Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches • Hacker News Board

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#31

Post by matznerd » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

rwallace wrote: post #29

Interesting! I didn't know olivine was that plentiful. There is said to be a problem with shortage of construction sand leading to beaches being stripped for sand. So this would solve a secondary problem at the same time.

Yes, olivine is highly abundant, but due to lack of demand, most of it is currently staying underground. We seek to change that.

We are looking for synergies like that, such as covering eroding beaches, breakwaters, etc with olivine.

If you are interested in sand in construction and otherwise, I highly suggest you check out the book The World in a Grain.

The importance of sand in our everyday life blew my mind. I mean the device you are using right now to access this website, has a processor made out of silicon sand, the screen is made of quartz sand. The building you are in is likely made of aggregate sand, and the road to get to your house etc. But also, don't forget that sand was used to make the lenses for reading that made possible for our older academics, extra decades of research and enabled us to carry out astronomy and to create microscopes...

Sand has shaped the world in such a massive way, and we are hoping it can save us from our CO2 problems as well.

https://smile.amazon.com/World-Grain-Story-Transformed-Civil...

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#32

Post by NeedMoreTea » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

loons2 wrote: post #24

QuickToBan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What could possibly go wrong? Nothing. It already happens in nature, but at a far smaller scale. It is not a self-renewing or runaway process. The point is to distribute the correct amount of olivine to stabilize CO2 at ~200 PPM which is close to its pre-industrial level.

> It already happens in nature 4000 ppm CO2 was found in nature far before pre-industry came along. Does the fact that anything "happened in nature" make it "ideal?" What is the globally "ideal" level of CO2 anyway? Certainly 200ppm is an order of magnitude low when considering the ideal for plants.

4,000 ppm was a period far before humans or advanced primates, and very different flora.

200ppm is around the level humanity, and much of the flora we share the planet with, evolved. It's the level we started to develop from, to farm.

Nature and the planet has no ideal, it copes with whatever there is. Humanity on the other hand would appear best served by the level we evolved with - 200ppm or thereabouts. 400ppm causes problems for us, 4,000ppm would almost certainly be the end of us or as near as makes no odds.

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#33

Post by 6d6b73 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #23

6d6b73 wrote: post #19

"The Last 3 Ice Ages Were Caused By Volcanic Rock Weathering Near the Equator [...] Project Vesta seeks to mimic this natural process but to greatly accelerate it because we do not have millions of years to wait." I'm afraid that too many these proposed geoengineering projects will actually take place, and nobody will really know how much of the CO2 is removed from the atmosphere. If that happens we will end up with…

We have ways of measuring CO2 in the atmosphere in ppm. It's recorded daily. 30 billion tons of rock is needed per year. That's non trivial in logistics and cost. You think if it turns out to work too well they'll just keep going year on year until no CO2 is left, and not maybe slow down or stop instead?

I'm not talking about this one project, but multiple projects going on at the same time. And yes we can measure it daily but do we know what's the lag? If we remove 1mln tons of CO2 from the atmosphere today, will it show up in the results tomorrow? If not, do we know how that's going to affect the climate?

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#34

Post by pfdietz » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:06 PM UTC

Dissolving olivine on beaches means releasing nickel into the environment. What is the effect of the release of many megatons of this element?

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#35

Post by jeffdavis » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

Can this be targeted to areas with lots of erosion that may welcome a bunch of additional rock/sand as a barrier?

E.g. Florida, New Orleans?

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#36

Post by mattbk1 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #28

debt wrote: post #20

If you work backwards, climate change is a giant man-made disaster that literally can only be countered by a just-as-big man-made solution. Green sand on a beach is like, not as big as millions of cars on roads.

That's not logical. Just because a disaster was made by machines doesn't mean machines are the solution.

"Fewer machines" would be a great solution, which I think might have been the point?

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#37

Post by asauce » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

Hey, heads up to anyone associated with Project Vesta... currently your webshop shows an empty store[0].

Also, if executed right then this project could market itself. Travel "influencers" love to show off unique beaches and destinations, and uniquely coloured beaches are always a huge hit. By marketing these beaches appropriately it will generate a lot of attention and (hopefully) a lot of funding for the project.

Good luck! I'll definitely support the project once there are more items in the store.

[0] https://projectvesta.org/shop/

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#38

Post by nickparker » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:10 PM UTC

This is related to one of my 'scary emergency solutions' governments might adopt if they wake up to the emergency too late: Detonate nukes in shallow bore holes in silicate heavy regions and launch enormous quantities of the stuff into the atmosphere that way.

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#39

Post by 6d6b73 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #34

Dissolving olivine on beaches means releasing nickel into the environment. What is the effect of the release of many megatons of this element?

"massive application of olivine in agriculture may cause imbalances in plant nutrition, notably at low Ca availability, and will bring Ni into the food chain."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3415406/

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#40

Post by plopz » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

From the pictures it makes the beach look like its covered in algae or seaweed. I don't think people will be very receptive to the idea if it looks like that.