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This is the cost of cleaning the Pacific Ocean's great garbage patch[a] with System 03[b], a cleaning process designed, deployed and operated by the OP's organi

by cs702 2y ago

This is the cost of cleaning the Pacific Ocean's great garbage patch[a] with System 03[b], a cleaning process designed, deployed and operated by the OP's organization for removing garbage from the ocean and recycling much of it (e.g., non-biodegradable plastics) into new products. Even if the cost estimate of $7.5B is off by a factor of 2x or 3x, deploying this technology to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch looks like a no-brainer to me. The long-term financial benefits for the world could be multiple orders of magnitude larger. --- [a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch [b] https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/system-03-a-beginners-guide/ https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/system-03-a-beginners-gu...

petesergeant 2y ago
> The long-term financial benefits for the world could be multiple orders of magnitude larger. I mean I think we should do it for the sake of it, but, I’m keen to know where you think we get financial benefits.
concordDance 2y ago
> The long-term financial benefits for the world could be multiple orders of magnitude larger. I'm curious how you came to this conclusion. What are the economic benefits and how are they linked to this patch in the middle of the Pacific?
- hobofan 2y ago
  Its hard to put concrete numbers to it, but there are many ways you can generally draw connections from "intact wildlife ecosystems" to economic benefits on n-th order effects. E.g. - Less plastic in the ocean -> less microplastics in fish -> healthier people -> less cost due to sickness, and a more productive population - Less fishing net debris in the ocean -> less species of turtles going extinct -> more tourism for turtle watching (IDK if that's a thing) On some fronts with wildlife conservation you can also draw a more direct line. E.g. vulture conservation essentially pays for itself, as vultures do carcass cleanup of diseased animals for free (preventing the spread of the disease through the ecosystem, eventually reaching humans), where the equivalent cleanup would be quite expensive. My guess with ocean conservation is that the "direct economic benefit" is mostly in the realm of fish as food resource.
  - concordDance 2y ago
    You're conflating "plastic in the ocean" with "plastic in the Pacific garbage patch". The plastic tends to accumulate far from land (or so the model animations I've seen indicate). And most of the fish and other wildlife are near land. Indeed, overlaying models of where the plastic is with a fishing heat map (e.g. globalfishingwatch.org) shows very little overlap between fishing areas and garbage areas.
    - hobofan 2y ago
      I'm not sure what you are seeing when you are overlaying those maps, but I am seeing a clear overlap between the western extent of the pacific garbage patch, and fishing activity. Besides that, you are conflating "where fish are fished" with "where fish live/grow up". Many fished species (and/or their prey) heavily migrate, and when migrating take advantage of the same ocean currents that lead to formation of the garbage patch, and are thus in close proximity. Of course the majority of fishing activity will be close to land, as that's more economical, but that doesn't mean that the fish fished there have only grown up their and/or not been exposed through to plastic via their food chain.
Zababa 2y ago
I really like their approach: > Why is System 03 so much bigger than System 002? > Size matters because cleaning the ocean becomes cheaper and more efficient with bigger systems. By making System 03 so much bigger than our previous efforts (alongside the multiple upgrades we’ve implemented) we can cover a much larger area of ocean in less time and using fewer resources – driving down our cost per kilogram of plastic removed and maximizing our benefit on the marine environment. System 002 proved our technology and demonstrated that cleaning the GPGP is feasible; System 03 aims to prove that it is also economically viable. Scaling up to this size is an essential step towards meeting that objective. It's refreshing to see this vocabulary/way of talking used on an environmentalist website.
nonrandomstring 2y ago
> Long term financial benefits These are unknowable at these scales and levels of complexity. Such lack of imagination shouldn't be an obstacle to starting anyway. Some things are self-evidently "gonna be great". I am fascinated by the era of National Projects, like Apollo and the Hoover (Boulder) dam. What we need in this world right now (other than love sweet love) is a massive feel-good project. 7bn is piffling small change in the context of projects like Apollo (the US Moon landings). What we now understand about the "space race" in its cold-war context is that it was more about pride, signalling achievement and willpower than any actual strategic significance. Stuff you do "because you can". William James penned "The Moral Equivalent of War" (which president Carter riffed on) in an era when there was so much less cynicism, disaffection, resignation and apathy, and when grand projects were something people got excited about, and got behind instead of shrugging "who will pay for it?" Instead of seeing this as a chore, and arguing about whose garbage it is, a smart political leader would see an opportunity. America (or whatever coalition gets there first) might re-invent herself as the "responsible citizen" of the Earth. There are good, and unexpected things that happen to wealth when stepping up and becoming the "moral leader".

