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Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

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

#101

Post by tom_mellior »

numakerg wrote: post #18

I didn't see the cost breakdown [1] mention how much they expect to pay countries for dumping olivine in their beaches/waters. Would a country, especially those near the equator, willingly agree to take part in an experiment like this for free? The referenced papers have explained how the project is safe, but I don't think communities or their representatives will see it that way. 1. https://projectvesta.org/#phaseIV

Many tropical countries already buy sand to replenish their beaches which are carried away by currents. Would a country accept sand for free instead of paying for it, especially in a color and with an environmental impact that would make the beach a popular tourist attraction? I don't see why not.

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

#102

Post by notatoad »

pier25 wrote: post #55

Even if this is actually feasible and does not have negative environmental impacts, I don't see countries implementing it on their beaches where a lot of tourism is located. For example in Mexico Riviera Maya, Cancún, Holbox, etc, the main selling point are the white beaches and turquoise sea.

I didn't read the whole site in detail so maybe i missed it, but does this plan require replacing white sand beaches with green sand, or would it also work to dump green sand on rocky beaches? I don't see too many countries objecting to more sandy beaches.

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

#103

Post by QuickToBan »

pier25 wrote: post #55

Even if this is actually feasible and does not have negative environmental impacts, I don't see countries implementing it on their beaches where a lot of tourism is located. For example in Mexico Riviera Maya, Cancún, Holbox, etc, the main selling point are the white beaches and turquoise sea.

It might whiten after the CO2 has reacted with it.

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

#104

Post by tom_mellior »

Accujack wrote: post #30
groby_b wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you didn't read the paper, or really anything on this. But, to make it easy for you: * 1 ton of Olivine will absorb 1.25 tons of CO2[1] * Transportation cost is 161.8 grams of CO2 per ton mile[2] * They are looking at mines within a 300km[1] (or ~190 miles) radius. That's a maximum transportation cost of ~31kg CO2. That's a rounding error. * Mining cost for a ton of Olivine is ~$30/ton right now. Let's…

Mines or potential mining sites for extracting Olivine on this scale don't exist within short distances of these tropical beaches. Many of the beaches are on islands which are essentially coral heads above the water. Digging down to any deposits of other rock are going to require either significant effort in terms of dewatering, caissons, and equipment or else mining underwater. This is a good idea that's probably no…

> Many of the beaches are on islands which are essentially coral heads above the water.

Afaik most Caribbean islands are of volcanic origin. Barbados is a notable exception, it's a coral island.

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

#105

Post by kragen »

matznerd wrote: post #31
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 mea…

a processor made out of silicon sand, the screen is made of quartz sand

The processor is made from silicon, plus trace amounts of aluminum, glass, and other materials. Silicon is smelted from silica, which is silicon dioxide; same difference as hydrogen gas and water, iron and rust, or aluminum and ruby. The common crystalline form of silica is quartz, which is the most common sand (precisely because olivine sand weathers). Most glass, including the glass used in lenses today, is a non-crystalline blend of typically about 80% silica with other materials, largely to lower its Tg. Other sands (notably garnet and aluminum oxide) are important in optics as abrasives. I hope this clears up some of the confusions you are expressing.

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

#106

Post by matznerd »

jsky_goog wrote: post #83

The wording of "less than half the volume of construction materials" mined each year seems hand wavy as a justification that this is possible. If I'm reading the chart right that would suggest we'd need a roughly 25% increase in the amount of global mineral extraction.

That is not meant to be "hand wavy," as there is no "hand-wavy" way to gloss over the fact that humans are putting out massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. It is now on the order of over 45,000,000,000 tonnes (45 Gt) yearly, meaning we need at least 36 Gt of olivine to offset it. That is no small amount of rock and we do not plan to start at that level. The reason we mention those numbers is to let you know that it is more than possible to acquire that much material each year, as we are doing it for multiple other industries each year.

Olivine mining is open-pit near the surface and is neither labor nor energy intensive. Based on current olivine (dunite) mining in Norway, where they mined 3.4 million tonnes of dunite with only 141 employees[1], it can be extrapolated that the 36 GT of olivine needed could be mined by less than 1.5 million people working at the same capacity globally.

To put that in perspective for you, the Chinese coal market employeed 5.29 million people in 2013, and based on a 2017 report, they are trying to remove 2.3 million people from the industry[2]. So there are plenty of people who could do this, it is about creating the demand for the mineral.

There are many developing countries around the world lacking other valuable exports, yet that have olivine reserves, and we look at helping them create "green" jobs as a potential benefit.

[1] Mineral Resources Norway: The Norwegian Mining and Quarrying Industry in 2004 [pdf] https://www.ngu.no/FileArchive/227/2005_042.pdf [2] https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/9967-2-...

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

#107

Post by kragen »

matznerd wrote: post #51
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?

We are aware of potential issues with nickel contamination in olivine and will be testing/monitoring for it. Nickel is found in formations of olivine where nickel replaces some of the magnesium ions in their crystal lattices, however, if we do have a large reserve with high content of nickel, we have a technique available to plant nickel hyperaccumulating plants above the crushed olivine to phytomine the nickel conte…

This is great! Presumably natural olivine outcrops also sometimes produce high nickel levels nearby, no? What are the surrounding ecosystems like?

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

#108

Post by gwbas1c »

matznerd wrote: post #73
asauce wrote: post #37

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. G…

Hi, if you'd like to donate at this point please check out https://projectvesta.org/donate where we currently have our "Grain of Hope" necklace available. It is a single grain of olivine, suspended in a sand timer vial, to symbolize that although time is ticking, it is not too late to stop (and reverse) the damage. Since we do not have a beach yet where we can place olivine, we were originally not planning to offer t…

Just bought one for my wife!

It would be cool if I could kick in a few extra dollars so you could send one to every female American congressman and senator.

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

#109

Post by nostromo »

I have this invention that runs on solar power and water, removes carbon from the atmosphere day and night, lowers the nearby temperature of the Earth dramatically, is bio-degradable, and best of all, it self replicates.

I'm calling it Tree and I'll sell you it for $0.

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

#110

Post by credit_guy »

“To carry out this plan, it will take a volume of 7 cubic miles of olivine rock placed on 2% of the world high-energy, tropical shelf-seas each year.”

To put this in perspective, the global annual oil production is about 1 cubic mile [1], and concrete production is about half a cubic mile [2], [3] (4.4 BN tons at 2.4 t/m3 = 1.83 cubic km = 0.44 cubic miles)

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil

[2]https://archpaper.com/2019/01/concrete-production-eight-perc...

[3]https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/KatrinaJones.shtml

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