OR - Climate change is ravaging the oceans. Some startups see a solution in marine carbon capture
Find out more about our Reverse Course series here. With the flip of a switch at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s seaside facility in Sequim, Washington, a tangle of pipes and filters whirrs into action, scrubbing acid from the cool gray waters of the Salish Sea. It’s the pilot project of Ebb Carbon, one of several companies building a business on ocean carbon removal technology. As money pours into companies promising to take greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere, there’s a small but fast-growing sector of startups that want to leverage one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks to clean up humanity's pollution: the ocean. "The ocean basically provides this huge surface for gas exchange for free," says Ebb co-founder Matthew Eisaman. “We were trying to think of the lowest-cost way to do this, and you sort of naturally comeFind out more about our Reverse Course series here. With the flip of a switch at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s seaside facility in Sequim, Washington, a tangle of pipes and filters whirrs into action, scrubbing acid from the cool gray waters of the Salish Sea. It’s the pilot project of Ebb Carbon, one of several companies building a business on ocean carbon removal technology. As money pours into companies promising to take greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere, there’s a small but fast-growing sector of startups that want to leverage one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks to clean up humanity's pollution: the ocean. "The ocean basically provides this huge surface for gas exchange for free," says Ebb co-founder Matthew Eisaman. “We were trying to think of the lowest-cost way to do this, and you sort of naturally comeFind out more about our Reverse Course series here. With the flip of a switch at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s seaside facility in Sequim, Washington, a tangle of pipes and filters whirrs into action, scrubbing acid from the cool gray waters of the Salish Sea. It’s the pilot project of Ebb Carbon, one of several companies building a business on ocean carbon removal technology. As money pours into companies promising to take greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere, there’s a small but fast-growing sector of startups that want to leverage one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks to clean up humanity's pollution: the ocean. "The ocean basically provides this huge surface for gas exchange for free," says Ebb co-founder Matthew Eisaman. “We were trying to think of the lowest-cost way to do this, and you sort of naturally come to rely on Earth systems that are already happening anyway.” to rely on Earth systems that are already happening anyway.” to rely on Earth systems that are already happening anyway.”
Find out more about our Reverse Course series here.
With the flip of a switch at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s seaside facility in Sequim, Washington, a tangle of pipes and filters whirrs into action, scrubbing acid from the cool gray waters of the Salish Sea.
It’s the pilot project of Ebb Carbon, one of several companies building a business on ocean carbon removal technology. As money pours into companies promising to take greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere, there’s a small but fast-growing sector of startups that want to leverage one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks to clean up humanity's pollution: the ocean.
"The ocean basically provides this huge surface for gas exchange for free," says Ebb co-founder Matthew Eisaman. “We were trying to think of the lowest-cost way to do this, and you sort of naturally come to rely on Earth systems that are already happening anyway.”
The system Eisaman is referring to is the carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere naturally seeps in and out of the ocean’s surface waters, but marine organisms take up some of it to build things like shells and coral skeletons. When they die, some of that carbon sinks and is stored for eons in the ocean’s depths.
But carbon dioxide also makes seawater more acidic. So much of humanity’s carbon pollution has ended up in the ocean that it’s impeding those sea creatures’ abilities to grow.
Ebb’s device neutralizes the acid in seawater and resets the natural system so it can lock up even more carbon deep in the ocean. If carbon dioxide is giving the ocean acid reflux, Eisaman says, think of this as giving it a Tums.
“Nature has shown us what works,” says Ben Tarbell, another co-founder. “If we can nudge those ocean processes and those natural ocean ecosystems, we can drive something that can scale very cost-effectively."
This system in Sequim Bay removes about 100 tons of CO2 per year, nowhere near the 1 billion tons per year that some scientists say is necessary, but Tarbell says they hope to scale up by plugging into places that already filter a lot of seawater like desalination plants.
Seashell SOS
Next to Ebb’s system, scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Lab are testing whether “enhancing ocean alkalinity,” as Ebb and others call it, could also help slow or reverse the effects of ocean acidification.
Researchers are raising shellfish in tanks and jars full of water treated by Ebb to different levels of acidification, their pH levels scrawled on pieces of red, orange and yellow tape.
It would be impossible to filter enough ocean water to undo ocean acidification around the world, but the National Lab’s Nicholas Ward says it might be possible to mitigate its effects on a local level, like in a bay where water circulates slowly.
“It’s a little early to tell,” says Ward, “but we are definitely seeing responses both in the chemistry and some of the biology.”
