Geoengineering Experiment Pours 65,000 Liters of Red Chemicals Into Ocean

Researchers over in the Northeast have just poured 65,000 liters of sodium hydroxide

into the Gulf of Maine in order to conduct a geoengineering project which they claim at least

might combat climate change. This trial, which is officially called the Loch Ness Project,

it took place last August about 50 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. That was when scientists

from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution were seeing pouring literally tons of this bright

red chemical directly into the water over the course of roughly four days. The thinking is that

by making the ocean more alkaline, it'll suck more CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into

harmless baking soda. The addition of the red color, it was just there for tracking purposes.

Now, this is something that the ocean does already do naturally. It's estimated in fact that the

five oceans trap a combined total of 38 trillion tons of CO2, but that's their natural limit based

on the current average pH level of the water. The oceans literally cannot absorb any more CO2

at least naturally. However, this is exactly where the scientists come in. The thinking is,

by changing the pH level of the ocean using sodium hydroxide, they can get the ocean to absorb ever

more CO2. The geoengineering method known as ocean alkalinity enhancement aims to speed up

this natural process by resetting the ocean's pH. Over four days, scientists added vast quantities

of sodium hydroxide, an alkaline chemical tag with a red dye to the waters off the coast of Boston,

making the ocean more alkaline should encourage it to absorb even more CO2 from the atmosphere.

Now, over on their official website, you can see that the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

actually has a graphic showing this idea as a simple drawing. Essentially, in the past,

they claimed that the oceans were a lot more basic. However, with the addition of ever more CO2

from the atmosphere, the oceans began a process of absorbing the carbon dioxide from the air

and becoming more and more acidic over time. However, through their alkalinity enhancement procedure,

they can add sodium hydroxide to the ocean water, which will at least in theory lower the pH

level while at the same time allowing ever more CO2 to be captured. And so that's the basic

theory that they had going in. This institute then got approval from the EPA and conducted a test

by pouring this chemical solution into the ocean roughly 50 miles off the coast of Massachusetts.

During this test, they poured in enough of this chemical solution to change the pH of the water

from 7.95 up to 8.3. After doing so, they were able to measure allegedly 10 more tons of carbon

entering the water immediately. They then used cutting-edge technology, including autonomous

gliders, long-range autonomous underwater vehicles, and shipboard sensors to track the spreading

chemicals. Over the next few days, the scientists measured 10 tons of carbon entering the water as the

pH increased from 7.95 to 8.3 matching pre-industrial levels. In the best-case scenario, the researchers

estimate that the sodium hydroxide would absorb about 50 tons of carbon over the next year,

equivalent to the average yearly emissions of five UK citizens. And this summary, by the way,

it came to us from the Daily Mail publication, and so that's why they used the average yearly

emissions of UK citizens as a measurement. But, just for your general reference, the average

US citizen has about three times higher CO2 emissions per capita compared to the UK counterparts,

meaning the amount of chemicals that they were able to pour into the ocean over the course of those

four days, it would absorb enough CO2 to offset a single US citizen, which in and of itself kind

of exposes one of the major problems with this approach, which is the scalability question.

The sheer amount of these chemicals that will need to be used every year to make a measurable

dent in global CO2 levels is enormous. To scale up ocean alkalinity enhancement to a point

where it could abate industrial CO2 emissions, billions of tons of sodium hydroxide would need to

be dumped into the oceans every year. And then, if you just think about it logically,

atop both the cost as well as the feasibility of pouring billions of tons of sodium hydroxide

per year into all five of the world's oceans, there is the ecological impact. The ocean,

much like any rainforest is a large system, and you can't expect to just change one variable

and not have any knock-on effects. Now, for their part, the scientists that are conducting this

research, they said that their project actually returns the ocean to where it was. They claimed that

over the last several decades, industrial CO2 emissions have had what they call, quote,

catastrophic effects on sea life as the acid dissolves marine creature shells, damages coral,

and even wears away sharks teeth. And so, they're basically saying that increasing the pH level

would actually walk back some of those changes and restore the natural habitats to how they were

decades ago. On the flip side, however, the critics, they say that we don't actually know what

effect this will have in the ocean over the course of time. Quote, the biggest source of controversy

stems from the fact that the impact a marine wildlife is still largely unknown. Recent studies have warned

that excessive alkalinity enhancement could affect species growth, metabolism, and biodiversity.

Additionally, as alkaline substances dissolve, they release trace metals, which could build up in the

oceans and create an ecological risk. And so, these are the two camps. One is saying that we don't

know the effects that this technique will ultimately have on the ocean, marine life, and the trace

metal elements might build up over time and cause a disaster. But in the flip side, the scientists

pushing for this method and pushing to test it say that it will actually de-acidify the ocean

and restore the natural habitat to what it once was. And I will mention that there is that

to support this idea. In the past, there have been some smaller scale examples of using chemicals

to adjust the pH levels of smaller waterways. Quote, most notably, Scandinavian rivers suffering

fish declines due to acid rain were heavily dosed with alkaline lime in the 1980s,

leading to the return of native salmon to Sweden's Atron River. Also, for what it's worth,

the latest test that took place over in the Gulf of Maine, off the coast of Massachusetts,

apparently, it showed no immediate negative impact on the marine life that was tested. Quote,

based on the biological and ecological impact data that we have collected and analyzed so far,

there was no significant impact of the Loch Ness field trial on the biological community

using the metrics we measured. And just the fun fact, the Loch Ness project is actually an

acronym and it stands for the Locking Ocean Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope project.

And so, there you have it. Another, basically, moonshot project to attempt to, I don't know,

save the earth and combat climate change. Leave your thoughts in the comments if you think that

this is a good idea or if it's humans, again, trying to play God with the engineering project.

Also, smash those like and subscribe buttons so that the video reaches every

more people via the YouTube algorithm. And also, all of the research links, including the link

to the study that was found on the website and sort of more of an explanation on how the project

works, how the science behind the works, you can find that all down in the description box below.

And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epic Times. Stay informed and most

importantly, stay free.