Sequestering All That CO2 … In Macroalgae – CleanTechnica

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Without a doubt, we need to install more clean, renewable energy and get more electric vehicles on the road in order to stop heating up the Earth. However, we need more than that now because we’ve already added too many greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. We all know that, but it’s hard to know what to do about it. On that note…

Hans-Josef Fell, Member of the German Parliament from 1998–2013, who presented at a CleanTechnica conference in Germany several years ago, recently reached out to me on this matter. “I’ve often read the good information about carbon sinks in CleanTechnica,” he wrote. “To date, no one has been able to provide any real guidance on how to clean the atmosphere of 1700 Gt of CO2 to get below the planetary limit of 350 ppm. But adhering to the planetary limit is a fundamental prerequisite for preventing human civilization from perishing from the warming of the atmosphere and oceans.” Indeed.

“We (the Energy Watch Group) have now compiled the research results from seaweed research and found that floating macroalgae can remove these huge amounts of carbon in just a few decades, perhaps bringing the Earth back to below 1°C above pre-industrial levels.” Interesting. To look into it and learn more, he directed me to their new report, Cooling our planet with ocean farming: CO₂ removal as the third pillar of climate protection.

“Seaweeds grow very quickly, especially when supplied with nutrient-rich deep water. In the vast, currently unused subtropical gyres, large seaweed farms can be created that permanently remove CO₂ and create new marine habitats,” the report summarizes. “The biomass produced can replace fossil fuels and fossil fuel based raw materials as well as increase global food security. This creates a sustainable marine economy — with opportunities especially for countries in the Global South and for funding large scale carbon removal.”

It all sounds great. It’s an important challenge that, frankly, I think most of us are scared to even think about. The challenge of safely and efficiently removing CO2 from the atmosphere is huge, with most methods carrying along loads of side effects, problems, and impracticalities. But is “ocean farming” like this the key solution? Can this be a sustainable, effective, and safe path forward?

I encourage you to dive into the full policy paper.