How to capture 2 billion tonnes of CO2 AND fix our oceans.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 พ.ค. 2024
- Carbon Dioxide removal from our atmosphere is now an unavoidable and essential aspect of our climate mitigation challenge in the 21st Century. We've left it so late that just reducing our emissions is no longer enough. Now a UK based company called Brilliant Planet has perfected a method that, at full scale, can drawdown 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere every year while also restoring alkalinity levels to our ocean ecosystems.
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i'm from Algeria and live in the desert, and algae really grow like crazy here even in the middle of summer as long as there is plenty of water
i was trying to grow duckweed to feed my chicken but duckweed started dying when temperatures reached 40C so i gaveup and let my small 2x4m artificial pond dry, but ended getting 5kg of free dry algae and i was feeding it to tilapia fishs i'm raising, so i avoided buying expensive fish feed
I really like how this guy puts his videos together. And it isn't ever clickbait. Thanks for not ever wasting my time.
hear hear well said!
Its click bait 😂😂😂😂😂😂 he is talking trash Everything he says. Is bs….😂
@@bestyoutube5318 Let them thank their fellow fear-driven sheeple.
@@bestyoutube5318 Then why are you watching?
@@bestyoutube5318 Reported as spam.
What saddens me the most is that despite the decades long push to plant trees and stop the deforestation of rain forests, it seems most of that effort has fallen along the wayside. I am in my 60's and can recall hearing about these issues 50+ years ago and we still are decades behind according to experts.
Yes. The same "experts" who keep predicting (for example) that we'll all be extinct by 2016 because of sea levels. Or the food shortages because of the ice age in the 80's... I remember the 80's, I've never even seen snow.
Better to err on the safe side. IF (big if) they can "capture carbon" effectively... go nuts. Get it done already.
The next "problem" will be the forests dying off because "big carbon" has sequestered all the CO2 and the "trees can't breath!!!"
There is just too much money wrapped up in land speculation, in timber, in massive hydro, and in farming for it to ever stop. At the point that nations like Brazil are turning a blind eye to genocide of natives and illegal deforestation in front of the entire world stage, there is just no stopping it. Unless the money spent on mitigation can be redirected so that people in Brazil can have a good living without resorting to these kinds of operations, how will it ever stop? Because the problem isnt a technological one, or even a political one. The problem is a basic economic one. As long as people are struggling to survive, they will do what they can to survive. If that means burning old growth forests, and endangering wildlife that is what it means. If it means murdering native tribespeople to be able to do that, then that is what it means. And lets face it, the richest countries in the world just flat out refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, so how to we expect Brazil or any other equatorial nation to do so? We lead by doing, and our leadership in the "developed" world has been shameful, so there we are.
@@patreekotime4578 Exactly.
Don't worry though. The WEF have decided it's a problem and have decided they have the solution to the problems they have collectively created.
See, up until now, they weren't working together to make us ALL struggle for a living. "Now get back in your pod, and enjoy your bugs. Stop thinking, we didn't go to all the trouble of creating that entertainment for you so you could ignore it."
The politics of wilful ignorance
Populism ..crude ideologies and
dictatorships are a large part of the problem .
Bolsinaro in Brazil is a classic example of what happens when a right wing popularist, want to be dictator thats soely driven by personal ego and greed gets to raid the greatest natural resource on the planet ... but their only plan is to
Sell it out to their national and international market cronies .. if they cannot eat it or sell it as quickly as possible before they loose control ....like Trump. Though they can also hide behind Communism or just plain old cleptocratic autocracies.
Trouble is the real wealth is the millions of unique species we dont even no about and the genetics and chemistries they have evolved.
Also the rainforests soils are thin and poor and its only the forests that hold it together and they also hold the water cycle in place..
Theocracy's are mostly equally as complicit... with a few exceptions that usually end up being suppressed or declared heretical.
Some things are too important for chiefs... 😉
When everything is dying ..then will come the time of Rainbow 🌈 warriors ...
2 days ago we lost James Lovelock ... author of the Gia principle.. he was 103...untill a fall last year at home he was still walking the costal path and carrying out experiments and teaching the world about the nature of nature on this planet.
Time for the big men to go back
to school and if they wont then pester power of billions kids and parents..is quite something to behold...but we do all have to pull together and grow up and recognise we all got ourselves into this mess ...and we are going to have to get ourselves out of it.. and its going to be tricky and a long slog even if we
bust a gut to get working.
@@patreekotime4578 also Russia ships over potash to increase production of soyabeansfor export to European chicken farms etc, tackle population regrowth
I wish the best for this organization. I put together a team and tried to promote this idea nearly 15 years ago. We had an outstanding proposal and the numbers to prove that it could work. Sadly, we could muster any funding for the idea - perhaps it was just an idea too far ahead of its time or we simply couldn't reach out the way people can now.
That is so damned frustrating. I also have an idea I've spent quite a lot of time working on, and I'm fairly certain it will never get any traction. It's no wonder we remain in these situations when we don't incentivize innovation.
This is the first company I have heard of that has a real world idea come to a commercially successful and scalable implementation. Very exciting
I would pay extra to get filament for my 3D printer made from this source.
@@jtjames79 algae can be made into filament?
@@martin096 PLA is the easiest to make, not the easiest to print, not the worst either.
And there's lots of fun things you can do with PLA. You can use it to make molds for metal casting. Print the thing, make a cast, burn out the PLA, pour in the metal, break the cast. Bada bing bada boom you got a metal thing.
Yes, but I still don't understand the logic. On one side of the planet we move mountains to extract carbon from the ground (oil, gas, coal)... and on the other side we will make algae capture that carbon and burry it underground... to create "oil, gas, coal". Does this behavior make any sense?
@@thornelderfin
In all honesty, when did human beings ever make sense. LOL
We are a bag of contradictions, when we are at our best we are cooperative and when we are at our worst we are competitive. It has been said in the past that humanity is like a child trying to find its way through, if we manage to grow up as a race what amazing things we might do. But at this point in time we all like children and seems to be behaving like it as a race
I can hardly believe it. A project that's out already, instead of 5 years out into the future. I love it.
