Startups aim to curb climate change by pulling carbon dioxide from the ocean—not the air

By -
https://www.science.org/content/article/startups-aim-curb-climate-change-pulling-carbon-dioxide-ocean-not-air

By ROBERT F. SERVICE, Science. 

Excerpt: ...one long gray barge docked at the [Port of Los Angeles] is doing its part to combat climate change. On the barge, which belongs to Captura, a Los Angeles–based startup, is a system of pipes, pumps, and containers that ingests seawater and sucks out CO2, which can be used to make plastics and fuels or buried. The decarbonated seawater is returned to the ocean, where it absorbs more CO2 from the atmosphere, in a small strike against the inexorable rise of the greenhouse gas. After a yearlong experiment with the barge, which is designed to capture 100 tons of CO2 per year, Captura is planning to open a 1000-ton-per-year facility later this year in Norway that will bury the captured CO2 in rock formations under the North Sea. Equatic, another Los Angeles–based startup, is launching an even larger 3650-ton-per-year ocean CO2 capture plant this year in Singapore, and other companies are planning demos as well. ...Proponents say capturing CO2 from the ocean should be easier and cheaper than a seemingly more direct approach: snagging it directly from the air. Direct air capture, which relies on fans to sweep air past absorbent chemicals, currently costs between $600 to $1000 per ton of CO2 removed, largely because atmospheric CO2 is so dilute, making up less than 0.05% of the air by volume. Earth’s oceans, in contrast, hold the gas at a concentration nearly 150 times higher, and absorb roughly 30% of all CO2 emissions each year....

Popular posts from this blog

Lost history of Antarctica revealed in octopus DNA

By -
https://www.science.org/content/article/lost-history-antarctica-revealed-octopus-dna By ERIK STOKSTAD .  Excerpt: Some 100,000 years ago, scientists believe Antarctica’s massive western ice sheet collapsed, temporarily opening waterways between a trio of seas surrounding the continent. New evidence for that scenario comes from a surprising source: octopus DNA. ...About 129,000 to 116,000 years ago, a warm spell called the last interglacial gave our planet a brief break in between several million years of ice ages. The average temperature of the planet was about 0.5°C warmer than it is today—and climate projections predict it will be again within decades. The global sea level was also 5 meters to 10 meters higher than current levels. Many scientists believe  the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and consequent melting could have been a primary reason . ...The findings are consistent with growing geological evidence supporting the ice sheet collapse....
Read more

An architect has found a way to build flood-proof homes

By -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2023/flood-resistant-home-bamboo/ By Nick Aspinwall, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: Yasmeen Lari spent a …career designing …structures out of concrete, glass and steel before stumbling into her ideal material. It was at a camp for refugees…. Residents there were struggling to secure bricks and wood to build communal kitchens — until she spotted a nearby bamboo grove. “Let’s use it,” recalls Lari…. The material worked so well that over the last decade, Heritage Foundation of Pakistan …has built some 85,000 structures for displaced Pakistanis, including victims of last year’s devastating monsoon rains. That disaster, the worst flooding in Pakistani history, left a third of the country underwater and  destroyed more than 2.1 million homes . The thousands of bamboo structures Lari’s group had erected “all survived,” she said. …Many species of bamboo have been used as a building material in Asia for thousands of years and they are
Read more

Climate Change Drives New Cases of Malaria, Complicating Efforts to Fight the Disease

By -
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/health/malaria-climate-change.html By  Stephanie Nolen , The New York Times.  Excerpt: There were an estimated 249 million cases of malaria around the globe last year,  the World Health Organization said on Thursday , an increase of five million over 2021. Malaria remains a top killer of children. Those new cases were concentrated in just five countries: Pakistan, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and Papua-New Guinea. Climate change was a direct contributor in three of them, said Dr. Daniel Ngamije, who directs the W.H.O. malaria program. In July 2022, massive flooding left more than a third of Pakistan underwater and displaced 33 million people. An explosion of mosquitoes soon followed. The country reported 3.1 million confirmed cases of malaria that year, compared with 275,000 the year before, with a fivefold increase in the rate of transmission....
Read more