4 ms·

I'm curious to hear what people here think of Project Vesta? https://www.projectvesta.org/ https://www.projectvesta.org/ (No affiliation, just intrigued by wha

I'm curious to hear what people here think of Project Vesta? https://www.projectvesta.org/ https://www.projectvesta.org/ (No affiliation, just intrigued by what they're promising)

burgessaccount 5y ago
I’m very excited about them as a possibility (I think there’s another thread about them on HN?) but so much is unproven. We have no idea how much carbon the sand will absorb, or how fast, or how much it might mess with oceans along the way (it could be a positive because it would help fix ocean acidification, but it is a major mineral and ph modification to a complex system). No solution is as good as emissions reductions
kisamoto 5y ago
Olivine has great potential (although it takes a while - up to 1000 years - to reach maximum sequestration). Project vesta tries to use the sea and waves to accelerate this process. It's a bit of an unproven experiment however it definitely has potential and needs supporting to prove the hypothesis and improve the method.
tito 5y ago
We need 1000 shots on goal to get to gigaton scale carbon removal. Project Vesta builds on decades of academic research in olivine weathering that was itching for field trials and scale up. 999 more shots like this and we'll get there.
floppiplopp 5y ago
It's one of the best options we know that could work. Basically grind up readily available basalt with technology we already have at scale and dump it into the oceans and onto agricultural soils - which is quite beneficial for soil structure, too. But I'm afraid it's not going to be sexy enough for technocratic phantasies and it cannot be monetized through some kind of futuristic looking devices.
tt23523 5y ago
most of the plans to sequester carbon in the ocean make me worry about how that would impact the broader ecosystem. As I understand it, it would change the chemistry of the ocean, which might trade one disaster for another. Not to mention ideally sequestration would last for millennia.
- thechao 5y ago
  We’re already sequestering a quarter of the CO2 in the ocean; this will do so in a safer way that mimics the large scale natural process that’d happen over the next few millennia anyways.
  - tt23523 5y ago
    well scaling a natural process will change the chemistry of the ocean. Since the ocean is such a huge component of our planetary system it would be foolish of us to approach it without monitoring and planning for the consequences of this scale of engineering. i've found https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.energy.27.122001.083433 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.energy... to be a pretty good overview.
robbomacrae 5y ago
I love this project. But I worry they are going to have trouble getting permission to scale this up. I read that the amount of kg of Carbon sequestered per kg of Olivine put down is roughly 1:1. Let's say the average American has an annual carbon footprint of 16 tonnes. Maybe we can aim to reduce that to 10 with lifestyle changes such as cutting out most meat and driving electric. That is still 10 tons of Olivine each American is effectively going to have to put on a beach somewhere per year to be carbon neutral. I'm personally totally OK with turning all our beaches green if they can show it doesn't damage ecosystems but I can guarantee you there will be a lot of NIMBYism pushing back against this. Don't get me wrong it's possibly a great weapon against clime change and we are going to need every single one.

I'm curious to hear what people here think of Project Vesta? https://www.projectvesta.org/ https://www.projectvesta.org/ (No affiliation, just intrigued by what they're promising)

burgessaccount 5y ago

I’m very excited about them as a possibility (I think there’s another thread about them on HN?) but so much is unproven. We have no idea how much carbon the sand will absorb, or how fast, or how much it might mess with oceans along the way (it could be a positive because it would help fix ocean acidification, but it is a major mineral and ph modification to a complex system). No solution is as good as emissions reductions

kisamoto 5y ago

Olivine has great potential (although it takes a while - up to 1000 years - to reach maximum sequestration). Project vesta tries to use the sea and waves to accelerate this process. It's a bit of an unproven experiment however it definitely has potential and needs supporting to prove the hypothesis and improve the method.

tito 5y ago

We need 1000 shots on goal to get to gigaton scale carbon removal. Project Vesta builds on decades of academic research in olivine weathering that was itching for field trials and scale up. 999 more shots like this and we'll get there.

floppiplopp 5y ago

It's one of the best options we know that could work. Basically grind up readily available basalt with technology we already have at scale and dump it into the oceans and onto agricultural soils - which is quite beneficial for soil structure, too. But I'm afraid it's not going to be sexy enough for technocratic phantasies and it cannot be monetized through some kind of futuristic looking devices.

tt23523 5y ago

most of the plans to sequester carbon in the ocean make me worry about how that would impact the broader ecosystem. As I understand it, it would change the chemistry of the ocean, which might trade one disaster for another. Not to mention ideally sequestration would last for millennia.

thechao 5y ago
We’re already sequestering a quarter of the CO2 in the ocean; this will do so in a safer way that mimics the large scale natural process that’d happen over the next few millennia anyways.
- tt23523 5y ago
  well scaling a natural process will change the chemistry of the ocean. Since the ocean is such a huge component of our planetary system it would be foolish of us to approach it without monitoring and planning for the consequences of this scale of engineering. i've found https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.energy.27.122001.083433 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.energy... to be a pretty good overview.

robbomacrae 5y ago

I love this project. But I worry they are going to have trouble getting permission to scale this up. I read that the amount of kg of Carbon sequestered per kg of Olivine put down is roughly 1:1. Let's say the average American has an annual carbon footprint of 16 tonnes. Maybe we can aim to reduce that to 10 with lifestyle changes such as cutting out most meat and driving electric. That is still 10 tons of Olivine each American is effectively going to have to put on a beach somewhere per year to be carbon neutral. I'm personally totally OK with turning all our beaches green if they can show it doesn't damage ecosystems but I can guarantee you there will be a lot of NIMBYism pushing back against this. Don't get me wrong it's possibly a great weapon against clime change and we are going to need every single one.