Module 9: Abiotic Ocean CDR
The second Ocean CDR module is about solutions that don't require biological organisms and instead change ocean chemistry inorganically. One idea is ocean alkalinity enhancement - adding minerals like olivine or other alkaline substances to the ocean that react with CO2 to form bicarbonate ions, which once again causes the ocean to take up more CO2 from the atmosphere. You'll also learn about electrochemical approaches that use processes like electrolysis and electrodialysis to separate seawater into acid and base components, removing the acidity and performing carbon removal in the process. This is a more technical module, but very interesting to learn about!
High Flyer
Science Primer
A brief 3 minute video on the carbonate system, so you know what the molecules that we’re talking about in this module are.
Video - 3 min
2. Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE)
Climateworks
An animated video that introduces some of the basic methods for ocean alkalinity enhancement that we'll learn more about soon.
Video - 4 min
3. Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement
Ocean Visions
A brief explainer article to complement the video above - get a sense of where the technology is today.
Article - 5 min
4. Ocean carbon dioxide removal (CDR) via electrochemistry
Climateworks
4- minute animated explainer video introducing electrochemical pathways to ocean-based carbon dioxide removal.
Video - 4 min
5. Electrochemical Ocean Capture
Ocean Visions
A brief explainer article to complement the electrochemical ocean CDR video above - get a sense of where the technology is today.
Climate Student
Article - 45 min
6. Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement R&D Program
Additional Ventures
The Additional Ventures research program for ocean alkalinity enhancement is looking to improve both basic related science as well as the technology required for monitoring and verifying changes in ocean alkalinity and CO2 drawdown. Learn about OAE and their program here!
Website - 20 min
7. Project Vesta - The Approach
Project Vesta
Project Vesta is working to deploy ocean alkalinity enhancement on coasts, to use wave power to further grind up minerals and increase their rate of reaction. Also check out the Science page on their website.
Podcast - 34 min
9. SEA MATE with Matthew Eisaman, PhD
This is CDR
The electrodialysis system described here is now being used by a startup called Ebb Carbon, formed after this video was made. The approach is described quite accessiblely here.
Video - 49 min
10. Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal: Road Maps
Ocean Visions
I'd recommend spending an hour or two going through these roadmaps that Ocean Visions put together on the status of three big ocean CDR approaches. They're really well done and you'll learn a lot.
Website - 90 min
8. Cleantech Forward Featuring Planetary Hydrogen
Cleantech Forward
Planetary Hydrogen is a cool startup in how it combines many of the approaches we've already learned about in the course, including ocean alkalinity enhancement. Their CEO is interviewed here.
Climate Master
11. Carbon and Alkalinity in the Ocean
GeoOceanology
Looking to learn what alkalinity actually means? It's definitely more complicated than I thought at first. Dive into the ocean chemistry underlying some of the ocean CDR approaches discussed above, from dissolved inorganic carbon to carbonate buffer systems in this more technical lecture.
Video - 28 min
12. Initial Outline of OAE CDR MRV: Concepts and Needs
Greg Rau, Planetary Technologies
This conceptual document both provides more intuition for how OAE works, but also gets into potential monitoring and verification ideas for ensuring that carbon removal actually took place.
Report - 90 min
13. Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement - Current State of Knowledge and Potential Role of Philanthropy
Antonius Gagern
This document goes into a lot of detail, but is also quite accessible for a non-technical reader. Worth going through if OAE is interesting to you!
Report - 90 min
14. Social Acceptance and Ethical Considerations to Ocean-Based CDR
National Academy of Sciences
To finish off this series on Ocean CDR, we have one more video from the National Academy of Sciences event series, this one on the important challenge of building social acceptance for Ocean CDR and incorporating ethics and justice considerations into all actions taken. Learn about processes of stakeholder engagement, where public perception is at right now, and watch analysis of a oceans related case study.
Video - 58 min