Fusion! 😂
@@bjb7587 That does come to mind, as well as solid state batteries, and the driver who is always in front of me going slow in the fast lane every time I get on the freeway. He will get over to the slow lane in about 5 years.
I can hardly believe it too. In fact I'm not sure if I do believe it. I'm sceptical that a company making claims such as this is ever correct about those claims for example when you buy a car they tell you the top speed but then those speeds get checked and then suddenly those numbers are wrong at least some of the time because the company was trying to sell a product. I hope that they are telling the truth about how it is going but I'd like to hear about it from someone who 1) doesn't have an invested interest like the ceo of the company and 2) knows what he is talking about i.e. some sort of scientist. Much as I like this guy he's not technical enough to have checked whether this is actually doing as they say.
@@matthewtalbot-paine7977 i think he is astute enough to smell an openly fake ponsy type scheme
@@williamarmstrong7199 I'm not saying it's a ponzi scheme just that people tend to give you numbers that are exaggerations of the reality and in other cases they outright lie. I mean basically this company seems to be making algae 10 times faster than anyone else which seems a little bit suspicious right off the bat but it's possible it is true it's just difficult to actually find much information about them and what they do that's actually useful. I've emailed them for more info but I sort of doubt I'll hear back. It sounds very promising but I need something more than this video to get me truly interested but I would love to invest in a company like this.
I call this channel just a Brilliant Think. IMO this is the best TH-cam channel for non-biased coverage of potential solutions to counter the effects of human activity on our shared planet. He introduces ideas then points out flaws in the technology or other challenges for technology to become scalable. We are quickly learning the value of algae and bacteria to our lives. I think this is a real world solution that is scalable, and verifiable, with no apparent negative side effects.
I've considered this idea bloody brilliant for nearly 20 years. I'm so happy that it's so very successful.
My spin on this idea is to harvest high quality bio-oil from the algae and combine some of the dry weight algae with aircrete (concrete with oil based detergent) inorder to produce more outdoor ponds and needed buildings while saving over 50% on building materials. All of these processes require low skilled labor and could provide inexpensive housing for the laborers and their families. So much could be done from here, but the point is that it makes sense for mankind and for the environment.
Thank you for a great video.
I used to have micro algae business in North Wales for the aquaculture industry. Our long term goal was exactly this.
What happened to your company?
"was" did it not work or something? 🤔
@@erdelegy yep
@@erdelegy that's 'hopefully' a very clever comment, I really want it to be.
The trouble is that this only works as a business through offsetting, so it only addresses current emissions demand and not historic emissions already in the atmosphere, so unless governments start paying for the capturing of historic emissions, this is never going to scale up fast enough to be effective.
Brilliant. Always amazed of how subjects are properly investigated, mastered and presented.
I am a PhD student from the Oceanography Institute of India. The idea is indeed fascinating and can really work if all the steps are carefully executed and parameters meet the requirement as said. Its highly environment friendly and there is a good chance that it may restore healthy ecosystems and slow Climate change by reducing the rate of Global warming. Benefitting the ocean also by reducing the ocean acidification.
This is one of the first sequestration methods that looks truly sustainable. I really hope it works.
@@guenthermichaels5303 the forestry has to truly sequester. Its mostly just becomes recycled waiting for the next fire or sold as products - sometimes sequesting for a time, but not permanently. They'd have to fall the tree and bury them in such a way not to decompose.
Forests are very important. Forestry itself is not directly helping without the end product getting locked away.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire_Energy
@@jonathanburr9798 Ah, there is a PBS Terra video you need to watch, you can look for it if you care, but forests, depending on a few local factors, only start net absorption of carbon dioxide after 60-80 years, prior to that, they generate more C02 than absorbed. Fires don't kill most forests, you can see this in BC, you can drive by an area that was burned two to three years before and it's green again, the trees starting to recover. So, yes, fires do affect them, but they are not totally lost. Forests also manage humidity. The true challenge is to prevent anyone from cutting down forests that are 60+ years old (normally called Old Growth). Those are the C02 absorbers, cutting them down is a net C02 bomb as all of the moss and everything else that actually traps a lot of the C02 in these old forests dies, producing methane and C02.
@@jonathanburr9798 It's complicated. With harvesting of timber for sequestration and intensive replanting, any forest may be an engine of carbon capture. But it takes planning and MIRACLES:
Measurable in effect
Independent of new fossil or methane emission
Repeatable in other cases
Additive to what would have happened otherwise
Confirmable by simple means
Lasting storage
Economical to implement
Scalable globally
I would rather like to see them producing Terra Preta.
I love this! It would be fun to design an outflow that desalinated enough of the water to create a managed wetlands, salt water marsh and a commercial nursery for habitat restoration projects.
Yup. I feel like this would make a lot more sense..but I suppose this is a company trying to prove the concept and maybe gather data on their successes and errors for a few years
Great news, and thanks again for passing it on ! This and all the other plans and technologies you have mentioned are all essential !
Fascinating!
I'd love a more in depth view into this idea, time to go digging!
I think the depth of these videos is wonderful, and works well for what you're doing, but I'd love extra content where you discuss further, even in a more conversational way.
Similar to Matt Farrell's "still not decided" podcast
I had a similar thought of growing kudzu in the American south, drying it out and sealing the compressed biomass back into West Virginian coalmines. Humidity and transportation complicate the idea, but if one could show reticent people in those areas that carbon capture could be profitable, minds might start changing.
Rather than start from scratch with each batch of algae it would be faster and easier to just remove say 90% and let the remaining 10% go through a few doublings and repeat. I suspect there must be an unmentioned problem of contamination or algal disease that requires continuingly restarting from the flask stage.
Also genetic drift over time as the retained algae evolves to the conditions in the growth ponds risks creating a new invasive strain.
@@SurmaSampo Would the new strain not be more optimized for the growth ponds and less optimized for the wild?
@@catprog Or it makes for a massively rapid bloom and then dies releasing large amounts of methane. No way to know in advance.
More efficient but not safer and not predictable. There is a reason that most agricultural products in the developed world are grown from either controlled hybridization or from "cloned" propogations like clipping or budding. I wonder if an algal mat is dried and then small pieces are reconstituted and then each successive new batch is an exact clone of the original mat?
