know with some high degree of certainty that digging out oil, coal, gas and burning it will not have a serious impact on atmospheric CO2 levels, global temperatures, the cryosphere, ocean pH and survival of many species.
Ideally, before we do that on a large scale.
Oh wait...
what could possibly go wrong? (Score:3)
No "serious" impact on plankton? The food that all ocean life consumes... very well thought out... carry on
I bet you want to grow that business. Why don't you sign up Amazon and really make a difference...
Who needs oceans? it's just a bunch of water after all.
just in case
Re: what could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
No need for all this nonsense (Score:3)
In the time it will take to see if this is even feasible, let alone the tremendous cost to get to that point, all we need to do is drop an ice cube in the ocean every now and then. Thus solving the problem once and for all [youtube.com].
perpetual motion (Score:1)
Sure, if you believe in free energy, then you can. Or if ou can conjure up a giant antacid with a magic spell, anyone knows where to get a new wand? Can we invite someone from Hogwarts (or whatever the magic place is called).
Everything we do takes energy to make and releases CO2 in the process, something that can absorb a few dozen billion tons of CO2 will not be free, it will take a few dozen billion tons of CO2 to make. Also I don't think you can just dump a few billion tons of anything into the ocean w
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thank goodness, the fate of the human race is secure. Which is huger, your brain or your leg muscles?
Re: (Score:2)
No. Solar, nuclear, wind, geothermal, and probably a few other sources don't necessarily release CO2. But I think the energy considerations here are large enough that we wouldn't be able to do it.
Certainly it's going to be cheaper to stop CO2 emissions than it is to remove them from the environment, where' they've become less concentrated.
Re: (Score:1)
It is not just a matter of power, regardless of the source of power, chemicals need to be mined, shipped, purified, mixed, etc. shipped again, distributed. Electricity is probably the smallest part of it and any amount of electricity that is diverted towards this will have to be compensated for and most likely any new electricity will come from oil, gas, coal, not from nuclear or hydro.
Re: (Score:3)
In principle, given enough electric power the materials should be recyclable. But it's true that as you need to recycle more materials you need to use more power to do so, especially for those that have become dispersed.
Your estimate of the "source of the power" is probably correct at the current time, unfortunately. That, however, is a political and economic decision, not a technical one. (I agree with you that the politics and economics are such that this would be mainly "lipstick on a pig".)
The carbon capture industry.. (Score:3)
is actively scanning the Merry Melodies archives for ACME ideas on how to make a buck off "solving" global warming..
Re: (Score:2)
is actively scanning the Merry Melodies archives for ACME ideas on how to make a buck off "solving" global warming..
I was getting images from a Mel Brooks comedy... Lowering a giant Gaviscon into the Atlantic.
Maybe my age is showing.
"She's gone from suck to blow".
Yet another: Do anything but protect/conserve (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As a planet we're not only a million miles from net zero but our rate of the amount of emissions we release is still increasing. Unless you can figure out a way to get the developing world top stop increasing emissions right this second we're going to need tech like this.
Idiocy-better not release than remove... (Score:5, Insightful)
Removing will always be more costly and problematic than not putting CO2 into atmosphere in the first place...
Not mentioning potential unforeseen side-effects.
Also so far, almost all CO2-removal and storage is a scam or so costly it does not make sense...
Re: (Score:2)
The "growing evidence"? (Score:3)
"The growing evidence from early studies in labs and controlled outdoor settings suggest no serious impacts on plankton, which are at the bottom of the food web."
How is the one cited study "growing evidence"? They looked at "six species representing several globally important phytoplankton species" and did not claim any conclusions outside those specific species. You'd think regarding something of such monumental importance, the term "growing evidence" would be more appropriately used.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes (Score:2)
With enough material and time you can change the chemistry of the ocean. We've already proven it through the atmosphere.
What will be the carbon footprint of (Score:2)
Terrible is my bet.
It is agreed then, global change exists. (Score:2)
Do you mean "enhanced weathering"? (Score:3)
I've heard ideas like this before but the parties involved called it "enhanced weathering", often specifically in reference to some kind of mechanical extraction of basalt for one use or another.
It took me a bit to remember the guy's name but as I recall the first time I heard of this idea was from something I read from Dr. Darryl Siemer something like a decade ago. He's written some academic papers, and at least one book, advocating for the mining of basalt to sequester carbon. Basalt is a mineral that contains about half calcium oxide (also known as lime) and about half what is basically just sand. This mineral is difficult to mine as the silicon and aluminum oxides are very abrasive and wear out mining equipment quickly. The lime in basalt is valued for being a fertilizer, primary ingredient for Portland cement, and for it's ability to sequester CO2 from the air.
