RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink
Greg and Olaf,What might be the minimum inputs such that we could grow and sequester seashells while rapidly recycling most of the nutrients to grow more shellfish? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/can-seashells-save-the-world-813915.html discusses "Not so, it seems, with the coccolithophore, or at least with the most abundant species, called Emiliania huxleyi. The latest study into this species shows that it appears to thrive on high levels of carbon dioxide. Instead of finding it difficult to make its calcium carbonate plates, as some scientists had expected, the organism can, in fact, make bigger and bigger plates as carbon dioxide concentrations are increased artificially, according to a study published in the current issue of the journal Science."Perhaps a more complex model of Ocean Forest would work with the carbon dioxide from the energy separation process (likely either anaerobic digestion or hydrothermal liquifaction) being sequestered as sea shells. In this case, we may have to sell the shellfish meat as food (people, pets, livestock, aquaculture fish) and import more basic nutrients or silicate minerals or calcium from a few 100-1,000 kilometers distant.MarkMark E. Capron, PEVentura, Californiawww.PODenergy.org Original Message Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink From: "Rau, Greg" r...@llnl.gov Date: Fri, November 14, 2014 11:54 am To: "gh...@sbcglobal.net" gh...@sbcglobal.net, "Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)" r.d.schuil...@uu.nl, "voglerl...@gmail.com" voglerl...@gmail.com, "geoengineering@googlegroups.com" geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sorry, I meant "is biology affected?" From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Greg Rau [gh...@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 10:46 AM To: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf); voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Olaf, My preference is to make ocean alkalinity, dissolved Ca(HCO3)2 (and some CaCO3aq via equilibrium reactions), rather than solid CaCO3. Yes, you can use silicates to do this, but if you have elevated CO2 (FF or BE flue gas) and limestone/waste shell, the kinetics are faster. As for just putting minerals directly into the ocean for CDR, it would be interesting add equal equivalences (2x and 1x respectively) of equal sized CaCO3 and Mg2SiO4 particles to separate beakers of sterilized seawater, agitate for a week in the dark, and then compare the resulting SW alkalinity to each other and to initial (and to agitated seawater without added minerals). Repeat without sterilization and in full light. Which treatments make the most alkalinity and does biology matter and/or is biology effected? ;-) BTW congrats on the NYT spread. Let's hope some balance, sanity and open mindedness can be injected into the CDR debate. Greg From: "Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)" r.d.schuil...@uu.nl To: "'gh...@sbcglobal.net'" gh...@sbcglobal.net; "voglerl...@gmail.com" voglerl...@gmail.com; "geoengineering@googlegroups.com" geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 1:05 AM Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Why first destroy CaCO3 and then remake it. Just add fine-grained olivine to add sufficient alkalinity, Olaf SchuilingFrom: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Rau Sent: donderdag 13 november 2014 18:07 To: voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink As I mentioned on Oct 7, in looking for large scale uses of CO2, how about environmental applications? By my reconning, the mean 0.1 decline in surface ocean pH translates into a calcium carbonate saturation state decline of 1 unit. To return this to pre-industrial levels we'd need to use 250 - 300 GT of CO2 to make enough dissolved calcium bicarbonate/carbonate which when added to the ocean would return saturation to pre-industrial levels. There may be analogies for countering soil and freshwater acidity. Anyway, plenty of need for inorganic carbonaceous materials and relatively easy to make from CO2, but paying customer demand/ government policy would obviously have to be developed. How much do we value shellfish, corals and the other biota being impacted? Greg From: Michael Hayes voglerl...@gmail.com To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 1:57 PM Subject: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink [ND1] The concept of CO2 utilization goes something like this: instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere through industrial processes, we could instead
RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink
The article asks Can Seashells Save the World. My answer is no if you mean saving the world from excess atmospheric CO2. The article initially states that coccolithophores convert carbon dioxide to chalk (CaCO3), while later we are told that seashells are common because they are very effective at converting dissolved calcium carbonate which is abundant in seawater. Actually neither is the case. Shell is formed from dissolved calcium bicarbonate, not CO2 or carbonate ion, and bicarbonate ion is by far the more abundant form of carbon in the water column. Calcification removes carbon from seawater, generating additional atmospheric CO2 and additional sedimentary carbonate: Ca(HCO3)aq --- CO2g + H2O + CaCO3s, so unclear how this is an atmospheric CO2 sink. Admittedly, if the organism doing the calcifying is a photosynthesizer like coccos, then certainly CO2 will be converted to biomass. Whether this organism then forms a net CO2 sink will very much depend on the photosynthesis/calcification ratio as well as how much if any biomass escapes respiration and sinks from surface waters of the ocean. Or am I missing something? Certainly interesting that some organisms thrive in acidic water, but then there will also be losers, meaning ecosystems will change, but not necessarily to our benefit or to other marine species. Greg From: markcap...