@@catprog it could be just as likely that a new strain could have *reduced* growth rates so that it requires more energy inputs to get the desired effect. Better to not have any uncontrolled variables.
Thank you, that was both interesting and heartening to watch. I wish that company every success and like their business model
this sounded like an ad! but coming from you this makes it extremely exciting! they have quite an ambitious company name, but might just do it justice! thanks for the video, made my day!
This sounds like an actual practical solution for the carbon capture problem... never heard of them. Thanks for directing my attention to them.
no it's not it's power intensive and corruption based
One solution, a co-solution that is needed among more, because it certainly would be an advancement, but not enough I gather from my initial calculations, due to the fact that the land that meets the conditions is limited. But certainly a good step forward
There are a few things I don't fully understand. 1- While being dried up, doesn't the algae release at least some CO2 back to the atmosphere? 2 - Once the dried up algae is buried does this mean the land on top becomes "sterile" forever or can it be reused after a period of time and if so, how long? 3 - I imagine a few of this recycling plants won't affect climate, how extensive can this be without affecting at least the local climate? 4 - Are there any studies or projects to use the dried up algae to make something out of it? I think if that can be found a way to use this algae without releasing it CO2 back to the atmosphere this method would be not only sustainable but a great development asset.
Thanks for your videos, they are very illuminating and a stark contrast to the general gloominess of these times.
This facility is a carbon-credits factory. Of course the algae will release the CO2 back in the air. Their goal is not to reduce CO2 in the air but to produce money from carbon credits.
By adding the algae to the soil or sand you begin to rebuild a living soil so not only do you bind the mineral soil together and hold on to most of the CO2 that was in the algae but you also activate a living soil which in itself sequestrate's Carbon in large amounts globally if maintained properly.. currently mechanised farming degrades most soils. The biota on and in revived soils increases the capture and redirects the flow of carbon through longer paths in the systems.
As for food and products made from algae there are hundreds from cosmetics, animal feedstocks... which may also help reduce methane produced by cattle.
Its been a food source since ancient times and used as a fertilizer to add to thin soils throughout the western British isles and Ireland's potato crop was grown in fields fed on storm washed seaweed from the beaches.
The latest super food is Spirulina a blue green algae thats grown and dried to add to foods and drinks as its the rich in Omega3 vitamins ..
Fish even Salmon Tuna Mackerel etc that we eat for their oily flesh that helps with the body's management of cholesterol.. and the growth of the brain and protection of nervous system.
Dont actually make those valuable chemicals ...they just concentrate them from their food chains.. that start with BG algae in our oceans. Farmed fish have to be fed concentrates
from crops like flax and other oil rich seeds to produce the Omega fatty acids..but its noticeably less than in wild fish ... so you have to eat double. 🐟🐟 The farmed fish 🎏 to get the same amount.
They can also remove nitrates and phosphates from utrophicated water.. a common problem with farmland run off where fertilizers have been added trying to boost yields.
Carbohydrates ...plants/algae can be converted to plastics alcohols ..etc..even into oils hydrocarbons.
Our present day Oil and gas formed from the very burial and change under pressure and some temperature and away from O2 of ancient sediments laden with organics from ancient phyto and zooplankton.
The Blacksea is one such possible example of this ongoing process.
Oil and gas are too valuable to burn ....is a critical and very early observation of one of the pioneers of oil chemistry.
1 - Probably a little, but not much. As Dave explains, the idea is to dry it out fast enough and thoroughly enough to prevent it from rotting. This is why a desert is an ideal location for this tech.
2 - This desert land is already pretty infertile. Anyway he said they're burying it 4 or 5 meters deep. That's far deeper than most plant roots, even if you were to try to turn this to agricultural land.
3 - I don't see how local climate is particularly affected. Additional evaporation from the open-air tanks? Given this is next to the ocean, that seems meaningless. Depletion of dissolved CO₂ from the local ocean? (Technically when it dissolves it becomes carbonic acid, H₂CO₃, which is why atmospheric CO₂ causes "ocean acidification." And why even without sugar, carbonated water harms your teeth.) Sure, but that naturally balances out both with ocean water mixing, and with absorption of CO₂ from the atmosphere. And atmospheric CO₂ mixes very quickly around the world.
4 - In theory any biomass can at least be burned for fuel and thus energy. But of course then you're putting the CO₂ back into the atmosphere. And given this project is designed for desert environments, there's not necessarily a good market for excess energy there anyway. And if you wanted to produce power on site, you'd do better adding solar and/or wind, as mentioned in the video.
@@ps.2 Thanks for a thorough answer!
I still have some doubts when thinking this on a vast scale. It’s one thing to see a few hectares and maybe that’s the scale it should be kept at. Then again a few hundred tons of dried up algae can be handled whilst thousands…
Finally I wasn’t thinking about conversion to fuel but rather a compost that could enrich the land. I know, desalinating this byproduct is a challenge that may prove to be impossible or at least not economically viable with our current technology but if it could be done well.., that will take this enterprise to a whole new level.
@@savroi You're thinking about giving this operation an additional revenue stream, aren't you? I can't think of other uses for dried algal biomass. There may be some. I do suspect the high salt content is a dealbreaker for many uses. Of course in theory this could work with freshwater algae species and then you wouldn't have all that salt, but ... where you gonna get the freshwater? In these locations, seawater is free for the pumping.
One small issue. Much of the world's coastal deserts have very little ocean upwelling, which would mean that to get sufficient nutrient to grow the algae from the ocean alone would require pumping water from much greater depth.
Thank you again for this clear and pleasant presentation. Interesting stuff and a hopeful technique.
THis is a concept that I was wondering about since the past 4-5 years. But thought there are lot of smarter people who know what they are doing. Really glad that this is a very promising tech If all the plants can put 21% of entire atmosphere with )2, then definitely they know how to scale naturally. So definitely theycan take out the CO2 as well . I once read an article that these dried up algae can be put back into unused mines for sequestration for good. Re using the desert area for this is the best part. The evopration from the ponds can also help the local climate by keeping it cool for vegetation to start. Big boost to the economy of the people living in such airid region. I love this project. I really hope/pray that they succeed.
Same here 👍
Thanks David for another great video! Awesome concept and company this Brilliant Planet has come up with.
