Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There won't be any ingenious, miracle carbon removal solutions OK but I think there will be.
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.
Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
191–199 of 199 posts
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#192Could recycle plastic into floating kelp forests that consist of a weighted substrate that the kelp holdfasts can lock onto supported at the appropriate depth using lines up to floats. Each deployment could be of sufficient area to be self-sustaining in the open ocean and populated with appropriate fauna. If the floats degrade the entire forest would sink to the seafloor to sequestrate the carbon. Gradually these would congregate in the gyres in the oceans where all the loose plastic ends up and eventually take it all to the bottom.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#193[dead]
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#194Hi there. Over the last 2 years, I've interviewed over 200 seaweed innovators, academics and investors to get to the bottom of this question.
In answer to your question, YES. It probably is one of the fastest and least expensive tools to fight climate change. It requires next to no inputs, can be cultivated alongside other extractive species which foster biodiversity and clean waterways, and can sequester carbon. The products we can make from it can further reduce emissions.
However, we have to be super careful with overselling the solution. To have measurable impact, we need to grow a lot of seaweed OUTSIDE of Asia. Scaling up supply will be a challenge - because market demand for this seaweed as a food/feed/bioproduct alternative has not been completely validated. This will take time, but it will happen. Watch this space.
Overall, it's became very clear to me how hard it is to distinguish signal from noise in this sector. That's why the Paxtier Report newsletter is so good. If you're keen to better understand the space, check it out here: https://paxtier.substack.com/ . The Phyconomy newsletter is also superb: https://phyconomy.net/
Hope this helps. And shoot me a message if you have more questions.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#195I have been hearing this since I was in middle school in the 1970's. I will believe it when I see it happen at a large scale.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#196Time 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…
Seems that eating Azolla or maybe even animals feed Azolla may not be the safest thing to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta-Methylamino-L-alanine
The cyanobacterian symbiont of Azolla, Anabena can produce neurotoxins.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not about being clean or not, is about being previously occupied by another activity that is economically much stronger so you just can't compete or displace them. All the good places near the coast are heavily occupied yet so, where do they want to culture all this volume?. The other companies have enough money to buy you off of the road and build an hotel, or are the only remaining place suitable for the lo…
> All the good places near the coast are heavily occupied yet so, A bit tiresome repeating myself... The dry bits are populated, not the wet bits
You are not understanding how seaweed farms work.
Dry areas are required for logistics and as a safety vault. You need space for storage. Space for wintering. Space for each machine that you need to process the production. And drying algae smell. And if you have a big storm alert, you will need to rush to move a huge volume of stuff, cords and algae safely ASAP to the coast and keep there for several hours. You can't just put this in the closest hotel terrace.
There is a lot of things that a sea farm needs to survive. And there is a huge load of legal issues, because the sea is not a "free for all" space. Is a high skill / high luck and deep pockets activity.
Why could be a big company be interested in this? Well, If you have the money you could culture much higher value products in the same space, right?. I would speculate that is a combination of being able to obtain government aids + real state grab. I can be totally wrong about it, of course.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#198Earlier 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.
Still need to be concerned with the amount of latent heat generated on the planet surface
Latent heat can be radiated into space, and offset with a relatively small, invisible shade at the earth-sun Lagrange point. 10,000 1km aluminum foil and Mylar sails surfing that point would make earths temperatures completely controllable and would be measurable only as a dimming of the sun imperceptible without sophisticated measuring apparatus.
Starship can carry 2 per trip. Inflatable, polymer hardening, weigh-shift controlled kites gliding just beyond L1 on the solar wind. We would have to launch 3 a day indefinitely, so we would still be encouraged to sort out our CO2 situation.
Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's actually completely and entirely untrue. The largest delta of CO2 in the coming years will be coming from developing countries as they rise up to modern standards.
But when you say:
> This is a far easier problem to solve. I’ll leave the solution to your imagination.
It pretty clear you're not really arguing in good faith. Dog whistle is pretty loud.