How Shocking the Ocean Could Turn It Into a Carbon Removal Powerhouse
A startup has begun a unique experiment in the Port of Los Angeles to electrochemically treat seawater and safely store carbon.
A rendering of what Equatic’s ocean-based carbon dioxide removal plants could look like.
Courtesy of Equatic
The Port of Los Angeles is home to a new, high-stakes science experiment. There, a 100-foot-long blue barge is decked out with five rows of oblong, olive-colored tanks standing horizontally on the bow while midship sits a jumble of large metal boxes, transparent tubes, cisterns and electronics. This incongruous assemblage of technology invented at the University of California at Los Angeles is called SeaChange, and its creators’ ambition is to exploit the vastness of the ocean to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to avert catastrophic climate change.
The ocean is already the planet’s most powerful carbon removal tool. But we need it (or something else) to do more to reach net zero emissions. This startup thinks it has the solution: pulling seawater from the ocean and zapping it to remove and store carbon.