by cs702 2y ago

petesergeant 2y ago

> The long-term financial benefits for the world could be multiple orders of magnitude larger. I mean I think we should do it for the sake of it, but, I’m keen to know where you think we get financial benefits.

concordDance 2y ago

> The long-term financial benefits for the world could be multiple orders of magnitude larger. I'm curious how you came to this conclusion. What are the economic benefits and how are they linked to this patch in the middle of the Pacific?

hobofan 2y ago
Its hard to put concrete numbers to it, but there are many ways you can generally draw connections from "intact wildlife ecosystems" to economic benefits on n-th order effects. E.g. - Less plastic in the ocean -> less microplastics in fish -> healthier people -> less cost due to sickness, and a more productive population - Less fishing net debris in the ocean -> less species of turtles going extinct -> more tourism for turtle watching (IDK if that's a thing) On some fronts with wildlife conservation you can also draw a more direct line. E.g. vulture conservation essentially pays for itself, as vultures do carcass cleanup of diseased animals for free (preventing the spread of the disease through the ecosystem, eventually reaching humans), where the equivalent cleanup would be quite expensive. My guess with ocean conservation is that the "direct economic benefit" is mostly in the realm of fish as food resource.
- concordDance 2y ago
  You're conflating "plastic in the ocean" with "plastic in the Pacific garbage patch". The plastic tends to accumulate far from land (or so the model animations I've seen indicate). And most of the fish and other wildlife are near land. Indeed, overlaying models of where the plastic is with a fishing heat map (e.g. globalfishingwatch.org) shows very little overlap between fishing areas and garbage areas.
  - hobofan 2y ago
    I'm not sure what you are seeing when you are overlaying those maps, but I am seeing a clear overlap between the western extent of the pacific garbage patch, and fishing activity. Besides that, you are conflating "where fish are fished" with "where fish live/grow up". Many fished species (and/or their prey) heavily migrate, and when migrating take advantage of the same ocean currents that lead to formation of the garbage patch, and are thus in close proximity. Of course the majority of fishing activity will be close to land, as that's more economical, but that doesn't mean that the fish fished there have only grown up their and/or not been exposed through to plastic via their food chain.

Zababa 2y ago

I really like their approach: > Why is System 03 so much bigger than System 002? > Size matters because cleaning the ocean becomes cheaper and more efficient with bigger systems. By making System 03 so much bigger than our previous efforts (alongside the multiple upgrades we’ve implemented) we can cover a much larger area of ocean in less time and using fewer resources – driving down our cost per kilogram of plastic removed and maximizing our benefit on the marine environment. System 002 proved our technology and demonstrated that cleaning the GPGP is feasible; System 03 aims to prove that it is also economically viable. Scaling up to this size is an essential step towards meeting that objective. It's refreshing to see this vocabulary/way of talking used on an environmentalist website.

nonrandomstring 2y ago

> Long term financial benefits These are unknowable at these scales and levels of complexity. Such lack of imagination shouldn't be an obstacle to starting anyway. Some things are self-evidently "gonna be great". I am fascinated by the era of National Projects, like Apollo and the Hoover (Boulder) dam. What we need in this world right now (other than love sweet love) is a massive feel-good project. 7bn is piffling small change in the context of projects like Apollo (the US Moon landings). What we now understand about the "space race" in its cold-war context is that it was more about pride, signalling achievement and willpower than any actual strategic significance. Stuff you do "because you can". William James penned "The Moral Equivalent of War" (which president Carter riffed on) in an era when there was so much less cynicism, disaffection, resignation and apathy, and when grand projects were something people got excited about, and got behind instead of shrugging "who will pay for it?" Instead of seeing this as a chore, and arguing about whose garbage it is, a smart political leader would see an opportunity. America (or whatever coalition gets there first) might re-invent herself as the "responsible citizen" of the Earth. There are good, and unexpected things that happen to wealth when stepping up and becoming the "moral leader".