At first glance it seems like a counterintuitive way to help the environment. Load tons of waste wood balls onto a raft, tow it almost 200 nautical miles south of Iceland, and release the payload into the ocean.
Normally you’d think this would be the kind of endeavor to invoke the wrath of environmentalists, not their support. But this is exactly what’s been happening over the summer months of 2023, with the backing of scientists, Icelandic authorities, environmental campaigners, and paying corporate customers eager to offset carbon footprints.
As Ari Ratner, VP of Strategic Communications at global ocean health company Running Tide, explains, this could be the start of a very simple way to tackle one of humanity’s gravest problems – the colossal quantity of carbon transforming our climate.
Removal job – cleaning up past problems
“Since the industrial revolution mankind has released over two trillion tons of carbon into the atmosphere,” Ratner states. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has called for the removal of 660 gigatons – and note, that’s removal, not reduction of emissions – to mitigate ocean warming and acidification.
“We have to do this to preserve the health of our planet. And Running Tide is committed to playing its part.”
Formed in 2017 by CEO Marty Odlin, the US-headquartered company has grown into a team of over 100 people, including more than 60 scientists and engineers, focused on devising breakthrough ocean carbon removal solutions and ecosystem restoration projects, such as restoring coastal wetlands and rewilding. By combining science, engineering, and ocean and ecosystem expertise, the company has attracted significant private equity investment and partnerships with names of the order of Shopify and Stripe. Microsoft is one of its first, and major, paying customers, with a contract signed early in 2023.
But, you may ask, a contract for what? This is where those little balls of waste wood come in.
Fast tracking carbon to the slow cycle
Microsoft has contracted Running Tide to move 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) from the ‘fast carbon cycle’ to the ‘slow carbon cycle’. The floating ‘carbon buoys’ are the solution, as Ratner makes clear:
“The fast carbon cycle can be explained by, for example, something like a tree. It grows, sucks in carbon from the atmosphere, then it dies and releases it. So, it’s on a lifetime scale. A slow carbon cycle is a plant dying, sinking to the bottom of the ocean, getting covered in sediment and turning into rock. The carbon becomes stored, for eons, until it’s spewed out by a volcano or, in the case of organic matter that’s been transformed into coal or oil, humans burn it.
Our buoys take carbon and sink it in the deep ocean – below 1,000 meters – transferring it from the fast to the slow cycle.”
The buoys, Ratner explains, are made from wood waste, or residue derived from the forestry industry. This would usually be burned, releasing carbon into the atmosphere. They’re coated with a limestone layer that has a dual purpose – enabling each buoy to capture more carbon and then, when it dissolves, counteracting ocean acidification. The next step, still under testing, is to seed the buoys with macro algae, which then grows and captures more CO2, before eventually – as the coating dissolves and the weight of seaweed grows – each unit sinks to the sea floor and the age-old process of slow carbon transferal begins.
The test buoys were tailored to float for weeks, whereas the algae/seaweed seeded balls will grow their ‘gardens’ for two to three months before diving downwards.
“According to our models, at the depths we’re working at, the carbon will then be stored for at least centuries to millennia and, if it becomes sedimentary rock, far, far longer than that,” Ratner says, adding: “In a way all we’re doing here is partnering with nature, using the same processes it’s always used to tackle a very manmade issue. It’s a nature-based solution.”
Scaling up operations
The process is being lauded as creating a carbon-negative supply chain, utilizing waste biomass and relying on ocean currents and gravity to empower the switch from one carbon cycle to another.
However, the scale of operations needed to make an impact on the IPCC’s 660 gigatons target is mind-boggling. Raising the question, is this a viable, scalable solution for corporate customers, and the wider world, targeting net-zero?
“Yes, but there are certainly some hurdles to overcome,” admits Ratner.
“The system itself is very scalable. It’s simple and it’s cheap to produce the buoys and deploy them. However, we need to get permission to operate from a number of territories and that’s not always straightforward. The Icelandic government has taken the lead in enabling us to secure our first permit, and we’re in talks with a number of others. And yes, there’s a capacity issue, but as soon as we prove the concept, raise awareness and attract more customers, like Microsoft, then I think that can move quite quickly.”
In terms of proving efficacy, and winning that business, Running Tide uses sensors to capture data on buoy performance, as well as qualified scientific modelling from its international team and partner institutions. The tests this summer, with Shopify as the first operational customer, removed 275 tons of CO2 from the fast cycle, feeding invaluable information back into further concept development.
And, as Ratner makes clear, there are additional ripple effect benefits to unlock.
Our buoys take carbon and sink it in the deep ocean.
Community impact
“Carbon removal is an industry that’s just starting out, but an absolutely vital one to develop, given the ever more apparent climate crisis we face,” he notes. “So, it’s important to show this is possible and inspire other companies, solutions and potential customers. This is a green industry waiting to explode."
“Then you have the impact on local and regional communities through new revenue streams. For example, in Iceland we’re working with a fishing community that lost its quota – they’ve essentially been economically sidelined. We, and others like us, can give them a new purpose, a noble/green goal, and an income based on repurposing existing skills and assets. In that way this project isn’t just restoring ocean and global health, it can restore the health and well-being of coastal communities through the creation of local carbon-negative industrial hubs. I’m really excited about the possibilities.”
Ratner isn’t alone here. Running Tide founder Odlin said in the aftermath of the summer tests that he hoped to scale up quickly to remove multiple gigatons of carbon per year with the system. An ambition the IPCC, and the rest of us, should be very happy to hear about.
“We need to remember addressing the climate question is not just about emissions today, we also have to deal with legacy emissions to have any hope of reaching our goals,” Ratner concludes. “It’s almost like building the energy industry in reverse – repackaging the carbon we’ve released and putting it back where it belongs.
It’s time to restore a sense of natural balance… while we still have the chance to do so.”
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The big carbon question – the view from ABB
Tommi Lempiäinen, Head of Sustainability, ABB Marine & Ports.
Big questions rarely have one, simple answer. And this is absolutely the case with carbon emissions. How can we tackle them, both the current and legacy emissions, in the most effective manner? You can join the queue to have your say… but it’s a long one.
Some issues aren’t up for argument though. The first is that we need to drastically reduce current emissions; using alternative power sources, driving electrification, developing digital tools to enable efficiency, and moving as one – both through regulations/legislation and incentives – to achieve a meaningful change.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an essential piece of this equation. As we can’t wave a magic wand and transform all our activities to clean energy, we must look at ways of working with what we have now, at least for the near- and mid-term.
As such, CCS development projects are a priority, and ABB is proud to support a growing number of them through the provision of services and solutions encompassing power, electrical, instrumentation, analytics, control, telecommunication, and industrial software-as-a-service (SaaS). If we can work to capture what we produce today, and tomorrow, we can give ourselves the ‘breathing space’ required to make more fundamental changes for long-term industrial sustainability.
As for dealing with legacy emissions, we applaud the determination, innovation and action of pioneering companies and organizations such as Running Tide. It’s clear that this probably won’t be the solution to a task of this magnitude, but it’s certainly one part of a bigger puzzle, and the knock-on benefits for both coastal communities and the ocean itself (through combatting acidification) appear truly compelling.
One of the most inspiring elements of the solution is the fact that it uses nature as a partner – harnessing natural processes to power a manmade clean-up. We look forward to seeing how this idea develops, as well as the complimentary ideas other players are working on.
