A few weeks ago I wrote about how seaweed could be used to treat COVID-19. And as amazing as that would be, it’s surprisingly not the only way that seaweed could soon be saving lives. For seaweed may turn out to be key to counteracting the damaging effects of Climate Change, doing far more good than any forest ever could.
Fast Company explains:
“Off the coast of Portland, Maine, an aquaculture startup that raises shellfish is also working on a more radical project: raising kelp in the open ocean, then sinking it to the seafloor to sequester the carbon inside.
The company, called Running Tide, argues that the approach could be essentially a permanent way to deal with the excess carbon in the atmosphere. Like trees, seaweed forests suck in carbon from the air as they grow. But while carbon in forests on land can sometimes be lost—as in California, where more than 2 million acres of trees have burned so far this year—kelp that sinks to the bottom of the ocean can stay there for centuries.
‘Once it goes down below 1,000 meters, it’s not coming back up, because the pressures are so great,’ says Marty Odlin, the founder of Running Tide. ‘So you can get at least 1,000 years of sequestration. More likely, it will turn into oil or sediment and be sequestered on the geologic timescale—millions of years.’
Done at a large scale, the process could make a meaningful difference. A 2019 study that looked at the potential for seaweed farming to offset carbon emissions calculated that growing and sinking macroalgae in a tiny fraction of the federal waters off the California coastline could fully offset emissions from the state’s enormous agriculture industry, for example. Negative emissions projects such as this—or forest restoration or technology designed to suck carbon from the air—will be necessary to reach climate goals. Shifting to zero-carbon solutions such as renewable energy is also necessary, but the world will also need to capture the excess carbon that already exists (and offset sectors such as aviation that will be slower to decarbonize).”
This is an amazing idea. Allowing us to offset carbon in the atmosphere without having to rely solely on planting trees, which are susceptible to factors beyond our control. Instead, we can put the planet’s lungs deep under water, where no one can get to them, and nothing bad can happen to them. Where there’s no chance of them getting punctured.
I especially like the part where we allow nature to run its course on geological timescales once again. To me, that makes sense. Removing something from the Earth while simultaneously replenishing the source. Doing what we do now: taking twice as much as our planet can offer and never replacing it, makes no sense whatsoever.
Who would have thunk it though? Seaweed saving the day. In more ways than one. Amazing.
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