Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ixiaus | Hacker News Reader

I agree, I think geoengineering is unavoidable. As far as geoengineering projects go, this one looks like the most feasible and safe so far:

https://projectvesta.org/

View on HN

I‘ve come to the conclusion that planting trees is probably the best strategy in the short term. While there‘s obviously limited space to continue that forever without advanced strategies such as BECCS, it’s a super safe and extremely scalable option (drones!) with lots of other benefits that would give us a massive head start for the next 10-20 years until we figure out how to scale CO2 capture.

I agree we should also plant trees and cultivate forests however that won't help fix our oceans.

The reason why I like the olivine weathering proposal is that it weathers co2 out of the ocean and uses the ocean as a carbon sink. This way you remove co2 from the both the atmosphere and ocean (if you weather enough of it).

Thanks for sharing this, I wonder why more projects like this aren't under way already?

Sounds like the time to seriously start to consider these kinds of projects is now.

Could you elaborate? Enhanced Weathering is questionable on many levels. Have you compared it to other approaches?

Why is enhanced weathering questionable? I don't really know much about it, but I was under the impression that carbon absorption by weathered silicates will have a dramatic impact on the planet over the very long term[1]. Is enhanced weathering just too slow, or is there more to it than that?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth

I've only compared it to sulphur dioxide and the risks look fewer. The other benefit of enhanced weathering with olivine distributed in energetic waters is that it removes CO2 from the ocean (letting the ocean act as a carbon sink for the atmosphere).

I'm interested in learning more about research into enhanced weathering, could you provide some recommendations?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com