FAQs

Is it really effective to get carbon out of the atmosphere by sinking it in the ocean? The carbon is still here, so how does this help?

[Yes, totally effective; kelp absorb CO2 for one thing; CO2 in the atmosphere is bad because of warming, in the ocean is fine]

Is it sustainable to sequester carbon this way? How much carbon can we remove from the atmosphere using this method, and how long will it stay down there?

[Yes, and a lot (250 sq km farm could offset entire US footprint), and a long time (low sediment vs sediment, either way, geologic time scale)].

Will the ropes present hazards to marine life? What happens to them when they hit the seafloor?

[Biodegradable materials, the rope is fine, buoys help us monitor marine life, other points from Joe].

Isn’t carbon capture a false solution to climate change? How is this different?

Yes, carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) projects are almost always a false solution to the problem of too much CO2 in our atmosphere — that’s why fossil fuel companies are so excited about them. CCS and CCUS projects involve the construction of infrastructure to capture CO2 emissions as they are produced from industrial processes; this captured CO2 is then either stored (which means transporting it by pipeline, roads, and/or ships and pumping it into underground carbon storage facilities) or used for “enhanced oil recovery”: CO2 is transported to oilfields and injected into the subsurface, increasing pressure and forcing oil up into production wells faster. Climate experts have long warned against betting on CCS/CCUS for a wide variety of reasons, from the pragmatic (additional emissions generated by transporting captured CO2 often cancel out the emissions that were avoided by capturing it) to the big-picture (CCS/CCUS does nothing to address the global oil addiction destroying our planet).

Our solution is radically different. Growing kelp emits no CO2 and requires no land; kelp needs no tending or added nutrients; the process of sinking the kelp also emits no CO2. Sequestered CO2 is “stored” safely in kelp beneath the ocean floor, not in pipelines that require upkeep and carry a risk of leaking or exploding. Each component is built with materials that are easily acquired, low-cost and, where possible, carbon neutral. Because our system relies on saildrones, not people, to reclaim smart buoys once a line is dropped, we avoid even the relatively minimal emissions that would be generated by small marine vessels.