@podenergy.org [markcap...@podenergy.org] Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2014 8:35 AM To: Rau, Greg; gh...@sbcglobal.net; Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf); voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Greg and Olaf, What might be the minimum inputs such that we could grow and sequester seashells while rapidly recycling most of the nutrients to grow more shellfish? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/can-seashells-save-the-world-813915.html discusses Not so, it seems, with the coccolithophore, or at least with the most abundant species, called Emiliania huxleyi. The latest study into this species shows that it appears to thrive on high levels of carbon dioxide. Instead of finding it difficult to make its calcium carbonate plates, as some scientists had expected, the organism can, in fact, make bigger and bigger plates as carbon dioxide concentrations are increased artificially, according to a study published in the current issue of the journal Science. Perhaps a more complex model of Ocean Forest would work with the carbon dioxide from the energy separation process (likely either anaerobic digestion or hydrothermal liquifaction) being sequestered as sea shells. In this case, we may have to sell the shellfish meat as food (people, pets, livestock, aquaculture fish) and import more basic nutrients or silicate minerals or calcium from a few 100-1,000 kilometers distant. Mark Mark E. Capron, PE Ventura, California www.PODenergy.orghttp://www.PODenergy.org Original Message Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink From: Rau, Greg r...@llnl.govmailto:r...@llnl.gov Date: Fri, November 14, 2014 11:54 am To: gh...@sbcglobal.netmailto:gh...@sbcglobal.net gh...@sbcglobal.netmailto:gh...@sbcglobal.net, Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nlmailto:r.d.schuil...@uu.nl, voglerl...@gmail.commailto:voglerl...@gmail.com voglerl...@gmail.commailto:voglerl...@gmail.com, geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sorry, I meant is biology affected? From: geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Greg Rau [gh...@sbcglobal.netmailto:gh...@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 10:46 AM To: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf); voglerl...@gmail.commailto:voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Olaf, My preference is to make ocean alkalinity, dissolved Ca(HCO3)2 (and some CaCO3aq via equilibrium reactions), rather than solid CaCO3. Yes, you can use silicates to do this, but if you have elevated CO2 (FF or BE flue gas) and limestone/waste shell, the kinetics are faster. As for just putting minerals directly into the ocean for CDR, it would be interesting add equal equivalences (2x and 1x respectively) of equal sized CaCO3 and Mg2SiO4 particles to separate beakers of sterilized seawater, agitate for a week in the dark, and then compare the resulting SW alkalinity to each other and to initial (and to agitated seawater without added minerals). Repeat without sterilization and in full light. Which treatments make the most alkalinity and does biology matter
RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink
Why first destroy CaCO3 and then remake it. Just add fine-grained olivine to add sufficient alkalinity, Olaf Schuiling From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Rau Sent: donderdag 13 november 2014 18:07 To: voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink As I mentioned on Oct 7, in looking for large scale uses of CO2, how about environmental applications? By my reconning, the mean 0.1 decline in surface ocean pH translates into a calcium carbonate saturation state decline of 1 unit. To return this to pre-industrial levels we'd need to use 250 - 300 GT of CO2 to make enough dissolved calcium bicarbonate/carbonate which when added to the ocean would return saturation to pre-industrial levels. There may be analogies for countering soil and freshwater acidity. Anyway, plenty of need for inorganic carbonaceous materials and relatively easy to make from CO2, but paying customer demand/ government policy would obviously have to be developed. How much do we value shellfish, corals and the other biota being impacted? Greg From: Michael Hayes voglerl...@gmail.commailto:voglerl...