The question I still have is, couldn't the algae, combined with the fresh water that evaporates, also be used to creat fertile soil and thus grow plants?
Thanks for your insights!
Do you mean Futile soli?
My guess would be that you are probably correct. Algae is rich in micronutrients, complex chemicals. It can be a part of fertilizer, but then you need a process to produce fertilizer, and buyers. At that point the product is too far from their expertise and they will need new people and it will just complicate things.
I am guessing for now they are getting some funding from universities, some fro. governments and carbon capture price is a cherry on top. So maybe they are thinking about your idea as a possible market in the long term. The sad truth is for now is the demand for algae products is minimal.
Thank you for the wonderful information. I also say that you're easy to listen to and, what appears to be, a natural teacher. Very well done and thank you again for this and your other very well thought out, well spoken and well organized and proper order of revelation.
I had this exact same idea several years ago. Glad to someone with the ability to make it a reality thought of it too.
This is awesome, sounds like the right way to do direct air capture.
Technically I'd say it's _indirect_ air capture. The carbon comes from the seawater, not the air. It is ultimately absorbed from the atmosphere, not by the facility, but in the several square km of sea surface _near_ the facility.
The oceans already absorb most of our excess CO₂ emissions. This works by giving them additional capacity to keep doing so.
I would like for this to succeed. However, I see a problem when scaling this to 10 (or 100) kilometers into the desert. assume15 degree C input for the water (after all it's morocco), I think there must be significant water flow to prevent a maximum output water temperature of 40 degrees C (otherwise the algae get cooked). and obviously 'significant water flow' requires 'significant energy consumption'. I don't see this addressed on the website (which is mostly void of useful technical information).
Even the energy required to
a) filter algae from water
b) transport these algae to the drying zone and spread them
c) collect this dried stuff and transport them somewhere else
and the required labor cost
I wish them good luck, but wouldn't bet my money on it.
I think near the end he mentioned that 'these sites are located where significant solar and wind energy exist' thus implying that these places would run on renewable energy. Makes sense to me.
@@larrybolhuis1049 Even if there is significant energy available, someone should do the math and tell us if Megawatts, Gigawatts, or Terawatts and at what scale are required.
I think it would be much more promising if it were a freshwater system running off sewage flows
That's the first thing I noticed on the company website, the total lack of information - simply a blurb and application requests for senior personnel.
That as THE most encouraging story I've heard you explain, so many are so filled with caveats and 'maybe's' I have to treat them with a grain of salt! Well done, and thank you. 🙂
Hi. Excellent title, encouraging people to think. Your open-minded humility empowers people.
Growing algae where trees would not grow, is like creating another Amazon rain forest. Genetically engineering the algae to produce biofuels, would eliminate the need to bury the remains. Great prospects, thanks. P.R.
This technology along with the calcification drum that also preconditions the water for destalinization are hugely exciting for the ocean ecosystems! I find it interesting that they're sequestering the alge rather than using it as a renewable biomaterial, but it does seem like the high salt content would make it difficult to use for that and hugely helpful for preservation. I'm surprised they're bothering to cap the deposits at all with so much salt.
So great to hear about companies not just developing ideas but also doing it in an environmentally conscious way
Great point. Taking CO2 out of the atmosphere is half of the CYCLE. Turn it into chicken feed human edible protein or at least fertilizer. That said It's a great 1st step.
Would be a perfect feedstock for HTC (hydrothermal carbonisation) to produce "renewable coke"
They could use dry distillation (pyrolysis) of the biomass to extract liquids and gases. If they can generate an abundance of renewable electricity locally as well, the pyrolysis process would use induction heaters rather than consuming the gas, making it more efficient.
@@paulhetherington8927 or they could just dry it in the sun.
@@johnalden948 If we convert it all the Co2 we release to food we will produce over 5 times more food then the average american consume, for the hole planet. I think that is a bit overkill and expensive. Its fine if we put some of it down in the ground. Unless we want to be 40 billion on the planet
To this layman the idea sounds good, but seeing the aerial shots of the site do make me wonder about sea level rise- this is a project hoping to lock carbon away for decades or hundreds of years, I assume, but the site is very close to the sea and looks quite low lying. Is it not vulnerable to being occasionally flooded during storms in future decades?
It’s a good point. It might be that this was just the proof of concept cite though.
Or that the place they dig the biomass is much further inland.
@@Youbetternowatchthis Good point, I don't think the video stated exactly where it's buried. There's a lot of desert to use :)
I assume they don't store it on site if they have half a brain...
But yeah, this is a concern.
This was my first thought as well, but in terms of what would happen if the very potent algae in the tanks would leak back out into the ocean during a flooding?
Same thought occurred to me. But I should think - or hope - that at least one person involved in this project would have worked out that the best place to bury it was at a higher altitude.
If they have, then it's a great idea, and the best one I've heard to date. Every other idea I've heard so far just seems so energy intensive vs quantity of CO2 captured that they seem hardly worthwhile.
Let's just hope that climate change doesn't adversely affect the regions where these projects will be built. Would be a nuisance if they suddenly became deluged with regular rain.
I have been an environmentalist since 1987 and THIS project seems to be the best across the board for sequestering carbon, financial cost and environmental net benefit, period. I've never heard of better.
If they sell the seaweed as cattle feed, they can reduce the methane emissions from beef, the cattle will absorb the excess salt. The fibers from the cow pies can be used in paper production instead of cutting down trees to make paper. Dung beetles can then use the cattle dung to improve the desert soil. Using salt tolerant mycelium, construction material could be made from the seaweed (such solutions are already used with agricultural waste).
I know cap and trade systems aren’t perfect, but this is a great example of why we need them.
The process sounds great, but it also sounds expensive, and they’re currently getting money from voluntary credit purchases. That’s the beauty of a well run cap and trade system: it forces the main polluters to finance needed projects like this one.
Don’t forget that the California cap and trade system is credited with helping Tesla make the jump from startup to profitable company.
I agree - that albeit not perfect - at least many of these projects are getting funded - so it'll lead towards better outcomes. Maybe it'll help us transition better.
@Nicholas Time in 2020 Tesla posted a positive net income for the first time which they posted again in 2021. So far, their first two quarters in 2022 are positive for net income.
