American researchers say they have developed a method to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the sea and produce a clean-burning fuel in the process.
The method was created by an engineering team at the University of California, Los Angeles. The researchers say the process can be an additional way to help reduce CO2 from the environment to fight the effects of climate change.
Plants and currents in the ocean take in large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. The sea is estimated to have drawn in about 30 percent of carbon emissions since the Industrial Revolution, The Associated Press reports.
This process has been a major reducer of carbon and helped protect humanity from the effects of early climate change. But carbon emissions also make oceans more acidic. This can hurt ocean structures, called coral reefs. Reef damage can then harm the growth of many kinds of sea life.
Gaurav Sant is the director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management and helped lead the development project. He told the AP that the technology, called SeaChange, is meant to use the ocean’s natural abilities to reduce carbon levels in the sea.
The process sends an electrical charge through seawater flowing through tanks on a large boat. That sets off a series of chemical reactions that turn the carbon emissions into a solid mineral that includes calcium carbonate, the same material seashells are made of. The seawater is then returned to the ocean and can pull more carbon dioxide out of the air. The calcium carbonate settles to the sea floor.
The process has already been demonstrated in California. Researchers are working on plans to begin another project in Singapore. The two projects are expected to be fully operational by 2025. Researchers say they are expected to remove thousands of tons of CO2 per year. If successful, Sant said the plan is to build additional centers to remove millions of tons of carbon each year.
But experts say even if that amount of carbon can be removed, that is still thousands of times less than what will be needed to effectively reduce climate change.