For Carbon-Capture Experiment, Researchers Dye Canada's Halifax Harbor Pink (ctvnews.ca) 40
The CBC reports that "Some parts of the Halifax harbour turned a bright shade of pink on Thursday — for science."
After researchers dumped in 500 litres of safe, water-soluble dye, "boats, drones and underwater robots were then deployed to map the movement of the dye, so researchers can understand where materials spread and how quickly they do so." The CTV calls it "part of long-term research project that could help reverse some of the world's greenhouse gas emissions" by Dalhousie University and the climate-solutions research organization Planetary Technologies: The move is the first step, says Katja Fennel, an oceanographer at Dalhousie, before researchers release alkaline material into the water this fall. That material will effectively act as an antacid for the ocean, helping to neutralize the additional acidic carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world's oceans. "The purpose is to actually induce the ocean to take up atmospheric CO2 — CO2 from the air — and help us reduce legacy carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere," Fennel told CTV News.
To track the uptake of carbon dioxide, researchers need to account for the movement of water. So "The ultimate goal here is to test an idea for a technology that would help us reduce atmospheric CO2," one oceanographer leading the research told the CBC, "and could be one tool in the toolbox for fighting climate change..."
They point out that the ocean holds 50 times as much CO2 as is in the atmosphere, and call the experiment "cutting edge...world-leading research... Ocean alkalinity enhancement has the greatest potential, actually, in terms of storing carbon permanently and safely at a scale that is relevant for global climate."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam for sharing the article.
After researchers dumped in 500 litres of safe, water-soluble dye, "boats, drones and underwater robots were then deployed to map the movement of the dye, so researchers can understand where materials spread and how quickly they do so." The CTV calls it "part of long-term research project that could help reverse some of the world's greenhouse gas emissions" by Dalhousie University and the climate-solutions research organization Planetary Technologies: The move is the first step, says Katja Fennel, an oceanographer at Dalhousie, before researchers release alkaline material into the water this fall. That material will effectively act as an antacid for the ocean, helping to neutralize the additional acidic carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world's oceans. "The purpose is to actually induce the ocean to take up atmospheric CO2 — CO2 from the air — and help us reduce legacy carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere," Fennel told CTV News.
To track the uptake of carbon dioxide, researchers need to account for the movement of water. So "The ultimate goal here is to test an idea for a technology that would help us reduce atmospheric CO2," one oceanographer leading the research told the CBC, "and could be one tool in the toolbox for fighting climate change..."
They point out that the ocean holds 50 times as much CO2 as is in the atmosphere, and call the experiment "cutting edge...world-leading research... Ocean alkalinity enhancement has the greatest potential, actually, in terms of storing carbon permanently and safely at a scale that is relevant for global climate."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam for sharing the article.
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Plants need CO2. But they were doing fine with 280 ppm.
Who is to say 280 ppm CO2 is in any way optimal for plant life?
I know this will get me labeled as some kind of "denier" but we don't know what the ideal global climate is or should be. The planet has been much warmer than now, with much higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
What is wrong with trying to go back to 280 ppm?
There's nothing wrong with that, I guess. Just don't claim this is for the benefit of anything but human civilization.
I'll see people get all upset about "the planet", how humans are screwing it up for all the cute fuzzy woodland
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People act like the world as we know it will cease to exist in just a few years if we don't take drastic action now. So they set unrealistic goals. Try crazy shit to meet the unrealistic g
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I kind of agree that 280 is somewhat random. It seems like things are not that bad today with it at 400 or whatever it is up to. But it is not stable. That is the problem. It continues to climb. I think the first step should be a solid plan to stabilize the number in a finite time frame (but one that is actually doable).
That number will stabilize all on its own, the higher the CO2 concentration the better plants will get in soaking it in. This likely has a saturation point but if that happens then it is not likely to be anything humans did. Where ever that stable point gets to there will be people still around to adapt, assuming the stable point doesn't asphyxiate us all.
