Where does one buy one ton of olivine in the US?
Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
141–150 of 341 posts
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
please address the release of nickel into the environment. That stuff can be trouble, especially for people with sensitivities.
He did so here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20404766
Darn it! I thought I searched for a response first. Thank much!
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#143Well jeez. I know it's not a popular thought on HN, but climate change is a problem of such scale that it's going to need government-level funding and oversight to find and validate geoengineering solutions, and global-level funding and coordination to implement them. This third-way aspiration to a non-government solution just seems like a pipe dream.
The world could agree on Carbon Tax, and all the Tax will all be used for battling Climate Change. Funding Project like this one. ( Although. doubt this Project isn't without its downside, my guts reaction tells me there will be other problems in chemical reaction at this scale )
And it should be something like the EURO Cars emission standards, where the whole plan goes in multiple stages, giving time for businesses to adopt.
And all of a sudden all the business have an incentive to lower the Total Carbon emission, that includes everything they consume ( which would have Carbon Tax on it ). They could also buy Carbon Credit to offset any Carbon they produce. These Carbon Credit will obviously come from project like this or Renewable Energy.
Having the World to agree on Carton Tax is the hardest part.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#144I didn't see the cost breakdown [1] mention how much they expect to pay countries for dumping olivine in their beaches/waters. Would a country, especially those near the equator, willingly agree to take part in an experiment like this for free? The referenced papers have explained how the project is safe, but I don't think communities or their representatives will see it that way. 1. https://projectvesta.org/#phaseIV
Many tropical countries already buy sand to replenish their beaches which are carried away by currents. Would a country accept sand for free instead of paying for it, especially in a color and with an environmental impact that would make the beach a popular tourist attraction? I don't see why not.
Moreover a lot of these countries are most directly threatened by sea level rise and ocean acidification.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#145This actually seems to have some promise - I'd be worried about other side effects (another article I was reading mentioned possible effects on marine life due to dissolved iron and nickel), but it seems like a technology that merits further exploration and rollout on at least a small scale.
I think I get the worry and skepticism about geo-engineering but to be completely frank we've been (inadvertently) geo-engineering the planet at least since the industrial revolution, so I don't really think we have much of a choice, especially since we need to go carbon negative, not just neutral. This olivine solution doesn't really look any less viable than CO2 scrubbers, if I'm being honest.
We've been geoengineering the planet since at least the Great Oxygenation Event, for a sufficiently broad definition of "we".
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#146I 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 decomposition do its thing.
However, pitching this as THE solution to carbon sequestration is much more problematic. At gigaton scale, you're going to run out of mine tailings quite quickly. After that, you're talking about mining fresh olivine, from locations that are increasingly distant to tropical shorelines.
This would incur tremendous energy costs, and I'm skeptical that its balance would work in favour of olivine. How much does energy is required to mine a 1,000kg of olivine? How much energy is required to move it (say) 100km to the shore? If that net energy were applied to other forms of carbon capture, would it sequester more than 1,250kg of Co2? If so, then in that instance at least, olivine sequestration would be a bad idea.
Even if the energy balance works out favourably, I'm still not sure it's a good idea. Mining doesn't just have energy impacts, it has tremendous land impacts. 7 cubic miles per year of olivine is a very large amount of material. If you don't like the local impacts of mining gold and copper and coal and shale and sand and gravel, then this would have an environmental impact similar to all of those put together. Which is too much impact. It is probably preferable to pursue a less-efficient sequestration strategy than to engage in something with this kind of side-effects.
So I'm afraid that the way this is being presented will trigger a lot of skepticism / opposition. This is a shame, because in certain edge-cases I suspect it's quite a good idea. Even if this only addresses a small percentage of the total problem, every little bit helps. I'd hate to see the baby get tossed out with the bathwater.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#147It 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.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#148Well jeez. I know it's not a popular thought on HN, but climate change is a problem of such scale that it's going to need government-level funding and oversight to find and validate geoengineering solutions, and global-level funding and coordination to implement them. This third-way aspiration to a non-government solution just seems like a pipe dream.
The world could agree on Carbon Tax, and all the Tax will all be used for battling Climate Change. Funding Project like this one. ( Although. doubt this Project isn't without its downside, my guts reaction tells me there will be other problems in chemical reaction at this scale ) And it should be something like the EURO Cars emission standards, where the whole plan goes in multiple stages, giving time for businesses…
And if the tax cripples business, it will slow emissions anyway
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#149[deleted]
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#150Even 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…
> You would be surprised how much coastline around the world is undeveloped and not even accessible by roads etc
True, but does that apply to tropical coastlines too?
I live in Mexico, even lived in Cancún for a couple of years, the majority of the tropical coastline in the Riviera Maya there is used for touristic purposes.
I don't know the pacific coastline as much but I've been there a couple of times and AFAIK most big beaches are accessible from roads and are accessed by tourists.