Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
CaliforniaPeggy
CaliforniaPeggy's Journal
CaliforniaPeggy's Journal
April 29, 2023
I have an annoying problem with my ancient iPad.
Every time I turn it off, and it's really off, every website that I have a password for requires that I log back in, every time.
I have to look them up and sometimes the website tells me that this is an old password, and it won't work.
Do the newer iPads keep you logged in, even after you've turned it off?
My iPhone does not do this.
April 17, 2023
This excess heat from unchecked carbon emissions has unfolded in insidious ways underwater. Sea level rise. More intense marine heat waves. And when carbon dioxide mixes with seawater, it undergoes chemical reactions that increase the water’s acidity, which can discombobulate fish and wreak havoc on marine ecosystems. Our coral reefs are dying, and scientists have also found that harmful algal blooms are getting more toxic — and occurring more frequently.
In the year 2021 alone, the world’s oceans got hotter by about 14 zettajoules. This is a mind-bending number, so thermal scientist John Abraham, at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, put it this way in an op-ed in the Guardian: “The oceans have absorbed heat equivalent to seven Hiroshima atomic bombs detonating each second, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year.”
So with all that in mind, I took a tour Wednesday of what has been billed as a game-changing, first-of-its-kind technology in removing carbon dioxide from the ocean. The pilot system, dubbed SeaChange, essentially pumps in seawater, extracts the carbon dioxide, and then, through a surprisingly simple process, converts the CO2 into a solid mineral that can be stored safely away. This in turn frees up the ocean to absorb more carbon emissions from the atmosphere. It’s a multimillion-dollar idea that researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have been putting to the test.
~snip~
To start the carbon-removal process, the researchers first run an electrical charge through the water. (Seawater, I learned that day, holds about 150 times more carbon dioxide than air per unit of volume). The electrolysis makes the water alkaline, which initiates a series of chemical reactions that ultimately neutralizes and traps the carbon dioxide into calcium carbonate — a fine powdery mineral that is found in seashells and limestone.
“The process relies on really simple, really elegant chemistry,” Sant said, adding that he was particularly proud of how remarkably energy efficient his team was able to make this whole operation. In a unique twist, hydrogen also gets created as a co-product, which helps power the carbon-removal equipment. (For every 220 metric tons of seawater that gets processed, about one metric ton of CO2 gets removed, while simultaneously producing about 35 kilograms of hydrogen.)
~snip~
And get this, it’s not only the carbon-free seawater that gets released back into the ocean. The calcium carbonate also gets returned to the seafloor. It seems counterintuitive to put this hardened carbon back into the ocean, but Sant explained that this is a natural mineral that belongs to the inherent balance of the ocean. And considering that the ocean covers more than 70% of the surface of the planet, this method of storage is arguably more scalable than if we tried to store carbon underground.
The journey ahead is long, and how to scale this operation is still being worked out, but Sant said we owe it to ourselves to try. To really make a difference in climate change, we would need to remove at least 10 billion to 20 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. This would require at least 1,800 industrial-scale versions of what Sant’s team has developed, costing many, many more millions of dollars.
~snip~
“The oceans are the world’s largest sink of carbon dioxide emissions,” Sant said. “The ability to couple an engineering intervention with such an incredibly large natural system is one of the only ways we’re going to be able to tackle a problem this large, in terms of size and scale.”
Link to entire article: https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2023-04-13/boiling-point-removing-carbon-from-ocean-climate-solution-boiling-point
Taking Carbon from Ocean in Climate Fight--today's LA Times
The ocean, after all, has long been a silent hero when it comes to climate change. It has absorbed almost one-third of the carbon dioxide released by humans since the Industrial Revolution — and more than 90% of the resulting heat. Talk long enough to anyone who works in marine science, and you’ll inevitably hear someone sigh and explain that this issue often flies so under the radar that it’s now dubbed “the other CO2 problem.”This excess heat from unchecked carbon emissions has unfolded in insidious ways underwater. Sea level rise. More intense marine heat waves. And when carbon dioxide mixes with seawater, it undergoes chemical reactions that increase the water’s acidity, which can discombobulate fish and wreak havoc on marine ecosystems. Our coral reefs are dying, and scientists have also found that harmful algal blooms are getting more toxic — and occurring more frequently.
In the year 2021 alone, the world’s oceans got hotter by about 14 zettajoules. This is a mind-bending number, so thermal scientist John Abraham, at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, put it this way in an op-ed in the Guardian: “The oceans have absorbed heat equivalent to seven Hiroshima atomic bombs detonating each second, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year.”
So with all that in mind, I took a tour Wednesday of what has been billed as a game-changing, first-of-its-kind technology in removing carbon dioxide from the ocean. The pilot system, dubbed SeaChange, essentially pumps in seawater, extracts the carbon dioxide, and then, through a surprisingly simple process, converts the CO2 into a solid mineral that can be stored safely away. This in turn frees up the ocean to absorb more carbon emissions from the atmosphere. It’s a multimillion-dollar idea that researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have been putting to the test.
~snip~
To start the carbon-removal process, the researchers first run an electrical charge through the water. (Seawater, I learned that day, holds about 150 times more carbon dioxide than air per unit of volume). The electrolysis makes the water alkaline, which initiates a series of chemical reactions that ultimately neutralizes and traps the carbon dioxide into calcium carbonate — a fine powdery mineral that is found in seashells and limestone.
“The process relies on really simple, really elegant chemistry,” Sant said, adding that he was particularly proud of how remarkably energy efficient his team was able to make this whole operation. In a unique twist, hydrogen also gets created as a co-product, which helps power the carbon-removal equipment. (For every 220 metric tons of seawater that gets processed, about one metric ton of CO2 gets removed, while simultaneously producing about 35 kilograms of hydrogen.)
~snip~
And get this, it’s not only the carbon-free seawater that gets released back into the ocean. The calcium carbonate also gets returned to the seafloor. It seems counterintuitive to put this hardened carbon back into the ocean, but Sant explained that this is a natural mineral that belongs to the inherent balance of the ocean. And considering that the ocean covers more than 70% of the surface of the planet, this method of storage is arguably more scalable than if we tried to store carbon underground.
The journey ahead is long, and how to scale this operation is still being worked out, but Sant said we owe it to ourselves to try. To really make a difference in climate change, we would need to remove at least 10 billion to 20 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. This would require at least 1,800 industrial-scale versions of what Sant’s team has developed, costing many, many more millions of dollars.
~snip~
“The oceans are the world’s largest sink of carbon dioxide emissions,” Sant said. “The ability to couple an engineering intervention with such an incredibly large natural system is one of the only ways we’re going to be able to tackle a problem this large, in terms of size and scale.”
Link to entire article: https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2023-04-13/boiling-point-removing-carbon-from-ocean-climate-solution-boiling-point
Profile Information
Name: PeggyGender: Female
Hometown: Manhattan Beach, CA
Home country: USA
Current location: At home
Member since: Thu Feb 3, 2005, 02:41 PM
Number of posts: 149,571