People act like the world as we know it will cease to exist in just a few years if we don't take drastic action now. So they set unrealistic goals. Try crazy shit to meet the unrealistic goals, and deal with the fallout. It is exactly like working at a startup that has a ton of problems with their product but refuses to communicate to investors and the public that the ship date is slipping. The workers try their best, but you can't do good work in that kind of chaotic environment. You cut corners and fuck up. That is what we are doing now with carbon reduction. It is like being at a startup that is going down in flames.
It's the efforts that want to lower CO2 levels the fastest that will most likely fail. They will cost too much money, take too much materials, and get
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Plants need CO2. But they were doing fine with 280 ppm.
Who is to say 280 ppm CO2 is in any way optimal for plant life?
No one said that. Literally nobody.
What was said was that plants were "doing fine" with 280 ppm.
280 ppm is what's optimal for us. [mit.edu]
280 ppm CO2 is so arbitrary. We could have easily picked a number from any other period within human history. I don't fear small deviations from that, it's just that we won't know what is a "small deviation" until we hit a "large deviation".
Look around. Pay attention. We've hit it.
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Just your phrasing of the problem is so simplistic it's irretrievably broken: more CO2 is not better for "plants" as a category. If change the level of CO2, it will benefit some plant species *at the expense of others*. Equivalently it will harm some plant species to the benefits of others.
Yes, if CO2 goes up overall you'll get more plant biomass, but the speciation of that biomass will change to favor plants with high need for CO2 or high tolerance for high CO2 conditions. You'll get more poison ivy and s
Re: Fucking psychos (Score:2)
Was the earth much lusher when it was warmer, and did that vegetation become the oil that we burn now to return the earth to that happier, warmer time?
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look it up, NASA says the world has become greener in last 20 years. CO2, what plants crave.
It is idiotic to dump large amounts of alkali in any area of the ocean, that is poisonous to plankton and other ocean life same as acidification is.
The obvious solution is to pollute less, anything else is tampering with systems far too complex to model accurately.
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NASA says the world has become greener in last 20 years. CO2, what plants crave.
There's more forest extent, but less forest biomass, which is why there's less CO2 being fixed. Mature trees fix more carbon. Old growth is also more resistant to fire. We don't let trees grow up to full size any more, and we don't allow fires to come through and clear out the undergrowth, so what we get is fires that wipe out forests.
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Sad news for your tale of doom and woe, woody biomass has been increasing for last 20 years.
Carbon dioxide, what plants crave.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/pu... [usda.gov]
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I say the same thing when I hold someone's head under water for an hour.
People need water! These clowns will never learn.
Oblig... (Score:2)
Had to go pretty deep to find their process (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems like this is a commercial entity, but they uses an electrolyzer to purify rocks to create an antacid that they would then dump into the ocean, releasing hydrogen in the process (I'm assuming the oxygen stays in the water).
Basically they're burning oil to crush and electrolyze rocks, then they transport it with diesel trucks to the shore, where it gets loaded on boats running on bunker fuel, to them dump in the ocean which they hope will 'encourage' the water to become more soluble to carbon dioxide. Sounds like homeopathy to me.
The process they use seems to be the same one that is used in commercial hydrogen production. At this point, hydrogen production with this process is not at all carbon neutral, even if you capture the complete output and use it to replace carbon emissions (hydrogen production is never going to be a perpetuum mobile). These idiots want to dump their product in the ocean just so they can sell carbon credits in the next few years to 'investors'.
Re:Had to go pretty deep to find their process (Score:4, Insightful)
For the early stages, I would assume your comments regarding the carbon-friendliness are true... but this is the experimental stage.
In the long run, there's no reason the required mining, processing, transport, and delivery couldn't all be direct-electric ultimately powered by 'green' power generation.
With regard to your summary of the endeavour as 'homeopathy' I have to strongly disagree. It's actual science-based chemistry, and essentially they're looking to artificially accelerate a natural process.