As a kid growing up on a dairy farm I wondered that if humans got calcium from drinking milk then where did the cows get their calcium? The answer was they got it from eating various grasses. Okay then, the grasses must get calcium from the dirt they grow from but then doesn't that mean the calcium in the dirt will need replacement eventually? It does mean that farmers will be spreading calcium rich minerals on the fields so that cows can produce calcium rich milk. Where does this calcium rich mineral come from then? Limestone, there's a "soft" mineral called limestone that farmers use to add calcium to the croplands. In this case "soft" means it causes less wear on mining tools than a "hard" rock such as those rich in silicates like basalt.
The idea Dr. Siemer advocated, at least as I understood what I read on the internet many years ago, was that by mining basalt instead of lime then we'd have a source of calcium for farmers that was also a means to sequester CO2 from the air. Basalt is rich in CaO while limestone is rich in CaCO3. Once the basalt is mined, pulverized, and spread out into fields, the CaO is exposed to CO2 in the air and becomes CaCO3. Plants exposed to the CaCO3 in the soil will take this up thorugh its roots to incorporate the calcium and carbon into its structure, a process that releases O2 into the air, and any not taken up into the plant is taking CO2 from the air and locking it up in the soil.
The distinction I'm getting from "enhanced weathering" and "antacids for the sea" is where the water is coming from. Obviously the sea has water in it, and in that water is some dissolved CO2. Out in a field there will be water from rain or irrigation, the CO2 is then dissolved in this water by being exposed to the atmosphere. The CO2 is acidic, the calcium is basic, and when combined it becomes a kind of salt or mineral that is in the soil as potential nutrients for plants.
The sea is an international resource and so dumping anything into the sea could bring international outrage and sanctions. Spreading mined basalt into cornfields isn't likely to bring any international attention. Mining basalt for it's CaO, and then spreading it over croplands, looks to me like a great way to both sequester CO2 and improve crop production while not raising any international scrutiny. The hard part is that basalt is difficult to mine, at least compared to limestone.
I could go on about how mining basalt could benefit cement production while sequestering CO2 but this is already too long of a post. Use your imagination on how this works, or do some searching of the web to figure it out. I had two points to make. First, this is far from a new idea. Second, dumping anything into the sea is likely to get international attention. There's another way to go about this, and one that could have a number of side benefits beyond CO2 sequestration.
Re: (Score:1)
The sea is an international resource and so dumping anything into the sea could bring international outrage and sanctions.
Third world country plastic.
No outrage/sanctions yet?
Can We? (Score:2)
No. We can't.
Also we shouldn't attempt it. We'll screw something up.
Using an electrochemical process on the waste streams of ocean water processing plants, such as bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) to increase alkalinity is a real band-aid solution if I ever saw one. You temporarily reduce ocean acidity, then more CO2 dissolves and your find a new equilibrium.
But without a buffer or without a long-term process to chemically react with the dissolved CO2 and lay down calcium carbonate deposits, you're j
once we have a few extra planets... (Score:2)
When we have some extra planets to screw around with, we definitely can use one to experiment on. But we get just the one, and doing planet-scale science to try to unfuck ourselves is ridiculous. We will figure out if it was a bad idea only after something goes horribly wrong.
Oh sure (Score:2)
Sure, let's tinker with the ocean's chemistry, what could possibly go wrong?
Re: (Score:2)
Ever see the TV series, 'Dinosaurs'?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
So release sediment trapped by dams? (Score:2)
What happens to all that acid/base pairs? (Score:2)
I can't remember if it's carbonic acid that CO2 helps make in oceans or what, but assuming we pair it with a partner... that still leaves the substance in the ocean. Do you know how neutralized acid/base pairs work? They trade partners a bunch. Stuff still moves around, and is available for use.
Does anything in the ocean want either partner? We'd be adding a bunch of "food" for those beings.
Is any of the more basic stuff used to make shells? Is that a limiting factor for some species spread?
If you don
Alkalizing water with electricity releases H+ ions (Score:2)
So you're acidifying the air to make the ocean a little more basic. Where do those hydrogen ions go afterward? Seems it'd be hard to keep them separated for a distance that would matter. If you don't they just neutralize again, and you've still spent that electricity before.
Did you just spend a bunch of energy to do nothing in the end? Maybe.
Seems a bad choice to work on something you can't be sure is effective. That the overall problem is improving because of what you did. I know that's not always po
Possibly (Score:2)
We can also make sure the sun does not shine for a few years. Does not mean it is a good idea.
More greenwashing (Score:2)
No. (Score:2)
When you're smashing your head against a wall every 10 seconds, the solution to the pain is not a better analgesic.
We won't stop saving the planet until we kill it! (Score:2)
It seems like most of the proposals that we come up with for "saving the planet" have the potential to cause untold amounts of damage to the delicately balanced ecosystems that create the part of the planet we rely on. The oceans and their ph are not something to be trifled with just because we know they're capable of absorbing CO2. It strikes me almost as weird as the concept of chemically dosing the air itself in an attempt to change the basic chemistry of the atmosphere. We're terrible about studying the