@gmail.com To: geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 1:57 PM Subject: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink [ND1] The concept of CO2 utilization goes something like this: instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere through industrial processes, we could instead capture CO2 from smokestacks (and/or the ambient atmosphere) and use this CO2 to manufacture carbon-based products — such as fuels, food, and construction materials. So what role might CO2 utilization play in fighting climate change? The outlook seems mixed, as explained below. The Good:Cost-effective CO2 utilization has a number of interesting implications. First, if CO2 capture costs could come down significantly, existing markets for carbon-based products could drive reductions in carbon emission without the need for pesky-to-implement large-scale GHG regulations. Even with today’s CO2 capture and utilization technology, a number of companies are successfully turning would-be CO2 emissions into valuable end products. (My highlight) [MH1] The CO2 capture costs, through micro/macro algal cultivation, are extremely low and uses simplistic technology. Noah's reductionist view of the 'capture' aspects has the primary drawback of not taking into account the full environmental and economic systems view. In that, the use of algal cultivation offers a substantial list of ancillary environmental and economic benefits. The list of benefits have been presented, in detail, before and I'll only mention the top three here. 1) The biomass waste stream from the algal cultivation can be used as a feed stock for aquacultural feed production which can, in turn, replace the natural (wild caught) fish protein used in the global aquacultural sector. This is no small issue at the overall environmental level as the current use of wild caught protein represents around 50% of the total global wild catch. The profoundly damaging effects of our current fishing industry, the fish feed issue being one of the most damaging, has a profound impact on the overall health of our oceans including, but not limited to, natural CO2 removal, utilization and sequestration. 2) The full spectrum of non-fuel products, which algal cultivation offers, has a market value which eclipse that of the algal derived bio-fuel. Thus, it is plausible to use the economic strength of of the non-fuel profits to subsidize the price of the algal bio-fuel below that of FFs. Thus, FF prices can be driven below that of the cost of extraction. This scenario offers the most direct means for ending the FF era. 3) One of the most important by-products of large scale marine algal bio-reactor farms is fresh water. The current global need for vast amounts of freshwater, in of itself, represents a cash flow potential which would be capable of paying all algal cultivation costs. This systems view/approach is well within current technology and well within the ability of what can be one rather simplistic organization. We need to focus upon ending, not enabling, further FF use while working with the FF industry during the transition from FFs to BFs. This systems approach to a wide spectrum of environmental damage mitigation is the objective of the work being developed within the IMBECS Protocol Draft. [ND2] Above: The Skyonic “Sky Mine” CO2 utilization facility in San Antonio, TX.Companies like Skyonic, CarbonCure, Solidia, and Newlight Technologies all show the great potential for this field to drive GHG emission reductions without the need to monetize carbon savings through
Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink
Olaf, My preference is to make ocean alkalinity, dissolved Ca(HCO3)2 (and some CaCO3aq via equilibrium reactions), rather than solid CaCO3. Yes, you can use silicates to do this, but if you have elevated CO2 (FF or BE flue gas) and limestone/waste shell, the kinetics are faster. As for just putting minerals directly into the ocean for CDR, it would be interesting add equal equivalences (2x and 1x respectively) of equal sized CaCO3 and Mg2SiO4 particles to separate beakers of sterilized seawater, agitate for a week in the dark, and then compare the resulting SW alkalinity to each other and to initial (and to agitated seawater without added minerals). Repeat without sterilization and in full light. Which treatments make the most alkalinity and does biology matter and/or is biology effected? ;-) BTW congrats on the NYT spread. Let's hope some balance, sanity and open mindedness can be injected into the CDR debate. Greg From: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl To: 'gh...@sbcglobal.net' gh...@sbcglobal.net; voglerl...@gmail.com voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 1:05 AM Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Why first destroy CaCO3 and then remake it. Just add fine-grained olivine to add sufficient alkalinity, Olaf Schuiling From:geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Rau Sent: donderdag 13 november 2014 18:07 To: voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink As I mentioned on Oct 7, in looking for large scale uses of CO2, how about environmental applications? By my reconning, the mean 0.1 decline in surface ocean pH translates into a calcium carbonate saturation state decline of 1 unit. To return this to pre-industrial levels we'd need to use 250 - 300 GT of CO2 to make enough dissolved calcium bicarbonate/carbonate which when added to the ocean would return saturation to pre-industrial levels. There may be analogies for countering soil and freshwater acidity. Anyway, plenty of need for inorganic carbonaceous materials and relatively easy to make from CO2, but paying customer demand/ government policy would obviously have to be developed. How much do we value shellfish, corals and the other biota being impacted? Greg From:Michael Hayes voglerl...