Newsweek - Millions of floating islands that convert atmospheric carbon dioxide to fuel could help protect our climate from the burning of fossil fuels, scientists have said. These proposed islands would be clustered together to create large-scale facilities that—if enough were built—could eventually offset the total global emissions from fossil fuels.
A team of researchers from Norway and Switzerland has put forward a proposal for 'Solar Methanol Islands' in a paper published in PNAS. The article argues that most of the technology to build these facilities already exists, and that by creating them on a large scale in ocean regions where they would be safe from large waves and extreme weather, we could drastically reduce the need for fossil fuels, thereby limiting the extent of global warming over the coming decades.
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This is another one of these "technological fixes" for carbon reduction that promises great things, but already has some worrying premises built in to start with. In a world with increasing incidents of superstorms, longer more destructive hurricane seasons, and tsunamis which have always happened and we really don't have accurate predictions for yet, mooring a bunch of "islands" is a good way to lose your investment. What will these "islands" cost, not only in dollars, but in rare earth minerals, petrol products, and metals.
They say that "most of the technology to build these facilities already exists", well, which technologies don't exist yet? Right there is a devil in the details. Are these not proven possibly only imagined technologies they are pinning this pipe dream on really going to be that easy to develop and make viable outside of a lab?
How will this affect sea life? How will sea life affect it? Will it harm whales or need to constantly have mussels scraped out of mission critical equipment to keep it running?
I am all for lowering carbon both atmospheric and oceanic, but there are proven ways to sequester carbon. The technology exists right here and now, if only people would be wise enough to implement it. Restorative Agriculture, reforestation with mixed forests not tree plantations, wetland restoration, and holistic grazing sequesters carbon with technologies that already exist, and can be used by people all over the globe, often with hand tools and grazing animals, right now.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/study-white-oak-pastures-beef-reduces-atmospheric-carbon-300841416.html
an article about the problems of pinning hopes on technologies that use a lot of rare earth minerals
https://www.treehugger.com/cars/why-electric-cars-wont-save-us-there-are-not-enough-resources-build-them.html
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