I actually hate Tesla, but I can’t argue with the fact that they currently make a profit, and the cap and trade system helped keep them alive until they got here.
Steal my money and gamble with it more please, I'm too dumb to vote with my wallet
@@kapytanhook I could or you can get smart!
@@extropiantranshuman no, they take smart people's money too. And invest it in dumb projects, few are smart enough to escape taxation
Wow! The concept of doubling the amount of carbon removal everyday is very powerful!
Excellent video and love the idea of which we need more off!
Brilliant. THANK YOU FOR SHARING
While I understand the reluctance to pursue technologies that seem to facilitate and expiate continuing pollution, it's a necessary reality that we will need this, even if just to remove what we've already added to the atmosphere. Germany has been forced into doing in a few months what it promised it would do over a decade ago and it is struggling to do so. We have left it too late, we have no choice but to accept these and develop these technologies.
Would be interesting to see some specifications on this, eg CO2 captured per year per area, in comparison to other projects.
CO2 captured per dollar and per KWh would be more interesting. We have plenty of area, we don't have enough money/energy.
@@TestTest12332 I also think per area is semi-relevant because its in dessert.
look up Raffael Jovine, the double Ph.D. marine biologist who founded Brilliant Planet. He says his desert near-ocean algae farms could store, at best, 10 gigatons per year of co2. But this same concept can just be scaled bigger, more inland! Algae is what created oil in the 1st place. I was pushing this idea 20 years ago. Exxon buried it but ecology is bigger than big oil.
Seems to be a great idea and one real world solution.
Let's hope it gets picked up and expanded on.
Exciting news best wishes to the company's success worldwide.
If you are going to produce all this algae, forget the bulking up part. It is expensive and is not necessary. Definitely suck your water from deep enough to reach the nutrient layer. Add some Si as water glass to ensure that diatoms develop and possibly some Fe. Feed the algae to oysters. Now you have a input stream to ensure that the process will not only continue but that more players will get in on the game. Collect the oyster feces and psudo-feces and bury this material. Oysters produce more feces than cows, kg per kg. If you want to add another stage, grow macro-algae such as the type that makes caragenan, agar or that are used for sushi. More income. You don't even need the carbon credits but why not. If someone is willing to give you more money, say thank you.
This is very interesting as a carbon capture and sequestration technology, and as you pointed out, to reach stability and sustainability or the global environment, withdrawal of carbon from the atmosphere appears to be necessary. Additionally though, I wonder if this technology could be used to a biological feedstock that could displace fossil fuels and derivatives. This looks quite promising, and I think that it's worth keeping an eye on this.
The only way this is "sustainable" is if you're able to take the solar energy back out of the carbon-based chemical bonds later. The cycle is that you're releasing energy from carbon-based bonds when you burn fossil fuels. Then you use algae to photosynthesize new carbon-based bonds which can again be used. Of course, it's highly inefficient because photosynthesis is inefficient, but that's the process we have for converting solar radiation into usable power. And of course, the idiots doing all of this have no intention of actually using the power they're storing up for some sort of useful purpose. Nope, they're burying it in the ground because idiot rich people are paying them billions to do that.
Yes, algae can be a feedstock. BUT IT IS EXPENSIVE. But what makes you say "withdrawal of carbon from the atmosphere appears to be necessary"? During the "Cambrian Explosion" atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were about 20 times higher than today. Most contemporary plants, including important C3 food crops, evolved under conditions of considerably higher carbon dioxide than we have at present. Global Greening is an increase in Earth leaf coverage observed by satellites over these past decades; this indicates that a return to pre-historically higher atmospheric CO2 levels is largely benefitting the biosphere. There is no carbon crisis.
Yep I was thinking along similar lines, I don`t see shallow burial as safe, what about fire for example? I think the product would be better utilised as you suggest as a feedstock or perhaps as a bulk soil improver where the carbon is retained in the soil, therby improving fertility and also addressing peak soil issues
@@kma3647 do you think this can be done with plants like hemp and trees?
@@kurtholmy3448 so deserts are not expanding and the Amazon is not burning?
Marvellous video, I have always thought that in the 21st century we could do the most amazing things and yet we seemed unable to develop a filter for co2 for power stations burning coal.
Thank you again for researching these amazing technologies and bringing them to us in laymen's terms.
This one sounds very promising indeed.
Schemes like this should be mentioned on news programmes by way of good news, potentially raising more funds.
This seems smart and efficient. Still a very man-made solution compared to reforesting and rewilding extensive tracts
The planet needs both.
When everything is good, it is often the scale that is the issue. This will be just one small piece of a puzzle, but vital nonetheless
What a brilliant plan, completely local. We need to press on all fronts to reduce the severity and longevity of our self induced climate disaster.
Great content and new to me! Sounds like a good method! 👍💪🙏
Correction : the carbon doesn't come from the deep well ocean water, it would work just as well with surface water. The vast majority of the co2 these algea will come from the atmosphere diffusing in the water whilst in the basins
Well, didn’t he say so? Initially the algea grow in small ponds by using the CO2 initially in the cold water, but in the last stage they grow by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. That’s how I understood this video, but perhaps he wasn’t totally clear about this.
I understood that they were sourcing the water from deep so that it was nutrient dense and the returned water would be warmer and remain on the surface to absorb atmospheric CO2.
as they're pumping up cold ocean water, I wonder if they have any plans to use that heat differential to recoup energy costs. something like an onshore OTEC.
Possibly one of your best posts to date. Thanks.
thank you i enjoyed your video, my minds been racing away on how we can live with not only off grid living but also figuring out how off grid we can get with all of todays tech. with algae you can achieve alot of your off grid living needs. the carbon credits you described has further given my idea a feasible way to live off grid and may even give us a way to earn a living doing our bit to our planet thank you for your knowledge and the others willing to share it.
I had expected more critical presentation, this comes across as basically a commercial, reading the brochure. I'm a bit stunned tbh.
What about the desert ecosystems being disrupted? Are people being displaced? (the Moroccan state specifically is in long-standing conflict with tribes and peoples inhabiting the Sahara) How much hinges on the viability of these "local" algae species? They've made it work in one place, apparently, will it just work everywhere? Will the mass production of algae disrupt local ocean ecosystems? Just how much dried algae can you cram underground? Will the massive buildup of salt have any influence on the operation in the long term? How sensitive is the process to changes and disruptions in... climate? To climate disasters?
