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When the Paris Agreement was inked in 2015, 195 nations (including the United States) committed to curb global warming to a maximum of 1.5-2º Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels. It’s Uphill battle to get every nation to fulfill its role, and even if they pull through we’ll still face major environmental consequences, like a decline in most of the world’s coral reefs and lower crop yields. We can still avoid the worst disasters if we stick to this goal.
So all hands are on deck to reduce carbon emissions and strip the atmosphere of its excess greenhouse gases—and that means no solution is being ignored. One emerging method of carbon removal that’s especially gaining interest is inspired by Earth’s green beaches. That’s not an eco-friendly euphemism—we’re talking about literal green beaches.
More specifically, we’re talking about harnessing the carbon-capturing power of green-colored olivine crystals. Olivine is one among the most abundant minerals on Earth. It absorbs carbon dioxide through a chemical reaction similar to the rusting of iron metals—except that instead of iron + water + oxygen = rust, the reaction goes olivine + carbon dioxide + water = silicate + calcium carbonate + magnesium ions. This makes olivine an excellent natural air purifier. It absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locks it in harmless products that can be used to form coral reefs.
Over a trillion tons olivine is available, largely in Earth’s mantle. It is often brought to the surface by volcanic eruptions, which can form green crystals that can be used to create natural green beaches. There are four such beaches worldwide, located in Hawaii, Ecuador Guam, Norway, and Guam.
Ashley Balzer Vigil and Leyla Gokocek
In these locations, olivine is helping counter climate change—albeit slowly, on geological timescales. Scientists believe that we might be able to dramatically scale this natural process, called enhanced mineral weathering. Project Vesta, a non-profit organization, aims to prove this. They plan to deploy olivine in the waters of one Northern Caribbean beach and measure how efficiently the olivine captures the carbon.
ResearchThis method works best when olivine particles stay in motion. Natural wave action at the coast can whip the olivine sand into smaller pieces, which will maximize the amount of carbon dioxide that can be removed. Preliminary studiesThis method could make a significant impact on carbon emissions.
“According to our analysis, we could remove a billion tons of carbon dioxide using less than 0.25 percent of the world’s coastal waters,” Project Vesta CEO Tom Green told The Daily Beast. “That would be an enormous contribution toward our climate goals—far larger than any other carbon dioxide removal solution currently available.”
The benefits wouldn’t stop there. Enhanced weathering in coastal waters can also be beneficial. reduce ocean acidification. The ocean has been absorbing most heat trapped in greenhouse gases. This has helped to reduce it by about 93% over the last 50 year. This comes at a significant cost as the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide, making it more acidic. This can make it difficult for certain animals to build shells and skeletons and can cause coral reefs to die. These effects are felt throughout the ecosystems of these organisms.
New Zealand finds Olivine
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If Project Vesta collects data showing that enhanced weathering helps deacidify the ocean, then scaling up the process could protect entire species of marine animals (including the fish and shellfish that sustain so much of the world’s food supply) and preserve coral reefs that Stormbreakers to protect the coastline infrastructureAll this while reducing human carbon emissions that harm terrestrial environments.
Project Vesta’s calculations propose collecting a billion tons of naturally made olivine sand every year, and distributing it over about 28,000 miles of coastline. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and MedicineThis process could be scaled up to take in more than 1,000,000 people, according to estimates. gigatonAnnual production of carbon dioxide
But decades of research and theoretical models don’t sway people into investing time and money into these types of projects—results do. Hence the reason so many people are watching Project Vesta’s trial with keen interest.
“Moving from theories on paper to real world experiments is a key part of the puzzle, offering the opportunity to assess how well the method truly works,” Rosalind Rickaby, a professor of biogeochemistry at Oxford University, told The Daily Beast. “Putting it into practice is so important because no matter how the results come out, we’ll have narrowed the pathway forward by giving enhanced weathering a scientifically demonstrated green or red light.”
There are many ways to improve weathering. Rickaby’s research involves assessing enhanced weathering on different terrains as part a consortium funded in part by the UK Research and InnovationThis paper aims to determine the security and integrity of carbon dioxide storage using this method. It also addresses potential side effects from the ions released during the process. Early resultsThe consortium is optimistic and suggests that the ions may help replenish ion depleted environments in the sea and in agricultural soils, improving plant growth and algae growth. Project Vesta also claims that the process appears to have been safe for the environment based upon preliminary toxicology data.
Enhanced weathering can be one of many. Carbon capturing methods currently in development—all of which will still be worth pursuing regardless of Project Vesta’s results. “We will likely need a cocktail of approaches to safely engineer our way out of the climate crisis,” Rickaby said. “Using any one of them on a global scale will probably have negative side effects, so deploying several methods at moderate levels seems to be a safer approach.”
Given the current state on our planet, we don’t have enough time to try each solution individually. Our best chance of healing the Earth is to pursue multiple carbon removal technologies, which include enhanced weathering.
