Time to kickstart a real big Azolla Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event
Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
161–170 of 199 posts
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally, pre-industrial levels of CO2 ppm and stabilization of planetary scale changes (ocean dilatation, melting of glaciers etc). Because of inertia at this scale, for the second part we are already in trouble, even if we were able to magically stop emitting CO2 today
>Ideally, pre-industrial levels of CO2 ppm and stabilization of planetary scale changes I don't see how this is possible with our current population growth trajectory.
The global population is about to plateau and then start shrinking
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Technically there might be. There is plenty of brains around to explore all possibilities and there are far worse ways to waste talent. Just don't bet the planet on it, don't create a sense that a painless fix is just around the corner and then we can simply go on.
There's no other possibility except a technical solution. Expecting humans to change their behavior collectively, across the globe, is magical thinking.
And yet the birth rate keeps declining. Maybe we're collectively smarter than we fear.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#164There won't be any ingenious, miracle carbon removal solution and various proposals may even be flirting with ecological disasters of planetary proportions. Anything that expands our footprint in order to mitigate our footprint is a dubious direction. Reminds of an apprentice wizard that panics and invokes a sequence of spells, each one worse than the other. Discussions and thinking around sustainability underestimat…
>There won't be any ingenious, miracle carbon removal solutions OK but I think there will be.
OK but based on what?
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#165Here are more related HN posts 1. Banking on the Seaweed Rush - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35322725 2. Ocean Farming: Seaweed is having its moment in the sun - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35176560
Thanks! Macroexpanded:
Banking on the Seaweed Rush - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35322725 - March 2023 (46 comments)
Ocean Farming: Seaweed is having its moment in the sun - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35176560 - March 2023 (45 comments)
Amazon funds seaweed farming at offshore wind farm to test CO2 capture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34839380 - Feb 2023 (91 comments)
Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions from their burps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28243731 - Aug 2021 (59 comments)
Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540737 - March 2021 (289 comments)
Feeding cattle seaweed reduces their greenhouse gas emissions 82% - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26495536 - March 2021 (9 comments)
Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80% - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24574992 - Sept 2020 (314 comments)
Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99% - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20711498 - Aug 2019 (393 comments)
A diet supplemented with red algae could reduce greenhouse gases emitted by cows - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18521471 - Nov 2018 (20 comments)
Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions from their burps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385384 - Nov 2018 (82 comments)
Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17704479 - Aug 2018 (159 comments)
Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17036221 - May 2018 (264 comments)
Scientist discovers particular seaweed nearly eliminates cow methane emissions - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12998395 - Nov 2016 (147 comments)
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the context of the post you're replying to, that's like believing there will be a miracle pill so you can eat whatever you want, however much you want, drink as much alcohol as you want, and the magic pill will prevent obesity, cancer, heart disease, and liver failure. And even if such a miracle drug did exist, if seems like the better solution is to simply lead a healthier lifestyle to begin with.
Fusion is the key. Replace all of our dirty energy, and produce enough surplus to sequester carbon. We should be pursuing fusion as if the survival of the planet depends on it…because it is likely that it does.
Still need to be concerned with the amount of latent heat generated on the planet surface
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fusion is the key. Replace all of our dirty energy, and produce enough surplus to sequester carbon. We should be pursuing fusion as if the survival of the planet depends on it…because it is likely that it does.
What if fusion is impossible though, from an engineering perspective? Why not continue to pursue fission using safer, modern reactor designs? It works. The timelines for fusion, if it ever works, are too long.
Most polluting regions are also the least politically stable. Today at any moment disaster could happen on largest nuclear power plant in Europe because madman decide to play a conqueror.
People can hardly be trusted with a dangerous nuclear power.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#168Time to kickstart a real big Azolla Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event
800,000 years is pretty slow, though. Maybe we could speed it up with the right conditions?
I think what we'd need to replicate the azolla event is a large fresh-water lake that's very still and stagnant, so that O2 levels in the deep parts are low enough that when the plant dies and sinks to the bottom it doesn't decompose.
Or alternatively would could have azolla-harvesting ships that skim the surface, and then we could turn the resulting plant mass into biochar and bury it, or something like that.
Azolla doesn't do well in salt water, but maybe we could engineer a salt-tolerant variant. The Black Sea, for instance, has about half the salinity of the rest of the ocean.
For some salt-tolerant azolla variant to get loose and cover the whole ocean sounds like it could be a major ecological disaster though, even if it does draw down CO2 really fast.
Azolla is sometimes used to feed livestock and as a fertilizer, so it could displace other, potentially more CO2 producing ways of accomplishing the same thing.
I think there have been some efforts to use it as a food for humans.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
How? Unless you get a breakthrough with fusion, I just don’t see us finding the energy to make carbon removal feasible. You either need huge tracts of land to power forests, or massive amounts of energy from another source to do it with tech, and neither of those is going to be the easy fix people believe is coming.
It's hard to imagine how someone can look at the track record and then think "impossible! we will never figure it out!" when human history is basically a detailed record of us constantly "figuring things out" that previously seemed impossible. When something has yet to be figured out you are supposed to be baffled because the part where it all make sense doesn't come until after we figure it out. It doesn't guarantee…
Survivorship bias. You're missing the big graveyard of civilizations that thought they could persist in the face of changing external circumstances but miscalculated. Many of those are buried in what are now deserts, created by their misguided land management.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Technically there might be. There is plenty of brains around to explore all possibilities and there are far worse ways to waste talent. Just don't bet the planet on it, don't create a sense that a painless fix is just around the corner and then we can simply go on.
There's no other possibility except a technical solution. Expecting humans to change their behavior collectively, across the globe, is magical thinking.
Here’s the thing: actually, we need the behavior of a _very small_ number of humans to change: the rich. Not only is their personal CO2 consumption the majority of personal CO2 consumption, but the capital they control drives the behavior and policy of everything else. This is a far easier problem to solve. I’ll leave the solution to your imagination.