The complete reliance on (the current implementation of) carbon credit trading makes me very skeptical as well.
I agree. My solution requires that we chem-trail this planet in order to fix it.
But then, I'm an engineer and we are obsessed with fixing stuff.
Engineers are better than scientists.
This dose sound a lot more promissing then any prior ocean algae CC solution. If they can really solve the contamination issue via use of local algae that alone would be a huge step forward. Algae based biofuels or even food production might also be viable.
Kenneth do you have an opinion on Oceon Pastere Restoration?
Absolutely love this one. Thank you!
Another great video, well researched and presented in a balanced way- always been drawn to algae and seaweed as a climate solution. My wish is the algae produce products like plastic alternatives and oils- would this sea water cycle help the economics??
this would be amazing combined with the companies that are using algae as an alternative to plastics and plasticized foams. The production is great and as far as I am aware the production of those products does not release the sequestered carbon again.
Sounds promising. Hope that such projects will be able to grow at a rapid pace.
They won't. Go learn about your future on my channel..
it would help if there is a tax on carbon emissions worldwide. this trading scheme he mentioned needs to be made obligatory for eveyone (even in China) and strongly supervised and regulated. then ideas like this algae thing wil run on itself
@@TheDoomWizard you're bad at promotion.
@@userI3I2 I checked out his channel. He is basically a clown who is trying to bank on doom fringe theories.
This dude is taking climate change and speeding it up my 100x, in truths the world has a few million years to support life if we continue on our current course, double that if we make quick and effiecent actions like the gentleman explains in the video.
Scaling down the ocean is a very interesting concept. I will be watching their progress closely.
Storing away carbon helps with balancing the carbon budget, but I feel like the dried algae could be sold as sources of carbon, protein, or other minerals. In essence, these operations are “mining” the air and water for certain minerals, so I see this as another use for this technology, more than just carbon offset
I had very similar thoughts. there are also companies using algae to make plastic alternatives which would also help the environment a ton in other ways while still sequestering the carbon.
Great method. Nice mix of natural and technological. I hope they make a substantial contribution, it looks like they can.
Algae need nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur (another minerals) to grow at a fast rate. The double a day is possible in lab conditions.
In the open field, other nutrients will be limiting. Growing on only sea water will be difficult, if not impossible. Also remember that salt inhibits growth.
Why not sell the biomass- it is an excellent animal feed.
@@janami-dharmam they don't say they don't add anything, just that they don't add anything expensive or complicated. And the reason not to use it as feed, is that is simply not their business model for carbon sequestration. Animal feed algae is also important. But that's just not what this is about.
@@gehrigornelas6317 agreed, their main goal is sequestration of carbon, however I feel that also using these operations for animal feed could also help reduce carbon emissions or at least lower food costs by freeing up crop land for human consumption. The fact they are able to achieve such significant growth rate really makes me think they should indeed be trying to use as many of this otherwise mostly unusable desert regions as possible and producing as much algae as possible and at the same time turning a healthy profit in other markets. this not only allows them to diversify income but also that allows more money to reinvest in sequestration endeavors. I also like to think that this could be very helpful combined with sequestration that uses algae as a plastic and plasticized foam substitute.
Thanks you very much. Very informative
Pro-tip. Make some part of the greenhouse roof out of bifacial PV panels to power the whole deal. Now go scale like crazy!
You point out that the buried algae contains a great deal of salt…I can’t be the only one wondering if this process (perhaps with a little tweaking) may also provide desalinated water to parched desert communities like Morocco, Oman…or right here in Southern California…and fresh water would be something they could easily sell.
That would be cool but what is happening is that the water is being removed from the algae via evaporation leaving the salt and algae behind. Once the water is lost to the air it can't be used. This isn't a desalination process but rather a dehydration process.
Evaporate the water from the algae in a sealed greenhouse, dry air is pumped in at one end, the extracted humid air at the other end can be condensed using refrigeration units run off renewable electricity. As an alternative, concentrated solar thermal energy can be used to raise steam which indirectly heats the algae in a jacketed vessel, clean water is driven off leaving a dried biomass.
@@paulhetherington8927 All of which drives up the per unit cost and reduces scalability due to increased complexity. For a solution to work it needs to be economically scalable not also do a bunch of extra things as a premium price.
@@SurmaSampo Possibly true but the open evaporation ponds will take up a greater land area than greenhouses with dehumidification, thus higher capital cost for that element of the civil engineering design. Making use of that clean water in an area that has little rain is a precious bonus on top of the sequestration process on it's own. Food can also be grown in those greenhouses at the same time adding further utility to the same land area. By all means start with open ponds but no harm in getting creative.
@@paulhetherington8927 Unfortunately green houses are quite expensive and water collection via refrigerated condensation is REALY REALY expensive. Refrigeration takes truly massive amounts of energy and what would be required to harvest meaningful amounts of water through condensation would make any project infeasible. This is why you see reverse osmosis desalination plants but you never see condensation plants.
I would like to see a detailed analysis of the depletion of nutrients in coastal waters by this process. As I understand it the, the bulk of the calcium , magnesium, phosphate and other minerals required for the algae to grow come from the seawater. These nutrients are not recovered but are buried along with the carbon. Would this not impoverish coastal ecosystems? Have I missed something here?
That’s an interesting point. I was thinking of other aspects as to how it’d create ecosystem imbalances at first not perceived to exist, and then are found to create massive detrimental side-effects. Solve one problem (real or not) by instead creating worse problems.
I believe deep ocean upwelling zones were mentioned as the targeted sites, which continuously bring nutrient-rich water to the surface. I would hope that angle has been explored - good question!
Agreed. This is yet another myopic solution that ignores the bigger picture. Solve one “problem” and introduce several others. Honestly I don’t believe that the CO2 issue is well understood. Anyone growing plants in greenhouses is aware that increasing CO2 levels in greenhouse significantly increases plant growth. An overall increase in global greening would regulate increased CO2 levels, increase rainfall and help reduce desertification. Sadly this is not a trendy research area and receives almost no funding so it’s very difficult to ascertain if self regulation over time would be a viable CO2 control measure.
