5 ms·

What are you doing to facilitate methane removal?

• davzie 5y ago
  Eating less beans.
• gumby 5y ago
  Methane is broken down primarily by hydroxyl reactions, but over the ocean it's also broken down by chlorine reactions from salt spray. (both of these reactions are powered by uv from sunlight). The ocean process is catalyzed by certain compounds in the air. We are working on accelerating this process by putting more catalyst into air above the deep ocean. Right now we're engaged in scaling the process up from the lab and fundraising. The company is bluedotchange.com though there isn't a huge amount on our web site yet -- we haven't prioritized having a marketing department yet.
  • rmdashrfstar 5y ago
    Is there a specific height that the catalyst should be released at? Any unintended side effects from increased concentration of the catalyst?
    • gumby 5y ago
      It appears no but we’re doing environmental studies to confirm. It feels like a lot of emission but it’s actually pretty small compared to the scale of the ocean and what people are pumping out in It will only be ~10 m above the deck. Most of the CH4 is in the troposphere (the part we breathe); very little at higher altitudes. There’s a short paragraph on the chemistry in the current Wired article on methane and Rob Jackson of Stanford. The author spoke with de Richter, one of the scientists who came up with this approach.