CLIMATEWIRE | The Biden administration is ramping up research related to increasing the carbon-absorbing capacity of the seas — a potential climate solution that could reverberate across ocean ecosystems and coastal communities.
The National Science Foundation on Thursday took the first step to establish a federal research program for marine carbon dioxide removal, or CDR.
"The ocean is one of the largest natural reservoirs of carbon on Earth. It already removes much of the carbon dioxide that people produce, and it may have the potential to do much more," the agency said in a Federal Register notice. "It may be possible through marine CDR approaches to safely enhance the natural capacity of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide through a variety of physical, geochemical, and biological processes."
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The research comes as the Energy Department is pouring billions of dollars into developing direct air capture hubs that would suck carbon out of the sky, while providing millions more to test other land-based carbon removal methods. The agency has held off on funding ocean carbon removal pilot projects but signaled that it plans to do so soon.
Scientists say the world will need to deploy technical approaches to remove carbon from the air and seas to help avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Oceans mainly accumulate carbon when microscopic plants known as phytoplankton and other biological matter settle on deep seafloors.
Ocean-based carbon removal aims to speed up that process by, for example, cultivating and then intentionally sinking micro algae or seaweed. Other efforts would use minerals and electricity to change the alkalinity of the oceans to allow seawater to absorb more CO2 from the air.
While those approaches could be effective at reducing global warming and ocean acidification, they could also have unintended negative impacts on some sea life.
The federal research program seeks to weigh those potential trade-offs. To help guide its efforts, the National Science Foundation is asking for public input on which questions or concerns the program should address. It also hopes to identify potential knowledge gaps and regulatory hurdles that could hamper efforts to store more carbon in the seas. The deadline to submit comments is the end of April.
The White House called for more research into marine carbon removal in its Ocean Climate Action Plan. The document, released last March, set a goal of 2030 for deciding how — or if — marine carbon removal could be used.
NOAA has already begun to fund independent research on marine carbon dioxide removal. In September, the agency provided $24.3 million to support 17 research projects focused on different approaches and their risks and benefits.
Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.