Cquestrate: An Interesting Environmental Idea
I've stumbled upon a website called Cquestrate, which is an "open-source" movement to bring an idea to fruition, thus solving the problem of excessive CO2 emissions in our atmosphere. The idea: Add lime to our sea waters. Adding lime will give the sea water twice the capability of absorbing CO2, and even though the process of extracting the lime via mining creates CO2, the amount it ends up absorbing is double of what is needed to extract it, thus still being a "carbon-negative" process.
They're looking for intelligent people who are experts in related fields (mining, environmental analysis, bulk transport, etc.) to submit their ideas and answers to problems to their website. Even if their method of adding lime to seawater doesn't end up working, their method of finding a solution is very creative and powerful. Utilizing the internet and patent-free ideology, they can freely tap into the enormous brain power of everyone who visits their website.
And speaking of their website, here it is!
Do you think it's a viable method of reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? Add your thoughts in the comments below.
July 22nd, 2008 - 09:38
Seems to me that the idea of messing with the chemistry of the ocean is a little risky. I don’t have any specific examples, but I know in the past that small changes to the waters have had drastic effects on the ecosystem. Something like the change in water temperature can set off a chain reaction that leads to massive imbalances of sea life. Definitely worth experimenting with, though.
August 6th, 2008 - 10:12
Hi Brian. I’m working with Cquestrate and would like to thank you for picking up on this and helping to spread the word.
As you say, even if the process doesn’t end up working, we’d like to be seen as an example for large-scale scientific collaboration. There are certainly many benefits to this model.