Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

projectvesta.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 341 posts

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

#311

Post by pms »

lutorm wrote: post #80
nine_k wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will olivine-covered beaches be still good for recreation? Will olivine sand produce fine dust that would muddy the water? I bet the first few green beaches would just look cool enough to increase he stream of tourists — as long as walking over an olivine beach feels safe and not unpleasant. Also, is dumping olivine on rocky but flat enough shores an option? That is, may it not replace existing sandy beaches but form…

Green Sands Beach on the island of Hawai'i is a big tourist attraction. So, yeah, it seems fine for recreation. (Except it won't be cool anymore if every tropical beach is green...)

They mention that only 5% of tropical beeches would need to become green.

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

#313

Post by jamesbvaughan »

tgirod wrote: post #277

Hey, we are fucking up the environment by altering such a complex system way too fast for it to keep balance. Maybe if we alter it on a whole new scale with our limited understanding of the consequences, we can fix things up? To be more constructive, this is exactly the kind of hubris that gets me very wary of technoscience. Let's assume Project Vesta is run by well intentionned folks and has the potential to offer a…

Could you explain more what you mean about our growth based economic model not being sustainable? This is a topic that I'm fairly new to and the only substantial thing I've read about it is Tyler Cowen's "Stubborn Attachments" which presented what I found to be a very compelling argument that long term economic growth is very good and is in fact the only sustainable way forward.

I've been hoping to read some counter arguments to that idea to round out my exposure to the topic.

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

#314

Post by gamblor956 »

matznerd wrote: post #243

Hi HN, I am Eric Matzner, the Co-Founder of Project Vesta and I have been responding to all of the questions on this thread and will continue to answer them, but I just wanted to say thank you for all of the interest. When YC posted their Carbon Removal Technologies Requests for Startups page[1] about 8 months ago, I responded to a comment on the post where @btilly[2] mentioned one of the research papers that our pro…

Is there any particular reason that you use a graphical overlay on your website that blocks any mouse or keyboard actions other than scrolling?

(Happens on both Firefox and Chrome.)

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

#315

Post by 6d6b73 »

SwellJoe wrote: post #299
6d6b73 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you don't think there is no profit motive in the current "global warming industry"?

I thought we were having a serious/sincere conversation.

We are - I'm not saying that most people want to do the right thing, but there is also bunch of them that use global warming as a way to make a quick buck. I hope you don't believe that one side of the debate is all good and another one is all bad..

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

#316

Post by Taniwha »

24gttghh wrote: post #305
Taniwha wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the moment the oceans are being acidified by dissolving more CO2 in them - I assume that if you dump enough olivine into them to negate that (or rather return them to preindustrialization ph) then long term you'll also soak up about the right amount of CO2

What I mean is, let's say this process is able to sequester sufficient CO2 in the form of bicarbonate to lower us to a conservative 300ppm CO2. At what point, if any, would we be turning the ph of the ocean to be too alkaline ?

Well part of this process is supposed to precipitate out the carbon in forms that can eventually be subducted (as the current natural carbon cycle does).

I assume that the rate at which the carbon is sequestered by this method is also driven by the level of ocean acidity, as more CO2 is pulled out of the ocean the acidity will drop and so will the reaction rate will also drop ... this means that there's a natural negative feedback here - whether it's enough to "do the right thing" is probably still a question for science

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

#317

Post by SwellJoe »

6d6b73 wrote: post #315
SwellJoe wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought we were having a serious/sincere conversation.

We are - I'm not saying that most people want to do the right thing, but there is also bunch of them that use global warming as a way to make a quick buck. I hope you don't believe that one side of the debate is all good and another one is all bad..

That doesn't make any sense, and I don't see any evidence that people are (or could) use global warming to "make a quick buck".

"I hope you don't believe that one side of the debate is all good and another one is all bad.."

What "sides" do you believe we're talking about here?

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

#318

Post by Accujack »

tom_mellior wrote: post #104
Accujack wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, the caribbean is the area I'm most familiar with. Lots of small islands in the Bahamas chain with sand and coral beaches.

Perhaps islands in deeper water are volcanic, but I still doubt that mining that much olivine anywhere near the place it would be used is possible.

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

#319

Post by simonebrunozzi »

ForHackernews wrote: post #175
baron816 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s to counteract for 100% of emissions, right? A more reasonable goal would be to go for 10%. Still very ambitious, but could be done and would have a pretty huge impact. Combine that carbon pricing, technological advancements, and other sequestration schemes, and targets for avoiding environmental catastrophe seem achievable.

Sorry, can you explain why you think counteracting 10% of emissions would have "a pretty huge impact"? The best science from the IPCC suggests we have to cut net carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 in order to have a moderate chance of avoiding the most catastrophic effects of the climate disaster. I'm not saying 10% isn't ambitious, but it's entirely insufficient to the scope of the problem.

This doesn't have to be the only initiative to reduce CO2. It could be used in combination with reforestation, reducing emissions, etc.

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

#320

Post by simonebrunozzi »

sigmar wrote: post #213
toyg wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that inspired by Australian experiences with introducing fauna for agricultural needs...?

Yea, I think loosely inspired by Australia's plot to kill sugar cane-ravaging beetles with cane toads (that then became a nuisance).

Jared Diamonds extensively talks about it in his book "Collapse". A good book (not the best one in that category, but good enough to be worth a read).
Post reply on HN