Scientists Agree to Study How Oceans Help Remove Carbon Dioxide

• NPG
• December 23, 2021
• NPG Commentary
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December 23, 2021

Scientists Agree to Study How Oceans Help Remove Carbon Dioxide

Are Oceans the Answer to Curb the Amount of Carbon Dioxide in Our Atmosphere?

A new report approving the study of ocean-based carbon dioxide removal strategies was published.  As first reported by Columbia Climate School:  The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine believes the United States should take on this sizable research program to investigate how oceans can be utilized to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This study stems from a 2019 National Academies work that declared to the world’s nations that “in order to meet internationally agreed-upon climate goals, the world’s nations would need to remove roughly 10 billion tons of CO2 from the air every year by 2050—nearly a quarter of current annual emissions—in addition to reducing emissions.”

Creating and funding a program to understand how the ocean can help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could potentially lessen the heavy burden of carbon dioxide removal from other land-based options such as storing carbon in agricultural soil or changing forest management. Another alternative to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would also increase the likelihood that we (humans) can downshift towards a more stable, sustainable, less polluted environment. Less is known about ocean-based strategies (versus land-based), and research to fill in the blanks on the risks, benefits, and possible trade-offs would be an asset. New methods could boost efforts to remove carbon dioxide, as noted in the Environmental News Network article: “Some prospective methods could include cultivating seaweed on vast scales, manipulating seawater nutrients, or even passing electrical currents through the water.”

Recommended by the report is a $125 million research program “to better understand the technological challenges, as well as potential economic and social impacts. The research should start now and continue over the next ten years.”

The research would cover six areas of opportunity:

1. Nutrient Fertilization
2. Seaweed Cultivation
3. Ecosystem Recovery
4. Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement
5. Electrochemical Processes
6. Artificial Upwelling and Downwelling

This research could potentially provide substantial proven methods to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Safe-guarding the environment is fundamental for a sustainable future, and this approach could yield impressive results. Concurrently, NPG believes fewer human activities, which lead to carbon dioxide emissions, can be achieved through working together to slow, halt, and eventually reverse population growth.

To read more on population issues, please see NPG’s Forum paper series, notably:

How COVID, Climate, and the Cartels Reshape U.S. Refugee Policy, by Edwin S. Rubenstein

Climate Change, Migration and National Security, by Edwin S. Rubenstein

The True Environmental Disaster – The Silence on Our Growing Overpopulation, by Michael G. Hanauer

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