[GWSG] SeaChange becomes Equatic

[Tilley, Al]

Success in controlling greenhouse gas emissions alone will not take us to a safe place. We also need somehow to draw down and sequester some of the carbon we have already put and are putting into the atmosphere. That will require a scalable, efficient technology, featuring a secure and harmless way to sequester the carbon. It will help if it is cheap. Methods which are covert ways of continuing to burn fossil fuels while capturing some of their emissions need not apply.

A couple of years ago SeaChange, developed at UCLA, looked as if it might rise to the occasion. Electrolysis chambers dragged by ships and powered by solar cells would fix aquatic carbon in mineral form and release it to the sea bottom. Now, after successful pilots, most recently in Singapore, the project has resulted in fixed plants along the shore and SeaChange has been renamed. Equatic and the UCLA Institute for Carbon Management are moving through a development process with the goal of scaling and commercializing the process globally.


The process produces hydrogen as a byproduct; it will be used to drive the plants once they are in operation. The plants remove atmospheric as well as aquatic carbon. https://samueli.ucla.edu/ucla-institute-for-carbon-management-and-equatic-to-build-the-worlds-largest-ocean-based-carbon-removal-plant-in-singapore/


Equatic is already the target of distortion and dismissal. Inside Climate News provides some examples, perhaps through confusion with other aquatic proposals. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01032024/todays-climate-ocean-carbon-capture-climate-change/  I take the propaganda effort which appears to lie behind the article as an indication of a promising future for Equatic and UCLA’s mission. At least someone appears to see Equatic as a threat to business as usual.
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