I skimmed through the site. I didn’t see how they convince countries to have their beeches altered. I can understand the assumption that countries would be eager to receive something which will benefit them directly, but they also know that they are serving as a “commons” as well and may want compensation for that.
Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
181–190 of 341 posts
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#182Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Profitability? Put that idea away for a moment. We need to look at this through other lenses as well. Our very lives on Earth depend on our ability to remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. In that light, profitability is a rather weak criterion by which to judge projects like this.
There are more important values than profit. But in reality, profit makes things happen. So it's good to know about it.
It's good to know about it, for sure. But, at the end of the day, profit makes profit-driven things happen. It's important to know about and advocate for more important values than profit.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#184Even 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.
Our goal is not to cover up existing tourist beaches. You would be surprised how much coastline around the world is undeveloped and not even accessible by roads etc, those beaches are likely to be the places where we go first. That said, we believe that green sand beaches will become their own tourist attractions as the naturally occurring ones, such as Papakolea in Hawaii, are (which is the beach pictured on our sit…
Could this save the barrier reef or is it too far out?
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#185I would be significantly less skeptical about this if it were significantly less ambitious. I'm sure there are low-hanging opportunities where this makes a good amount of sense. Places where there are olivine-rich mine tailings -- somehow uncontaminated by heavy metals -- adjacent to a tropical shoreline. In those instances, then yeah, I'm sure it makes good sense to just shove them over to the beach and let decompos…
We are not pitching this as "THE" solution, but as "a" solution that can scale up to and beyond the global level of yearly CO2 emissions. Even after the "low-hanging opportunities" it makes a good amount of sense, as mining olivine is not difficult and there are large reserves on every continent.
You are incorrect that olivine mining at a large scale would incur tremendous energy costs, it will not. I would suggest you check out this model of a 5,000 tonne per day open pit mining for porphyritic rock. (This model also includes 5,000 tonnes per day of "waste" rock which will likely not be wasted in our use case) http://costs.infomine.com/costdatacenter/miningcostmodel.asp...
In this model, which is not in any way optimized for environmental efficiency, it requires a diesel fuel quantity of around 4,751 liters/day to mine the 5,000 tonnes. At 2.68 kg of CO2 per 1 liter of diesel, that generates 12,732.68 kg of CO2 per day. That 12,732.68 kg = 12.73268 tonnes of CO2. The 5,000 tonnes of olivine mined will eventually weather and sequester 6,250 tonnes of CO2 (1 tonne of olivine sequesters 1.25 tonnes of CO2), for a net capture of 6,237 tons at the mine.
We have life cycle assessment that calculates the CO2 penalty and loss on efficiency, including milling and transport to locations less than 300 km (186 mi) at around a 4% loss [1].
Just for your information and for others, from a financial perspective the mining in that model costs $7.32 per ton, and then the transport and milling/crushing only costs about $3 per ton, so olivine could be transported to a beach at around $10/ton, with the price per ton of CO2 sequestered at less than $10.
You are also incorrect regarding the mining impact. The mining of things like shale requires fracking and the injection of sand and chemicals, our mining is simply open pit. Essentially, you open a pit on the surface and simply dig it up. As mentioned above, it is not all that energy intensive either.
For global CO2 level removal in terms of mining, it would likely require 30-50 mines in the wet tropics, preferably at a level of greater than 100 million tons/year (due to economies of scale).[2] There are large reserves on every continent and plenty near coastlines[3]. If you wanted to open fewer mines, you could theoretically find a few large reserves. For example, there is an open pit mine in Bingham Canyon that has an excavated volume of over 25 km^3, which would be the equivalent of 2-3 years worth of the volume of material needed.
Don't worry about this idea getting "tossed out with the bathwater," if anything we will actually be removing CO2 from the bathwater and de-acidifying it at the same time ;)
[1] Environmental Life Cycle Assement of CO2 Sequestration Through Enhanced Weathering of Olivine https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-df_978/1/ [2] https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-df_77/9/ [3] https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-df_90/25/
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a legit worry. The same material we use to stabilize the climate could be the same material that throws it into a negative feedback loop. This happened during the ice age, which is exactly stated in the article.
Okay, no, it's not. You're being silly. We could always fire the Clathrate Gun... (^_^) But you bring up an interesting point: there's no going back. This really is the Anthropocene Age and we're going to have to manage the planet from now on, now that we can, now that we know.
How am I being silly? Logically if the same conditions caused an Ice age in the past and we take steps to replicate those conditions in the present then this is a genuinely possible outcome. How is this not something to think about?
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone's problem, no?
Not really. Poor countries don't have expensive infrastructure investments in the current climate, so can adapt to climate change by moving a few miles. Moving New York City and Los Angeles is much harder, and the loss much more expensive.
I think you're making a number of assumptions that can't be backed up.
> Poor countries don't have expensive infrastructure investments in the current climate...
What do you mean by this? There are major cities in poor countries that are physically threatened by rising sea levels [0]. Agriculture throughout the tropics is threatened, because rising temperatures will dramatically reduce crop yields [1]. These are already affecting the poorest countries.
> ...can adapt to climate change by moving a few miles. Moving New York City and Los Angeles is much harder, and the loss much more expensive.
I think you're underestimating the effort required to migrate. We're largely not talking about a family here and there moving up the road. Climate change will cause -- and has already caused [2] -- mass migration of whole regions.
[0] https://grist.org/article/rising-seas-are-lapping-at-the-sho... [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613386/climate-change-has... [2] https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-02-06/climate-change-overlo...
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#188It costs about $1 to transport an oil barrel 1000 miles. 35 billion oil barrels are transported each year. So transporting that olivine rock will cost an order of $250B. This will compensate for the yearly co2 emissions , ~38B tons. With carbon offsets priced at $15-$40 per ton - so there's potential for profitability .
In Canada, the national carbon price will go to $50 by 2022. So it will very shortly be profitable in Canada.
That's assuming we don't have a Conservative government later this year.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#189Dissolving olivine on beaches means releasing nickel into the environment. What is the effect of the release of many megatons of this element?
Reminds me of The Simpsons episode where they let Lizards get rid of the pigeons, then plan to have snakes kill the lizards, then have gorillas eat the snakes. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9yruQM1ggc
Isn't that inspired by Australian experiences with introducing fauna for agricultural needs...?
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#190I skimmed through the site. I didn’t see how they convince countries to have their beeches altered. I can understand the assumption that countries would be eager to receive something which will benefit them directly, but they also know that they are serving as a “commons” as well and may want compensation for that.
If they're altering the beaches for free, the countries would enjoy a portion of the common benefit without any cost. In fact, the new 'green' (literally and figuratively) beaches would probably be a greater tourist attraction, so if anything I'd expect it to be beneficial, plus secondary economic benefits from the work being done.