@@kalisthenes6650 global co2 levels are roughly 400-500ppm. In the experiments I’m familiar with, the notable differences in growth above atmospheric levels doesn’t occur until reaching 800-1000ppm. This is true for increasing weight in vegetative growth stages but has little effect on fruiting/flowering. In the event that co2 does climb this high, humanity will be toast or likely near extinction.
@@kalisthenes6650 Go and read the various IPCC reports. The positive effects of increased CO2 levels are clearly discussed and there is plenty of research done.
It is by far not enough to counteract our burning of highly compressed biomass that has taken millions of years to turn into the fossil fuels we use.
This is extremely encouraging!
Great video. Made my coffee break. I am enthusiastic but cautious. I'd love to understand the details of how water is kept from the buried algae. If we're just developing a huge source of methane that could be creating a problem rather than solving one. And, as ever, I'd love to see the economics ... indeed, 200 eur/tonne will get you in the competition. 150 or less may get you a win. 100 or less ... we're going to displace even teh stop gaps of traditional CCS.
No desert is without life…what effect does burying the dried algae have on the ecology of the desert? Has Brilliant Planet answered that?
Maybe we should terraform the deserts?
I doubt it, most desert animals and plants wouldn't have developed the enzymes needed to digest algae since you know, it's a fucking desert
Should they look for reasons not to remove CO2 from the atmosphere?
Would slightly changing the ecology of an uninhabited area of desert be reason not to do this?
Are they taking into account potential remain increase at their sites occurring as a result of climate change?
Also, are they effectively salting the land and eradicating any potential for it to be used later on, especially given all that biomass they are sequesting.
Finally, there was no mention (I think) of existing desert ecosystems in the places they are choosing to bury the algae.
My thinking exactly. The reason others are not picking up on this could be that people without ecological understanding believe that deserts are “barren wasteland” which of course they are not. There is a lot of buzz about this without much examination of the impacts. I can’t see that it will be as “green” as the video is suggesting.
It is possible that climate mitigation projects are given something of a pass when it comes to environmental impact in Morocco. It is also frankly development money going into otherwise "useless land", or at least that is how it is often viewed by politicians.
@@patreekotime4578 I think the bigger issue with politicians of most stripes is that come election time they like to show something immediately tangible that has bettered their constituents. Jobs, higher wages, better health or social provisions.
Putting something in place that fixes the climate is a one time thing that cannot be pointed to as a benefit. Your ability to cover your rent, or buy a house, this month and next month etc is something that is always available to help them say "I did that for you".
Whereas " Look you're breathing air that isn't polluted or at 40'C" isn't going to be something they can sell so easily.
Keep us informed. Looks great.
I think this channel is the only part of the media that discusses climate change, which gives me hope. Thank you!
Thank you. I appreciate that :-)
It won’t “take us there” but it sounds like it could be part of the answer.
I could see sustainable deacidification being immediately attractive to eco-touristic regions losing reef/interest/market share. What does sequestration look like for island countries? What depth is the nutrient-rich water drawn from?
First thought I had was countries with coral reefs that are suffering from this. How much would Australia's tourism industry gain from a setup like this?
Reefs are being affected more by ocean temperature than acidification. This process he mentions warms up the water, which would worsen the issue.
@@mersco my understanding is that it is both temperature and pH that inhibit the organisms from fixing calcium carbonate. I am no expert.
@@mersco The ocean is massive, and I cant imagine how much energy would be required to heat it even by a fraction of a degree, but I am sure it would be quite a lot. There is no way that the heat being introduced would make any sort of meaningful difference, and even on a local scale, it would be dispersed long before it was able to make any difference. Also, think about all the hot water coming out of nuclear power plants. That is both a lot more volume, and a lot higher temperatures, yet that is still just a drop in the bucket.
This solution is especially impressive. Thanks!
Super video about a very, very interesting technology. I like the relatively simpleness and that nature is being used in clever way. God speed to Brilliant Planet. BR, Per (DK)
I wonder how hard would it be to turn the dried algae into char? It is certainly hot enough there so solar is the obvious option. And char makes much more sense given its chemical stability. Or, even better still, sell it at a very low cost, or donate it, for use in saving our increasingly degraded soils.
Unfortunately, removing the salt, and then the energy and logistics of transporting the biomass from remote deserts to fertile farmlands would both be pretty big obstacles to this.
It is a carbon credit scheme. Upgrading the carbon is more expensive than cheap desert land
If you sell it, you cannot gaurantee it will not be burned or allowed to rot and thus releasing the carbon.
Someone who has worked in the algae industry for >5yrs here.
1. Normal doubling time of algae is not 12-18 days, for sure. Most species double at around per day at low concentrations, but at higher concentrations this slows as other limiting factors come to play. This sounds like a bit of marketing talk to me.
2. This will require large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus from the sea (or from fertilisers). Typically 106:16:1 ratio of C:N:P. This may work at small scale but at larger scale the local area maybe N or P limited.
If 2 billion tonnes are to be sequestered this would mean 20 million tonnes of P would be required or about 5 years of the global phosphorus supply (~200 million tonnes/yr at ~2% P by weight)
Yup, phosphorus is the limiting factor (we do have enough nitrogen). I have been thinking about this for a while, my solution was turn the algae into charcoal and recycle the nutrients. Note: making charcoal is energy positive. You would really need to capture the CO2 from that or you wind up with a divide by 2 efficiency hit.
Needs to be paired with sewage treatment certainly.
The problem is that not many people live in the desert of Northwestern Africa
I sure hope this works and is implemented immediately!
I hope that this works and leads to further ideas, it is really good.
I was thinking this is the obvious no brainer way of removing co2, so happy to see it working in practice.
Sounds like a great project. I do wonder how long we will be able to rely on burying the matter though. It would be nice to have a "use" for the matter. Could it be turned into fertilizer? (I am not a Biologist or Chemist - for all I know it is an impossibility).
I also hope that one they have sufficient investment to scale up the process, the accountants don't taint or strangle the activity in the name of profits.
