SeaCURE, an ocean-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) project, has officially launched pilot operations in Weymouth, United Kingdom. 

The pilot facility is projected to have an annual capture capacity of 100 tonnes of atmospheric CO2, and will serve as a testing and refinement ground to verify the decarbonization impact of this novel CDR approach, gathering knowledge towards future operations scaling.

Powered by nearly $4 million (£3m) in governmental funding, the SeaCURE initiative is a collaboration between leading academic experts coming from backgrounds in ocean carbon, marine law, green infrastructure, climate monitoring and modeling, and life cycle analysis. 

This scientific body is further supported by engineering and tech SME partners, who provided expertise on the plant design and construction, aligned with water processing and carbon removal needs.

The innovative technology deployed at the SeaCURE pilot facility pulls ocean water to an onshore processing point, where its acidity is raised, causing the naturally accumulated CO2 to be released in gas form. 

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Once released, the CO2 is then sucked away and treated with charred coconut husks to increase its concentration, creating a carbon dioxide stream that is ready to be safely stored.

The resulting low-carbon seawater is treated with alkali to bring its acidity back to normal levels before being released back into the ocean, where it will continue to absorb atmospheric CO2 through naturally occurring processes. 

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While consuming high amounts of energy to function, this technology still offers a promising pathway for scrubbing excessive CO2 from the air, as it might allow for more substantial decarbonization when compared with direct air capture solutions, due to the higher amount of concentrated carbon dioxide in the seawater than in the air. 

When applying for governmental funding, the SeaCURE team stated that in the long run, once scaled to large levels, this solution could remove 14 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, a scenario that would require only 1% of the world’s ocean to be processed with this CDR technology. 

This vision would also require the use of renewable energy to power the solution, which could be accomplished through the use of a floating solar panel installation.

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