@gmail.com To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 1:57 PM Subject: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink [ND1]The concept of CO2 utilization goes something like this: instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere through industrial processes, we could instead capture CO2 from smokestacks (and/or the ambient atmosphere) and use this CO2 to manufacture carbon-based products — such as fuels, food, and construction materials. So what role might CO2 utilization play in fighting climate change? The outlook seems mixed, as explained below. The Good:Cost-effective CO2 utilization has a number of interesting implications. First, if CO2 capture costs could come down significantly, existing markets for carbon-based products could drive reductions in carbon emission without the need for pesky-to-implement large-scale GHG regulations. Even with today’s CO2 capture and utilization technology, a number of companies are successfully turning would-be CO2 emissions into valuable end products. (My highlight) [MH1] The CO2 capture costs, through micro/macro algal cultivation, are extremely low and uses simplistic technology. Noah's reductionist view of the 'capture' aspects has the primary drawback of not taking into account the full environmental and economic systems view. In that, the use of algal cultivation offers a substantial list of ancillary environmental and economic benefits. The list of benefits have been presented, in detail, before and I'll only mention the top three here. 1) The biomass waste stream from the algal cultivation can be used as a feed stock for aquacultural feed production which can, in turn, replace the natural (wild caught) fish protein used in the global aquacultural sector. This is no small issue at the overall environmental level as the current use of wild caught protein represents around 50% of the total global wild catch. The profoundly damaging effects of our current fishing industry, the fish feed issue being one of the most damaging, has a profound impact on the overall health of our oceans including, but not limited to, natural CO2 removal, utilization and sequestration. 2) The full spectrum of non-fuel products, which algal cultivation offers, has a market value which eclipse that of the algal
RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink
Sorry, I meant is biology affected? From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Greg Rau [gh...@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 10:46 AM To: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf); voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Olaf, My preference is to make ocean alkalinity, dissolved Ca(HCO3)2 (and some CaCO3aq via equilibrium reactions), rather than solid CaCO3. Yes, you can use silicates to do this, but if you have elevated CO2 (FF or BE flue gas) and limestone/waste shell, the kinetics are faster. As for just putting minerals directly into the ocean for CDR, it would be interesting add equal equivalences (2x and 1x respectively) of equal sized CaCO3 and Mg2SiO4 particles to separate beakers of sterilized seawater, agitate for a week in the dark, and then compare the resulting SW alkalinity to each other and to initial (and to agitated seawater without added minerals). Repeat without sterilization and in full light. Which treatments make the most alkalinity and does biology matter and/or is biology effected? ;-) BTW congrats on the NYT spread. Let's hope some balance, sanity and open mindedness can be injected into the CDR debate. Greg From: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl To: 'gh...@sbcglobal.net' gh...@sbcglobal.net; voglerl...@gmail.com voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 1:05 AM Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Why first destroy CaCO3 and then remake it. Just add fine-grained olivine to add sufficient alkalinity, Olaf Schuiling From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Rau Sent: donderdag 13 november 2014 18:07 To: voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink As I mentioned on Oct 7, in looking for large scale uses of CO2, how about environmental applications? By my reconning, the mean 0.1 decline in surface ocean pH translates into a calcium carbonate saturation state decline of 1 unit. To return this to pre-industrial levels we'd need to use 250 - 300 GT of CO2 to make enough dissolved calcium bicarbonate/carbonate which when added to the ocean would return saturation to pre-industrial levels. There may be analogies for countering soil and freshwater acidity. Anyway, plenty of need for inorganic carbonaceous materials and relatively easy to make from CO2, but paying customer demand/ government policy would obviously have to be developed. How much do we value shellfish, corals and the other biota being impacted? Greg From: Michael Hayes voglerl...@gmail.commailto:voglerl...@gmail.com To: geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 1:57 PM Subject: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink [ND1] The concept of CO2 utilization goes something like this: instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere through industrial processes, we could instead capture CO2 from smokestacks (and/or the ambient atmosphere) and use this CO2 to manufacture carbon-based products — such as fuels, food, and construction materials. So what role might CO2 utilization play in fighting climate change? The outlook seems mixed, as explained below. The Good:Cost-effective CO2 utilization has a number of interesting implications. First, if CO2 capture costs could come down significantly, existing markets for carbon-based products could drive reductions in carbon emission without the need for pesky-to-implement large-scale GHG regulations. Even with today’s CO2 capture and utilization technology, a number of companies are successfully turning would-be CO2 emissions into valuable end products. (My highlight) [MH1] The CO2 capture costs, through micro/macro algal cultivation, are extremely low and uses simplistic technology. Noah's reductionist view of the 'capture' aspects has the primary drawback of not taking into account the full environmental and economic systems view. In that, the use of algal cultivation offers a substantial list of ancillary environmental and economic benefits. The list of benefits have been presented, in detail, before and I'll only mention the top three here. 1) The biomass waste stream from the algal cultivation can be used as a feed stock for aquacultural feed production which can, in turn, replace the natural (wild caught) fish protein used in the global aquacultural sector. This is no small issue at the overall environmental level as the current use
Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink
As I mentioned on Oct 7, in looking for large scale uses of CO2, how about environmental applications? By my reconning, the mean 0.1 decline in surface ocean pH translates into a calcium carbonate saturation state decline of 1 unit. To return this to pre-industrial levels we'd need to use 250 - 300 GT of CO2 to make enough dissolved calcium bicarbonate/carbonate which when added to the ocean would return saturation to pre-industrial levels. There may be analogies for countering soil and freshwater acidity. Anyway, plenty of need for inorganic carbonaceous materials and relatively easy to make from CO2, but paying customer demand/ government policy would obviously have to be developed. How much do we value shellfish, corals and the other biota being impacted? Greg From: Michael Hayes voglerl...@gmail.com To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 1:57 PM Subject: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink [ND1] The concept of CO2 utilization goes something like this: instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere through industrial processes, we could instead capture CO2 from smokestacks (and/or the ambient atmosphere) and use this CO2 to manufacture carbon-based products — such as fuels, food, and construction materials. So what role might CO2 utilization play in fighting climate change? The outlook seems mixed, as explained below. The Good:Cost-effective CO2 utilization has a number of interesting implications. First, if CO2 capture costs could come down significantly, existing markets for carbon-based products could drive reductions in carbon emission without the need for pesky-to-implement large-scale GHG regulations. Even with today’s CO2 capture and utilization technology, a number of companies are successfully turning would-be CO2 emissions into valuable end products. (My highlight) [MH1] The CO2 capture costs, through micro/macro algal cultivation, are extremely low and uses simplistic technology. Noah's reductionist view of the 'capture' aspects has the primary drawback of not taking into account the full environmental and economic systems view. In that, the use of algal cultivation offers a substantial list of ancillary environmental and economic benefits. The list of benefits have been presented, in detail, before and I'll only mention the top three here. 1) The biomass waste stream from the algal cultivation can be used as a feed stock for aquacultural feed production which can, in turn, replace the natural (wild caught) fish protein used in the global aquacultural sector. This is no small issue at the overall environmental level as the current use of wild caught protein represents around 50% of the total global wild catch. The profoundly damaging effects of our current fishing industry, the fish feed issue being one of the most damaging, has a profound impact on the overall health of our oceans including, but not limited to, natural CO2 removal, utilization and sequestration. 2) The full spectrum of non-fuel products, which algal cultivation offers, has a market value which eclipse that of the algal derived bio-fuel. Thus, it is plausible to use the economic strength of of the non-fuel profits to subsidize the price of the algal bio-fuel below that of FFs. Thus, FF prices can be driven below that of the cost of extraction. This scenario offers the most direct means for ending the FF era. 3) One of the most important by-products of large scale marine algal bio-reactor farms is fresh water. The current global need for vast amounts of freshwater, in of itself, represents a cash flow potential which would be capable of paying all algal cultivation costs. This systems view/approach is well within current technology and well within the ability of what can be one rather simplistic organization. We need to focus upon ending, not enabling, further FF use while working with the FF industry during the transition from FFs to BFs. This systems approach to a wide spectrum of environmental damage mitigation is the objective of the work being developed within the IMBECS Protocol Draft. [ND2] Above: The Skyonic “Sky Mine” CO2 utilization facility in San Antonio, TX.Companies like Skyonic, CarbonCure, Solidia, and Newlight Technologies all show the great potential for this field to drive GHG emission reductions without the need to monetize carbon savings through regulatory programs. Above: Newlight Technologies has created plastic building blocks from waste GHG emissions from landfills. The Bad:The main problem with CO2 utilization today is economics. For one, CO2 from naturally occurring underground reservoirs costs about $10-$20/t, where as capturing would-be CO2 emissions from power plants costs 5x-10x that amount. Capturing CO2 from industrial facilities that produce goods like ethanol or ammonia is more cost competitive, but
