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Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#71

Post by oezi »

eklitzke wrote: post #32

It's a cool idea but I don't see how this is a viable long term solution, even if done at a large scale. Global oil production is on the order of 90M barrels/year, each barrel contains about 300 lbs of oil, so we're currently producing something like 27B lbs (~12B kg) of oil per year. I'm not sure how much of this ends up as CO2 in the atmosphere versus e.g. plastics, but I think it's safe to say we're probably emitt…

Looking at the technology trajectories of PV and wind it is pretty clear that within the next 5 to 15 years many countries will start seeing substantial extra electricity being generated by the build out of renewables. Because countries will aim to cover most electricity by renewables and thus overprovision them for dark windless winters, it is likely that there will be massive amounts of energy available during the summer and windy times in spring/autumn.

At this point the technology which is best in converting surplus electricity in something which counteracts climate change is most likely to become relevant.

Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#72

Post by fosk »

analog31 wrote: post #63
rjtc wrote: post #57

Most of the ocean is desert lacking the limiting nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorous and iron. If we can cheaply fertilize large swathes of the ocean with these limiting nutrients in a controlled manner, then this could trigger massive algae blooms that on sinking sequester massive amounts of carbon.

Unfortunately, fertilizer presently has a large carbon footprint

Can’t fertilizer production emission be compartimentalized?

Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#73

Post by ZeroGravitas »

variant wrote: post #65

What does success look like in the climate change fight? Is there a point where victory can ever be declared? Is that a "correct" temperature (what is it) or a CO2 PPM number (what's ideal)? When industry and scientists stop lobbying for money to fight it?

This doesn't feel like a question asked in good faith but, 350 is a reasonable ppm target:

https://350.org/about/

edit: better link

https://mn350.org/understanding350/

Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#74

Post by rs999gti »

chungy wrote: post #49
Ingaz wrote: post #45

Hm. Is that seaweed is edible by other organisms? Then: more food -> more organisms -> more CO2 It's a level of middle school

Humans eat seaweed all the time.

Eating the seaweed would not be sequestered CO2.

Your body, like a furnace, would break the seaweed down and re-release the CO2.

Better sequestration, would be to grow the seaweed and then bury it. Then in a million years future Earth inhabitants could dig up that broken down seaweed and have a new oil rush.

Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#75

Post by worik »

pvaldes wrote: post #60
worik wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coastal areas are extremely busy. No. Ports are busy. The coast is huge. Most of it, on the wet side, is mostly not busy at all Sea lanes are further out, land dwellers on the dry bit.

If you think that you can obtain a permit to put such eyesore as a seaweed farm in front of Copacabana, well... good luck with it. But we could of course build it in the middle of nowhere, and then spend lots of fuel to move the product to the far-far-away markets, and even feel good about our ecological trace for a couple seconds.

> permit to put such eyesore as a seaweed farm in front of Copacabana, well... good luck with it.

I think you should think about what I actually said. Copacabana is right by a port

> But we could of course build it in the middle of nowhere

Often, in ,any places, wild and unpopulated wet bits are right beside transport routes on the dry bits.

Less than twenty miles from where I sit

Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#76

Post by ravenstine »

variant wrote: post #65

What does success look like in the climate change fight? Is there a point where victory can ever be declared? Is that a "correct" temperature (what is it) or a CO2 PPM number (what's ideal)? When industry and scientists stop lobbying for money to fight it?

It depends on what we want to do collectively, which seems largely undecided. If we want to look at addressing climate change as a way to stabilize the environment in a way that we see fit, then there may be more ways than just CO2 in which we could do so. Unfortunately, a lot of more environmentally-minded individuals, including politicians, speak as if their beliefs are that humans should have no impact on the environment whatsoever and that the environment of the mid-to-late Holocene epoch is the correct one. Neither of the latter is accurate or possible, but superficially it would seem compatible with the view that we should tweak the variables so that the environment suits our needs.

Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#77

Post by chasil »

worik wrote: post #43
pvaldes wrote: post #37

No The cow burp effect is a myth. With five minutes thinking about it, is easy to see why is a no solution. I have explained here before why will not work. Most of the seaweeds are water. And the dry matter is salty. Coastal areas are extremely busy. You can't remove Honk Kong city to culture seaweeds. You can't block maritime traffic routes to culture seaweeds, or stop all commercial fishing near the shore, or ban t…

> Coastal areas are extremely busy. No. Ports are busy. The coast is huge. Most of it, on the wet side, is mostly not busy at all Sea lanes are further out, land dwellers on the dry bit.

The Sea of Cortez looks rather sparse. How about there?

Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#78

Post by ravenstine »

rjtc wrote: post #57

Most of the ocean is desert lacking the limiting nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorous and iron. If we can cheaply fertilize large swathes of the ocean with these limiting nutrients in a controlled manner, then this could trigger massive algae blooms that on sinking sequester massive amounts of carbon.

Would we have to continually fertilize the ocean? And at whose expense? It'd be great if such an operation could be profitable, but it there's only so much seaweed people can eat.

Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#79

Post by scotty79 »

worik wrote: post #68
scotty79 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't care about harvesting it you might want to bioengineer something that will grow on the coast of Namibia and seed it there. This coast pretty much can't be used for anything.

What could possibly go wrong?

Everything. But to be devil's advocate everything seems to be going wrong already.

Re: Could seaweed be the 'fastest and least expensive' tool to fight climate change?

#80

Post by londons_explore »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #73
variant wrote: post #65

What does success look like in the climate change fight? Is there a point where victory can ever be declared? Is that a "correct" temperature (what is it) or a CO2 PPM number (what's ideal)? When industry and scientists stop lobbying for money to fight it?

This doesn't feel like a question asked in good faith but, 350 is a reasonable ppm target: https://350.org/about/ edit: better link https://mn350.org/understanding350/

I suggest 280 ppm is more akin to "pre industrial" levels, as that was the level about 300 years ago.

350 was the level around 1990, which is thoroughly "after we already messed it up".

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