Today is Monday, April 8 2024.
Giving sequence to last Friday’s post, today we will go over olivine’s role in an ocean-based carbon removal method being tested in United States.
Olivine - (Mg, Fe)₂SiO₄ - also dissolves in water, increasing CO2 uptake, increasing pH, and leading to alkalinity. As such, this process has the potential to counterbalance ocean acidification, with increasing atmospheric CO2 dissolving in seawater.
Here is how the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sees the ocean-based climate mitigation techniques:
Marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) is an ocean-based process or technique designed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it for long periods of time in the ocean. Examples of mCDR techniques include adding alkaline materials to the ocean to increase the amount of carbon stored in ocean waters; adding iron or other nutrients to ocean waters to increase phytoplankton growth and export of carbon to the deep ocean; and sinking organic materials, such as kelp or crop residue, into the deep ocean.
Marine solar radiation management (mSRM) is an ocean-based process or technique designed to limit the warming of Earth's surface. mSRM does not remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Proposed mSRM techniques involve adding materials to ocean waters, sea ice or the lower atmosphere to increase the amount of solar radiation (e.g., heat) reflected from the ocean's surface to limit surface warming or sea ice melt.
A few days ago, the company Vesta became the first mCDR project in the United States to receive an official EPA permit and US Army authorisation for a larger costal carbon capture project, involving 9,000t of olivine to be deployed in North Carolina.
There is also reference to another Vesta test site at the Dominican Republic, North Coast of the Puerto Plata area.
Click here to see how all this works. At the Vesta portal, the Science section brings a few other studies of interest. And here you have the 194 pages “Vesta Annual Monitoring Report Period June 2022 - January 2023. Coastal Carbon Capture at North Sea Beach”.
And while these tests start without a regulated legal framework in place - about intentionally altering ocean chemistry - a group of 400+ world scientists are calling for accelerating research to see if indeed ocean-based carbon removal methods are viable.
All in all, scientists and engineers taking up natural processes with more modern eyes.
