Plan Sea: Ocean Interventions to Address Climate Change

Welcome back to the Plan Sea Podcast as we kick off our final stretch of season 1. 
Today's episode focuses on the findings and observations in a recently published paper in the Journal of Environmental Science and Policy entitled 

We welcome the paper's coauthors Sara Nawaz, Director of Research at the Institute of Carbon Removal, Law and Policy, and Terre Satterfield, Professor of Culture, Risk and Environment at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia to the episode.  

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

Dr. Matt Eisaman and Frances Simpson-Allen join Plan Sea to discuss Ebb Carbon's marine carbon dioxide removal approach and their latest developments. Matt is a cofounder and Chief Scientist as well as Associate Professor at Yale University in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences and the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture (YCNCC). Frances is their Director for Policy and Market Development. 

We discuss the necessity of field trials, challenges on their path to scaleup, as well as very importantly the relevance and importance of social engagement strategies. Particularly, we converse about Ebb's most recent public-private partnerships and plans for the upcoming year. As always, we also dive into the world of regulation and policy and how that interacts with Ebb's approach and operation. 

 

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

Today’s guest is David Koweek, who holds a PhD from Stanford University in Earth System Science and is currently the Chief Scientist of Ocean Visions, a non-profit organization comprised of a network of leading universities and oceanographic research institutions and partners. Ocean Visions works to engage and focus resources from across this network for concerted action, catalyzing collaboration for the co-design, development, testing, and evaluation of solutions to the interlocking ocean-climate crisis.

David tells us about Ocean Vision's general work and thematic pillars. In particular, we discuss the importance of field trials in order for scaleup of mCDR approaches, as well as what is currently hindering scaling generally.  As we navigate these different thematic focus points, David presents Ocean Vision's amazing resources such as the Launchpad Program, CDR Roadmaps, and their curate CDR Community. 

Finally, David also sheds light on the important work they are doing on an international stage at the United Nations. 

We hope you enjoy this episode! 

Launchpad Program: https://oceanvisions.org/launchpad/

CDR Roadmaps: https://www2.oceanvisions.org/roadmaps/

CDR Community: https://community.oceanvisions.org/

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

Dr. Ken Buesseler, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, joins us to discuss new perspectives and opportunities of ocean iron fertilization (OIF) as a carbon removal solution.

Ken explores with us how the journey of OIF has evolved as one of the first researched carbon removal solutions from about a decade ago to today. We discuss what OIF is, what the new effort  ExOIS, Exploring Ocean Iron Solutions, entails and why it is important for the development of OIF. We discuss the history of OIF as well as how new technology development could help answer some of those early risks, including progress on the front of monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of both carbon and environmental parameters. 

Learn more about ExOIS: https://oceaniron.org/

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

Today's episode features three representatives of the SEAO2-CDR project, a European effort to determine strategies for the evaluation and assessment of ocean based carbon dioxide removal. The project's aims range from a strongly interdisciplinary background and focus not only on scientific, but also economic, legal, political, social and ethical  aspects.

We are joined by 

• the project’s Scientific and Technical Lead, Dr. Christopher Pearce from the National Oceanography Center in the UK.
• Dr Christine Merk of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, who co-leads WP4 Understanding public and stakeholder perceptions. 
• Dr Patricia Grasse, University of Leipzig and GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, who leads WP7 Integrated assessment of ocean-based CDR deployment. 

The project is funded through the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101081362. 

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

This episode's guests are Jean-Pierre Gattuso, CNRS research professor at Sorbonne University and Institute on Sustainable Development and International Relations, France, and Chair for Ocean Acidification and other ocean changes – Impacts and Solutions at Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation; and Andreas Oschlies, professor and head of the biogeochemical modeling research unit at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany.

Together they have led a crossdisciplinary, international research effort to produce a Best Practice Guide for Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement. The currently published pre-print of the guide consists of 13 chapters, written by 50+ scientific co-authors and covering all the relevant approaches available for ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) as a Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) approach. The chapters’ topics range from covering current knowledge of the individual approaches and scientific uncertainties as well as recommendations for responsible research and innovation, public engagement, data reporting and sharing, and monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV).

Read each individual chapter and provide comments on the OAE Best Practice Guide website. 

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

Rose Sharifian, CTO of the Dutch startup SeaO2, joins Plan Sea to talk about their electrochemical ocean carbon capture approach. 

Rose, Anna and Wil discuss SeaO2's technical roadmap, electrochemical membrane technology as well as challenges and opportunities they are facing in the European CDR market. Rose also shares how SeaO2 fits into the global picture of marine CDR startups and why she believes they are amongst the furthest in their development. 

Learn more about SeaO2 on https://www.seao2.nl/.

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

Mike Kelland, CEO and co-founder of Planetary Technologies, an ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) startup from Canada, joins Plan Sea on this new episode.

Mike, Anna and Wil discuss the basics, science and challenges surrounding ocean alkalinity enhancement — a method whereby the capacity of ocean water to draw down additional CO2 from the atmosphere is increased by increasing the alkalinity of this water.
The better part of this episode focuses on the most recent challenges of Planetary around their community engagement and their first planned pilot site in Cornwall, UK. Mike shares learnings, insights and future outlook on the research needed for OAE to reduce uncertainties.

Some more resources to learn about OAE and Planetary:

Planetary website

Details about the Cornwall pilot

Carbon Removal Newsroom with Will Burt, Head of Ocean Science and Pete Chargin, VP of Commercialization and Community Relations

The Ocean Embassy at the Ocean Visions summit, featuring Will Burt on Monitoring, Reporting and Verification

The Ocean Embassy with Dr. Lennart Bach: What is Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement?

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

Our guest, Lisa Levin, is a distinguished professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the lead author of a recent article in the journal Science called "Deep Sea Impacts of Climate Interventions." She explains that most ocean-based carbon removal technologies involve dumping materials and carbon into the ocean floor, which could affect the many different ecosystems of the deep sea. The deep sea is vast and full of biodiversity, which plays a critical role in regulating the planet's climate and maintaining its health. Lisa identifies the risks associated with ocean-based climate interventions, such as changing the light regime and adding particles or nutrients to the ocean, which could have negative consequences for deep-sea ecosystems.

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.

Matthew Long joins Wil Burns and Anna Madlener to discuss his role at the National Center for Atmospheric Research: Climate and Global Dynamics and the Cworthy project, a non-profit research organization to develop the scientific and technical tools associated with quantifying ocean carbon dioxide removal and leveraging those tools to bolster the monitoring, reporting, and verification of carbon dioxide removal.

Matthew discusses the research that he conducts and the successes and challenges that the research has identified. 

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly podcast exploring ocean-based climate solutions, brought to you by the Carbon to Sea Initiative & the American University Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal.