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

California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–46 of 46 posts

Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#41

Post by AstralStorm »

tempestn wrote: post #22
Thorentis wrote: post #2

I wonder if instead of desalination plants, there exists "de-acidification" plants that can in turn use the acid for electricity generation or something like that? Whenever I see these articles, unfortunately my first thought is "we're too far gone, we can't turn around now" in terms of climate change. But! I think that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing the largest carbon emitter…

This project looks pretty compelling as a cost-effective way to both remove C02 from the atmosphere and de-acidify the ocean: https://projectvesta.org/

There's not enough olivine to even make a dent in CO2 levels. So this, while useful addition to arsenal against global warming, is nowhere near enough.

Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#42

Post by pjc50 »

Thorentis wrote: post #2

I wonder if instead of desalination plants, there exists "de-acidification" plants that can in turn use the acid for electricity generation or something like that? Whenever I see these articles, unfortunately my first thought is "we're too far gone, we can't turn around now" in terms of climate change. But! I think that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing the largest carbon emitter…

> Too much carbon being released? Free carbon!

"Unlimited free mildly poisonous garbage" isn't really a great deal.

The best approach to making use of it appears to be from US Naval Research: electrically driven extraction of CO2+H2 which can then be combined into fuel. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312163311_Developme...

But that requires inputting more energy than you got from burning the fuel in the first place. So after California is fully converted to electric cars and the vast desert solar PV fields have a big surplus in the day, you could use that process to extract fuel from the ocean at prices somewhat higher than drilling it out of the ground.

Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#43

Post by pjc50 »

lopmotr wrote: post #31
omegaworks wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Our best hope it to adapt to the new norm rather than fight a losing battle. The next stage in climate denialism is climate nihilism: thinking that it's too late now to do anything to directly confront the problem so why bother. All it does is protect and entrench existing extractive interests. We can accomplish amazing things (landing on the moon, overthrowing the nazis and winning WW2) when we align our society an…

What migration? "up to 630 M people live on land below projected annual flood levels for 2100, and up to 340 M for mid-century, versus roughly 250 M at present" 250 million people already live in those annually flooded regions, so that's only another 400 million by the year 2100. You think political systems can't cope? China has 300 million migrant workers, most of whom re-migrate every year!! They're coping already.…

About three million Syrians have become refugees in Europe, and the xenophobic politics that resulted have caused a lot of problems. I'm not sure where the Bangladeshis are going to go; India isn't going to take them.

Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#44

Post by lurquer »

The underlying study is dubious... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0499-z

They took 0.5 meters of sediment.

They examined shells in the sediment, and using a very convoluted and new measurement technique, they found that 'larger' shells were at the bottom (without very much statistical certainty.) And, the study admits that other factors -- such as water temperature -- could effect the size/shell thickness... to what degree is ignored.

They then radiodated this 0.5 meter column of sludge, and after making assumptions about this and that and nuclear bomb testing and a host of other assumptions, they determined that the bottom of the 0.5 meter column was from 100 years ago, and the top more recent. (And, of course, they assume the sedimentation was perfectly uniform during the century because... reasons.)

And, then you have a graph, showing a decrease in some factor of shells (using a new measuring system) over a span of 100 years (give or take 100 years)...

they then claim the decrease is due to CO2, and Voila, the paper is sucked up by Nature.

I'm not criticizing the work. I'm sure the researchers would be the first to admit their conclusion is based on a host of assumptions and guesswork.

But, what I do find amusing is that a speculative study involving 0.5 meters of mud can get HN readers to begin proposing massive 'de-acidification' plants and fretting about the end of the world.

Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#45

Post by tempestn »

AstralStorm wrote: post #41
tempestn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This project looks pretty compelling as a cost-effective way to both remove C02 from the atmosphere and de-acidify the ocean: https://projectvesta.org/

There's not enough olivine to even make a dent in CO2 levels. So this, while useful addition to arsenal against global warming, is nowhere near enough.

On the page I linked to, they address the amount available, and it sounds like there's more than enough. Do you have other information?

> Is There Enough Mineable Olivine?

> Yes!

> There is more than enough olivine for global scale CO2 removal for the foreseeable future. Olivine is the most abundant mineral in the upper mantle, making up over 50% of it. There large reserves all over the world found near the surface, in a formation called dunite, which consists of greater than 90% olivine. The current price is also attractive, at $25 a ton with the ability to go below $10 a ton with increased mining.

Post reply on HN