At present, the organic matter is much too salty to use as fertilizer, at least in that location. I suspect that the energy (and freshwater) requirements to remove the salt would outweigh the value gained from that sort of use. If similar operations were setup near freshwater sources (with correspondingly suitable algae), that might work, but would compete with many other conventional uses of the water and the land.
I am a biologist. I think it is economically feasible to dump it in the ground plus this project only focus on carbon sequestration atleast for now .btw it is good thought to use it as a biofertilizer. Some other algal strains have to be used and it needs a bit of research, in my opinion with things like acclimatization and carbon capture ability keeping in mind
@@harshdeepsharma6110 a lot of the dead algae should be cellulose, there might be an option to process into some sort of building material perhaps.
@@daruekeller Yeah mate using it directly may not work but with a consortia of other building material may be used.People are using bacterial and cyanobacterial(algae) sludge mixed with concrete to make bricks to be used to make homes on Mars, interestingly they call it astrobiology. See how interesting it is you get to have an astro prefix for making bricks 🙂.Now being brutally honest even 'astrobiologists' are struggling to make it strong enough and economic enough to be used on a large scale. So mate we have to see ECONOMICS.
Also, we also might have to change the subject algae itself so... Primary operation may be affected. Also mate Dry Cyanobacteria is rich in other polymers you've heard of - Proteins and not cellulose.
Burying algae (carbon) it is the whole point of locking up the carbon so it doesn’t re-enter the atmosphere. Oil is buried plant material from millions of years ago. This process returns the carbon into the ground.
Looks promising.
They might want to add some parabolic solar troughs to heat the final stage and speed up evaporation.
The first thing that came to my mind was: Why are they taking 30 days to grow the Algae? If 80% of the growth comes in the last 10 days, why don't they skim off enough algae to start at the 21st day with a new pond? You dry out and bury the rest of the algae from the first pond and continue. Heck, you could have a loop of ten or eleven ponds and process one each day - the extra pond would be harvested and prepared for the new batch the next day.
I would be experimenting with the dried product to see if it can be used in other technologies such as concrete, batteries, or biofuels.
From the video, an advantage of the technique is that the carbon is retained onsite so it's verifiably stored. If it was burned as biofuel the carbon would just go straight back into the atmosphere. Storing it in something useful like concrete is better, but still doesn't meet that verifiability goal.
@@InventiveDingo but if its not reused then we'll just dig up more fuel.
Sounds good, but the limiting factor is how much land is needed to bury the algae (I assume the land can't be reused to bury more). How much land is needed to bury each tonne of CO2?
there is more than enough wasteland around the world to bury the algae; most deserts obviously but also large swaths of land in the US which lost their fertile soil 90yrs ago or so
On average about 10 times less than trees and well the actual numerical answer depends on at what rate? If yearly then that would amount to around 100m^2 or about the size of a single lane in an olympic swimming pool
Edit : just realized the question was about burial not capture and indeed that should not be too much of a worry
well it's irrelevant really, it's going under the ground, so it's got a zero foot print.
1 tonne of dried algae is about 1.5 m^3
@@barongerhardt Two billion tons of CO2 occupies a volume of about 1.1 trillion cubic metres at STP. I have no idea what that would translate to in algae volume if they chomped the lot of it.
I just love solutions. So different from selling us fear. Give me answers an hope.
Carbon dioxide reacts with water to form carbolic acid. It is very easy to remove carbon dioxide from air. We usually mist our smokestacks and very little carbon dioxide is actually reaching the atmosphere from the steaming smokestacks.
I'm really glad to hear the info about this. This algae approach is exactly the process I had thought of being the only really practical approach - just takes a lot of lead time to get the strains and process down. Thanks for sharing this!
This seems to be the most viable solution I've ever heard of so far. It's a great advancement and step in the right direction. More companies need to look into utilizing what nature has already provided us. Another avenue of potential for solving major human problems is with various types of fungi.
No, it's not easy to use other types of biology, because you need to be able to store the carbon at the end in a form which will not re-enter the atmosphere. With fungi, they will rot and release their stored carbon. It's similar to trees, those also don't work.
@@annaclarafenyo8185 oh that makes sense. I was actually only referring to fungi having potential for many other solutions. I love natures ability to adapt and create solutions we can't by technological innovation alone.
This delightful video leaves me optimistic that new technologies might just be able to mitigate environmental damages done by previous new technologies.
I've wondered if all the fish and other things we've depleted were still living how much of a carbon sink would all that life be?
Animal biomass? Not much. All the forests we have cleared? A hell of a lot more.
@@SocialDownclimber Apparently you are unaware that there used to be so many cod on the Newfoundland grand banks that you could lower a barrel and pull them out by the ton.
The Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara is really rather egregious with terrible concentration settlements (I personally have witnessed) that force the firmer nomands into horrible poverty under very strict military occupation which is a definite problem with this ethics of this facility.
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!
Glad you enjoyed it!
This would be fantastic for the desert coastal areas of Western and Southern Australia. Vast tracks of desert or semi desert and very few people.
Dave, always informative. But tbh, this comes across as a little unquestioning, and more like an infomercial, only answering the questions the company want to answer, and that takes away from the objectivity. Greatest respect for your insight and knowledge - given that, I would have expected you to question the numbers. There are some very valid points raised in the comments as you'd expect. Perhaps the issues raised could be put to the company in an interview, so we can see the whites of their eyes?
Quick research says that sand has a density of around 1600 kg/m3. So every layer of algae is buried under 6400 kg of sand per m2. Lifting that sand to create a layer 4m deep is going to require rather a lot of energy, which will presumably require current diesel-fuelled machinery, given the setting. Overall then, what is the carbon footprint of the carbon buried? Why does it need 4m? How spaced are the layers? What is the ecological impact, or does it not matter because it's on 'wasteland' (in other words, NIMBY)?
This ignores all the other issues raised around the whole ethical basis of offsets, which is at best (as you've pointed out) a huge potential greenwashing black hole, and at worst a fossil fuel industry distraction. Surely a carbon tax on emitters takes away the option and means for offsetting, instead incentivising reduced CO2 production? Polluters always trot out the 'hard to decarbonise industries' mantra. Which in layman's terms means 'hurts quarterly profits of sunset industries'.
Dave: I think we most definately need this technology, along with all the other work.
Cheers Bill