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How well would geoengineering work, considering the acididation of the oceans? I haven't seen any proposals to handle that, yet it seems like a fairly major con

by graeme 10y ago

How well would geoengineering work, considering the acididation of the oceans? I haven't seen any proposals to handle that, yet it seems like a fairly major consequence all on its own.

nickparker 10y ago
The oceans are really, really, unbelievably massive. A molecule of water at the bottom of the Pacific takes a few thousand years to ride the currents from one side to the other and then the coastal upwelling to the surface. We're only really acidifying the very top layer, unfortunately that's where a huge fraction of the stuff that matters is. Artificial upwelling is a somewhat promising geo-engineering tech to reduce acidification and increase primary production (and thereby carbon capture). The idea is to somehow bring deep sea water up to the surface. Early attempts used long tubes with one way valves that were lifted up and down by wave energy. New more promising techniques use wave energy to compress air, pump the air down deep and then bubble it (and the surrounding water) up from a grid of pipes.
pdkl95 10y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ#t=567 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ#t=567 This is the only proposal I've seen regarding ocean acidification. In brief, we need massive amounts of lime to dump into the ocean as an artificial carbon cycle. The problem is how to get lime? If we have massive amounts of clean power, something similar to the cement process (CaCO3 -> CaO) is possible because limestone is cheap. The problem is the energy requirements are insane. One of the estimations in the talk that remediates only 10% of our yearly CO2 emissions requires 700 TWh (2.52E18 J). Unless we start building \several hundred new GW-scale nuclear[1] power plants (and started a decade ago), I doubt we will be able to do much to address ocean acidification. [1] I know solar has improved a lot recently. Unless it's possible to generate >1TW of continuous power (24x7), nuclear is probably the only option.
- dTal 10y ago
  If we have massive amounts of clean power a lot of the problem goes away anyway. It's not worth taking any proposal that uses vast amounts of electricity seriously, since it's the generation of vast amounts of electricity that causes the problem in the first place.

by graeme 10y ago

How well would geoengineering work, considering the acididation of the oceans? I haven't seen any proposals to handle that, yet it seems like a fairly major consequence all on its own.

nickparker 10y ago

The oceans are really, really, unbelievably massive. A molecule of water at the bottom of the Pacific takes a few thousand years to ride the currents from one side to the other and then the coastal upwelling to the surface. We're only really acidifying the very top layer, unfortunately that's where a huge fraction of the stuff that matters is. Artificial upwelling is a somewhat promising geo-engineering tech to reduce acidification and increase primary production (and thereby carbon capture). The idea is to somehow bring deep sea water up to the surface. Early attempts used long tubes with one way valves that were lifted up and down by wave energy. New more promising techniques use wave energy to compress air, pump the air down deep and then bubble it (and the surrounding water) up from a grid of pipes.

pdkl95 10y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ#t=567 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ#t=567 This is the only proposal I've seen regarding ocean acidification. In brief, we need massive amounts of lime to dump into the ocean as an artificial carbon cycle. The problem is how to get lime? If we have massive amounts of clean power, something similar to the cement process (CaCO3 -> CaO) is possible because limestone is cheap. The problem is the energy requirements are insane. One of the estimations in the talk that remediates only 10% of our yearly CO2 emissions requires 700 TWh (2.52E18 J). Unless we start building \several hundred new GW-scale nuclear[1] power plants (and started a decade ago), I doubt we will be able to do much to address ocean acidification. [1] I know solar has improved a lot recently. Unless it's possible to generate >1TW of continuous power (24x7), nuclear is probably the only option.

dTal 10y ago
If we have massive amounts of clean power a lot of the problem goes away anyway. It's not worth taking any proposal that uses vast amounts of electricity seriously, since it's the generation of vast amounts of electricity that causes the problem in the first place.