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Capturing CO2 and then what...burying it deep underground? If you're keeping it above ground, it's just going to biodegrade into carbon again real quick. I don
by orthecreedence 4y ago
Capturing CO2 and then what...burying it deep underground?
If you're keeping it above ground, it's just going to biodegrade into carbon again real quick. I don't get why people think this is a thing. The only exception is lumber, because if you keep it dry it can last 100+ years (which is a fairly decent sequestration target given our current timelines).
If you're going from capture to release in 5-10 years, I don't see the point.
- fredrikholm 4y agoWhile this group appears to want to use the seaweed as a commodity, often the point of seaweed CO2 capture is to let it sink to the bottom of the ocean, where for a number of reasons (pressure, temperature, lack of sunlight) degradation takes a very long time. Don't remember the article(s), but a problem was guaranteeing that it actually reached the bottom, which it didn't always do (thus making it difficult to calculate exact numbers to compare with costs).
- eric-hu 4y agoDo you recall why the seaweed wouldn't reach the bottom? Is it just ocean currents + high surface area to volume ratio of seaweed?
- AstixAndBelix 4y agoCan't wait to capture all the CO2 and bury it underground so it becomes oil again in millions of years and our descendants can too enjoy the wonders of petrol combustion all over again!
- teraflop 4y agoI guess you're being sarcastic, but postponing the worst effects of climate change from "now" to "millions of years from now" would be an enormous win.
- DennisP 4y agoAnd with any luck, our descendants millions of years from now will be running on fusion power, throughout our solar system and around a bunch of nearby stars.
- orthecreedence 4y agoYou're joking, but we may be the second or third iteration of intelligent species that has gone through this already on Earth. Geological timescales are so large that any evidence of these species would have come and gone in what is effectively the blink of an eye. Maybe trilobytes drove F350 Superduties.
- DennisP 4y agoWe do have solid evidence of a natural nuclear reactor a billion years ago, so probably the trilobites didn't achieve nuclear power.
- countvonbalzac 4y agoWhat are you talking about? What natural nuclear reactor?
- cobbal 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
- Logans_Run 4y agoWhy not use it as fertilizer? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaweed_fertiliser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaweed_fertiliser Given the area of the trials (North Sea) I would be hesitant to eat it but on plants in place of oil based sources? Would that work / be safe?
- di456 4y agoIs the salt content low enough? Too much salt can make soil infertile.
- ggm 4y agoScottish farmers fertilised their fields with seaweed and fishguts for centuries. Burnt seaweed ash was also used I believe, a by product of chemical extraction (seaweed and rhubarb were functionally "industrial" plants, use as food followed on. Plants like madder were for dye, rushes and flax for their obvious uses in construction and fabric)
- johndunne 4y agoThe project is to test the feasibility of using seaweed to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. If we use the seaweed to, for example, create biodegradable plastic, then over time that plastic may release the captured carbon back into the atmosphere. But if the time is, let’s say, 10 years, that’s 10 years carbon is locked out of the atmosphere. Additionally, the plastics created this way may be replacing plastic that has a net contribution of carbon to the atmosphere in its production. And on the scale humanity uses plastics, adjusting our behaviour this way, could mean a significant amount of carbon being locked out of the atmosphere continuously as more of this seaweed plastic is used.
- orthecreedence 4y ago> And on the scale humanity uses plastics, adjusting our behaviour this way, could mean a significant amount of carbon being locked out of the atmosphere continuously as more of this seaweed plastic is used. Ok, that makes sense. I guess I was forgetting the scale that this could be operated over. If this truly does replace plastics continuously then I suppose that would be a huge temporary win for sequestration.
- jvanderbot 4y agoThis may also operate like old growth forest, in that it will cause an ecosystem to spring up that will capture a big amount of carbon just to build itself, then will essentially be sequestered until someone cuts it down and burns it. Or we make coal or something from the seaweed and have closed cycle fuels. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210302094053.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210302094053.h...
