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At first I read this and was like "okay, you want to dump 30 Gigatons of Olivine per year for 'a number of years' on tropical beaches" That sounds crazy, consi
by 24gttghh 7y ago
At first I read this and was like "okay, you want to dump 30 Gigatons of Olivine per year for 'a number of years' on tropical beaches"
That sounds crazy, considering we pump out +10Gigatons of CO2 per year as it is. But, does the science actually make sense in that if we actually did that, we'd end up with less CO2 in the atmosphere, and subsequently the oceans? That would seem to make this a great tool (possibly among many) to clean up our mess once/if/when we stop putting so much CO2 out there in the first place.
Edit: I do wonder if this process would raise the alkalinity of the ocean too much in the other direction. I can't find the info on this on their site, there is so much to read!
- Taniwha 7y agoAt the moment the oceans are being acidified by dissolving more CO2 in them - I assume that if you dump enough olivine into them to negate that (or rather return them to preindustrialization ph) then long term you'll also soak up about the right amount of CO2
- 24gttghh 7y agoWhat I mean is, let's say this process is able to sequester sufficient CO2 in the form of bicarbonate to lower us to a conservative 300ppm CO2. At what point, if any, would we be turning the ph of the ocean to be too alkaline?
- Taniwha 7y agoWell part of this process is supposed to precipitate out the carbon in forms that can eventually be subducted (as the current natural carbon cycle does). I assume that the rate at which the carbon is sequestered by this method is also driven by the level of ocean acidity, as more CO2 is pulled out of the ocean the acidity will drop and so will the reaction rate will also drop ... this means that there's a natural negative feedback here - whether it's enough to "do the right thing" is probably still a question for science