What's missing in the science here is a model for what elevated CO2 levels do to marine environments even if you've resolved the acidity issue. Maybe it's obvious to a marine biologist, but I'm not one of those so it'd be helpful if they addressed the problem. After all, we know more CO2 in the atmosphere impairs cognition in humans - and presumably in pretty much all other animals to some degree.
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What's missing in the science here is a model for what elevated CO2 levels do to marine environments even if you've resolved the acidity issue.
Mu. If you resolve the acidity issue, then you don't have elevated CO2 levels, because the CO2 in the water reacts with the water to form acid.
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You obviously have no idea what you're talking about and have trouble with basic logic, so I'm just going to go ahead and not respond to your 'points'.
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Apparently you don't know what homeopathy is.
Re: Had to go pretty deep to find their process (Score:1)
Is this really just part of the gay agenda to pinkify the whole planet?
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I can agree this is a commercial entity behind this. What I see though is a commercial entity looking for a place to dump their mining tails and also claim some kind of carbon offset credit or something.
There's a number of minerals that are naturally alkaline with small deposits of rare earth elements, precious and semi-precious metals, and other elements with potential economic value. But part of that value is going to be offset by the costs of disposing of what is left over. If this left over material
Burying the lede (Score:3)
What is it they plan to learn exactly? (Score:5, Interesting)
This looks to me like some experiment where the people looking to carry it out decided to tie it to global warming in an effort to improve the chances of getting funding and approval. Had this been announced as an experiment on the propagation of an oil spill, as one example, then it would likely go nowhere.
I'm quite suspect of anything that claims to be helpful in fighting global warming. Most every case turns out to be some kind of scam.
If people really want to see CO2 emissions be reduced then there's plenty of papers written by actual experts in the field on how to make that happen. We could start by doing what is advised in these papers. Once on the path they laid out, efforts well known and a kind of "low hanging fruit", then we could start looking for ways to improve on their advice.
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If people really want to see CO2 emissions be reduced then there's plenty of papers written by actual experts in the field on how to make that happen. We could start by doing what is advised in these papers. Once on the path they laid out, efforts well known and a kind of "low hanging fruit", then we could start looking for ways to improve on their advice.
Well, if it were "low-hanging fruit", it would have already been done.
Real world solutions ave to be economically and politically acceptable too. Not just wish fulfillment.
Why do I have this bad feeling..... (Score:2)
Re: Why do I have this bad feeling..... (Score:2)
Being a good judge of human character, can I say that that is why I don't like any of them?
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Worse for whom? The consultants? The carbon capture scheme venture capitalist?
There are piles of money to be made here.
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Normally we trade a simple brutal problem for a less brutal but complicated to deal with one.
For example, we mostly traded hunger, diseases and environment exposure for global warming.
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HTH.HAND.
Pink? (Score:2)
Was this sponsored by Pepto-Bismol?
Has anyone asked the fish about this? (Score:3)
Not so much the pink water - presumably even fish have been hit by the saturation Barbenheimer publicity - but dumping loads of alkali in their environment. It's not like we don't dump enough trash in the oceans...
What surprises me ... (Score:2)
... or is notable to me, anyway, is how offended some people would be if there were some cool technological solutions.
I mean, where's the pain in that? The penance? The comeuppance? The divine punishment????
Ocean as "garbage disposal" for CO2 (Score:2)
Sure, why not? The ocean is infinitely able to absorb whatever we toss in it. This has been proven over and over in the same way that there are infinite fish to take out of it.
Bottom line: if you make people scared enough you can convince them to do anything and profit from it. The fear-mongering on climate change is a double-edged sword.
It's yet another marketing ploy (Score:2)
For the Barbie movie.
AI (Score:2)
Surely, they must be using AI. No?
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The entire plan was devised by ChatGPT, when they asked it to create a fifth-grade science fair project.