- chaps 4y agoSeaweed put into cattle feed also significantly reduces methane release!
- toiletfuneral 4y ago[dead]
- kulahan 4y agoColorado is experimenting with burning this stuff to create electricity and "biochar", which they then want to bury in defunct-but-uncapped oil wells, keeping it out of the air for potentially thousands of years. We could grow all this, then burn it, then bury the pollution. Also, it can be used for animal feed. A small amount of seaweed added to a cow's diet massively reduces the amount of methane they sell. Lots of options here, and it would be a waste of money to just... not use the seaweed for anything
- nwiswell 4y ago> A small amount of seaweed added to a cow's diet massively reduces the amount of methane they sell. Beggar thy heifer!
- pomian 4y agoThe biochar can be very useful to add to farm land, prairie soil that has become more basic (saltier) especially due to lower water tables. Shipping spreading costs a factor.
- rtev 4y agoThis is all just a scam run by Big Cow to get some tasty Asian flavors in the trough.
- wyre 4y agoYep. I remember doing the math when this info first came out years ago and seaweed production would have to scale astronomically to add an appropriate amount to reduce all cattle feed. Granted, any reduction is good, but talking like seaweed is the pariah that will make cattle farming environmentally sound wont happen.
- schrodinger 4y agoI think you may have meant “panacea.” “Pariah” means an outcast, like an embarrassing family member.
- 4y ago
- myshpa 4y agoWe could also eat the stuff. > https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/seaweed-healthy-nutritious https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/seaweed-healthy-nutriti... Generally, 1 cup (15 grams) of seaweed provides you with: Calories: 45 Protein: 5 grams Fat: 1 gram Carbs: 8 grams Fiber: 1 gram Folate: 13% of the daily value (DV) Riboflavin: 22% of the DV Thiamin: 15% of the DV Copper: 56% of the DV Iron: 21% of the DV Magnesium: 17% of the DV ... seaweed is a great plant source of vitamin B12, a vitamin naturally found in meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy. ... seaweed is a rich source of antioxidants
- orthecreedence 4y agoRight, and that's fantastic, but that's not sequestering carbon. That's growing food.
- ggm 4y agoDisplacement is useful, albeit mischaracterized.
- notatoad 4y agoyes it is. but the point isn't to sequester carbon for no reason, it's to reduce overall atmospheric CO2. and if you can replace more carbon-intensive food production with seaweed farming, that's a win. also, regardless of how quickly it grows and is harvested any sort of farming does sequester carbon for as long as those crops are still crops, and seaweed can (afaik) grow year-round, permanently replenishing itself. if the total biomass in your seaweed farm stays relatively stable at 10T, that's ~10T of carbon removed from the atmosphere for as long as that farm exists. the fact that some of it is getting harvested is irrelevant as long as more keeps growing.
- soperj 4y agoAt least with Bull kelp, it doesn't go year round.
- Semaphor 4y ago
- aaron695 4y ago[dead]
- gonzo41 4y agoIF you increase the carbon biomass, you can offset humanity. We have cleared a lot of land to graze cattle. Restoring forest both above and below water will have a positive impact.
- fwlr 4y agoI don’t understand your objection. You have X million tons of carbon sequestered in Y million cubic feet of substrate. If the substrate is seaweed instead of lumber, you lose Y/5 from Y each year, instead of losing Y/100 from Y each year. That just means you need to produce Y/5 cubic feet per year instead of Y/100 cubic feet per year. It doesn’t affect X. Is it easier to produce Y/5 cubic feet of seaweed than Y/100 cubic feet of lumber? The whole point of this project is to find out.
- thfuran 4y agoIt's objectively better to build a few mountains out of diamond. We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
- klooney 4y agoYou'd love Charm- https://charmindustrial.com/ https://charmindustrial.com/ that's exactly what they're doing. Using green crude, basically.