Complicated

Carbon Capture Firm Could Use the Ocean to Combat Global Warming

I guess if money and energy are no object, there are lots of ways you can fiddle with the environment:

The study, "Electrochemical Acceleration of Chemical Weathering as an Energetically Feasible Approach to Mitigating Anthropogenic Climate Change," lays out a means of making the ocean more alkaline by reducing its acid content, in a process "equivalent to the electrochemical acceleration of the Earth's natural chemical weathering process."

In essence, the study proposes using electrolysis to convert weaker carbonic acid in the oceans into hydrochloric acid - "the engineered process accelerates the weathering kinetics to industrial rates," the study states. That could speed the rate at which silicate rocks –basalt, granite and other minerals that make up most of the Earth's crust – absorb the acid from the ocean.

"The increase in ocean alkalinity resulting from the removal of HCl causes atmospheric CO2 to dissolve into the ocean where it will be stored primarily as HCO3 without further acidifying the ocean," the study states. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the ocean already, causing it to become more acidic - and that is leading to problems for coral reefs, giant squid and other ocean life, scientists say.

I think I have heard of this before, but not posted about it. Probably because of this:

Undertaking such a vast engineering project would be daunting, to be sure. It's the equivalent of building about 100 plants the size of major sewage treatment facilities to capture about 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, the study states.

"Our current estimates indicate that running the process described here at scales sufficiently large to impact the earth's climate is unlikely to be commercially viable in the near future," the study says.