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Pitch

Ocean Assisted Carbon Capture & Reflection uses carbon capture boil-off to grow carbon-feeding Emiliania Huxley in ogliotrophic seas.


Description

Summary

By far the safest and most effective method of climate repair involves what is referred to as Ocean Assisted Carbon Capture & Reflection (OACC+R).   Simply put, by retrofitting carbon-emitting plants with available “Carbon Capture” technology, carbon pollution can be converted into the by-products needed to grow Emiliania Huxley, or EHUX, algae in deep oligotrophic (non-life sustaining) waters in Earth’s equatorial regions.  EHUX algae can both remove carbon from the atmosphere in the massive levels needed and create increased solar reflectance.  When exposed to carbon they do something amazing (not discovered until scanning electron microscopy was invented in the early 1950s) they create an elegant kind of “armor,” called coccoliths……from calcium carbonate. They photosynthesize.  EHUX clad in coccoliths, are heavier than water. It is the only algae for which this is true. After creating all of these coccoliths, these organisms die and sink to the bottom of the ocean – fast enough that the sequestered carbon doesn’t have a chance to release into the warmer ocean above the thermocline. Once the EHUX sinks below the thermocline to the deep ocean floor the carbon it brings with it will remain harmlessly at the bottom of the ocean forming sediment. Three hundred and twenty pounds of carbon go into every ton of coccoliths produced. If widely and regularly dispersed with optimal nutrient over 50 percent of the ocean between 40 deg. south and 40 deg. north latitude, high-density bioreactor algae could rapidly and selectively seed massive secondary mid-ocean EHUX algae blooming.  In this region of the ocean, termed oligotrophic because scientists have found very little life or activity, the EHUX will be able to bloom without competition. These natural obstacles overcome, accelerated phytoplankton blooming would offer the greatest, and safest, potential to rapidly draw atmospheric CO? down to pre-industrial levels.


Category of the action

Geoengineering


What actions do you propose?

And so we have our two OACC process: (1) Liquid CO? -driven bioreactors producing massive primary blooms of purified EHUX algae starter seed, sufficient to overwhelm viruses and predators, and (2) Amplified secondary open-ocean EHUX blooms, supplied with anhydrous ammonia fertilizer, which have the potential to capture 10 gigatons of carbon per year (GtC/yr) of atmospheric CO? at sea.  If widely and regularly dispersed with optimal nutrient over 50 percent of the ocean between 40 deg. south and 40 deg. north latitude, high-density bioreactor algae could rapidly and selectively seed massive secondary mid-ocean EHUX algae blooming.  In this region of the ocean, termed oligotrophic because scientists have found very little life or activity, the EHUX will be able to bloom without competition. These natural obstacles overcome, accelerated phytoplankton blooming would offer the greatest, and safest, potential to rapidly draw atmospheric CO? down to pre-industrial levels.

 


Who will take these actions?

Ocean Assisted Carbon Capture & Reflection will be a large-scale project profitable for fossil fuel companies with ocean-based SPAR platform facilities.


Where will these actions be taken?

Ogliotrophic waters between 40-60 degrees latitude.


What are other key benefits?

OACC&R overcomes traditional opposition to carbon reduction. “Dirty” energy industries, facing extinction in the face of newer, sustainable energy industries, will have a new lease on life, and new support from the government and the public. Environmental groups will finally have a path toward achieving a sustainable civilization. Governments will have a solution to many overwhelming problems currently draining their resources. OACC&R is the ultimate win-win solution.  OACC&R can meet the predicted 50% increase in world energy demand while enabling CCS fossil energy (liquid CO2 utilization, CCS fossil hydrogen (transportation), doubling fossil energy revenues, making CCS fossil energy 1400% carbon negative, creating a fleet of deep-water SPAR platforms which can be dual-purposed for liquid natural gas production.  


What are the proposal’s costs?

Cost estimates vary so widely this factor is difficult to address fully until beta testing phase.


Time line


Related proposals


References