From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Doug Brodie
Plans to add magnesium hydroxide to the sea at St Ives Bay in a bid to combat climate change are “very low risk”, according to an independent review.
Planetary Technologies and South West Water want to carry out a carbon sequestration trial.
They want to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it in the sea by adding the alkaline mineral.
The independent review of the plans was carried out by the Water Research Centre (WRc).
The Environment Agency (EA) is yet to decide whether the trial will go ahead.
It would involve magnesium hydroxide being added into the treated wastewater outlet pipe at Hayle Waste Water Treatment Works.
The wastewater pipe would transport the magnesium hydroxide 1.5 miles (2.4km) into the sea outside St Ives Bay.
Planetary said adding the alkaline compound to the sea would help counter ocean acidity caused by climate change.
‘Chemical dump’
In April 2023 protesters described the plan as a “chemical dump” and asked for a delay to allow time for results from a reported previous experiment to be “published and peer reviewed”.
The planned June 2023 start for the trial was postponed and while the WRc carried out a “detailed and independent review” of Planetary’s proposal.
The WRc report has now considered the proposed trial as “very low risk” but with recommended changes for resubmission.
The key recommendations include:
- Additional sampling of the source material, the magnesium hydroxide
- Additional monitoring to detect impacts and help confirm modelled dissolution rates
- Planetary refining its calculations of the suitable concentration of magnesium hydroxide to use, using long-term data on multiple appropriate marine species
‘Trial is worrying’
Following the report, the Environment Agency (EA) said: “We will need to assess the changes before we can make a decision.”
The Seal Research Trust has called for a closed water test of magnesium hydroxide in St Ives Bay to get a definitive understanding of its impact, before open sea trials take place.
Charity founder Sue Sayer MBE said: “The conclusion that there is a low risk to marine organisms from magnesium hydroxide in this trial is worrying, as no testing has been done on St Ives Bay seawater and species such as brown crabs and lobsters, let alone the long term testing on ‘multiple appropriate marine species’ recommended by the EA.
“Of even greater concern to us is the WRc’s assessment, that the formation of calcium carbonate sediment is a medium risk, as this will cover sea bed species and be ingested by seabed feeders such as seals.”
‘Net carbon removal’
Planetary Technologies said: “We are extremely pleased that WRc recognises that our technology has the potential for ‘significant net carbon removal’.
“Our team is now working to update our trial proposal to take into account all substantive input from the EA and local community.”
A spokesperson for South West Water said: “We continue to work with the Environment Agency as it makes its decision on whether to allow Planetary to carry out the proposed trial.
“We will not support any initiative that presents a significant risk to our local environment and our priority is always to protect our natural environment.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-68277585
I’m no chemical expert, but the idea of chucking large volumes of chemicals into one small area of sea seems highly irresponsible.
But I have other issues with this:
- The amount of carbon dioxide that could be captured in this way would surely be infinitesimally small, even if employed in bulk globally
- Magnesium Hydroxide would be used in the form of a mineral called brucite. a relatively rare mineral found in rocks. This of course would require some sort of mining operation, along with crushing, both of which would involve fossil fuel emissions. I suspect those emissions would greatly outweigh any savings!
This has all the trappings of a scam to make money.
The other point to consider is about the location chosen for this trial. The Red River flows into St Ives Bay.
The Red River is the UK’s most polluted river. It is a lot cleaner now that the tin mines have shut but it still leaches iron oxides (rust) and other metals. In short, the pH of the Red River is quite acidic, as low as 5.5 when not diluted by rain.
So they are taking an environment that has evolved to cope with mild acidity over hundreds of years and are going to make it mildly alkaline.
It’s hard to think of a more damaging place to do this trial.
I’m willing to bet that buffering has not been accounted for…
Yes, strativarius, probably. My understanding is that natural waters buffer alkaline compounds much more easily than acidic compounds. This was reflected in the regulatory pH requirements of discharge water for a company I worked for.
Needless to say, this particular experiment is worthless in the grand scheme of things. It is an expensive non-solution for a non-problem, whatever the local problems may be.
But MC, damaging compared to the certain climate emergency catastrophe disaster annihilation extinction collapse? How can you be so sanguine? Raptor shredders and slaver panels are well past the point of diminishing returns. We must have new schemes for impoverishing society to the benefit of elite crony fascists or we run out of champagne and caviar!
You’re getting close but still some way off.
They’re mixing it into a pipe that becomes a sewage outfall and Human Poo is incredibly acidic..
See now?
It’s a cheap way of dumping (probably untreated) sewage into the sea and hoping that no-one will notice while flogging as some sort of climate saving venture.
There isn’t a fate too awful for these rats
Even worse, because of
Mg is neurotransmitter 2nd only to Sodium, our heart muscle depends upon it as does the muscle that comprises our entire digestive tract.
Run out of Mg means muscles cramps (aka Heart attack), constipation, brain fog and memory loss.
Is used in 600+ other processes within us.
When (bovine) cows also sheep run out of Mg they get (briefly) something called Grass Staggers which has symptoms identical to Mad Cow Disease.
Strangely similar to Mad Climate Disease
You may come upon one of your bovine herd so afflicted and you may treat her with (at least) 400ml of Magnesium Sulphate delivered subcutaneously but they never recover – grass staggers always kills within 36 hrs of first symptoms.
It is heartbreaking and horrible to behold.
Magnesium deficiency has been endemic in humans for millennia, hence our fondness for visiting health spa, thermal springs, baths and wells over all that time.
If you notice quickly enough that you have delivered of an autistic child, do everything you can to get Magnesium Sulphate into them as much and as fast as you can.
more often than not, they will (via their inbuilt ‘pica’) actually seek it out.
Then muppets here throw Magnesium into the ocean while modern medicine tells children with ‘pica’ that they have a dreadful eating disorder as/when they attempt to treat/help themselves and have to take this pill that pill, none of which ever contain any Mg.
love of money is going to destroy us all
Mad Climate Disease – nice!
Before bedtime I take 2000 mg of Magnesium L-Threonate which contains 144mg of Mg (34% of DV). Causes a very restful sleep. You’re right, most people are deficient in Mg.
We are going to undo the ‘pollution’ by adding more pollution.
On what planet do the people live who run Planetary Solutions?
The CEO, a Dr Greg Rau, is actually at some academic outfit in California. A poster boy for George Orwell’s dictum that some ideas are so idiotic that only academics believe in them.
That dictum dates from the time of Cicero.
Same planet that solves government-created problems with more government.
In my experience, the product of the hydroxide and CO2 will be a fine MgCO3 particulate that will take some time to settle, though it eventually will because it’s more dense than water.
St. Ives? Really? They say St. Ives is the dazzling jewel in Cornwall’s [Kernow’s] crown. It has long been what you could call an [expensively located] art colony.
“”JMW Turner’s illustrated Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England, published in 1811, first drew artistic and tourist attention to Cornwall. A master in the art of painting light, Turner’s work suggested that the intense colours, clear light and dramatic landscapes of Cornwall bore comparison with the Mediterranean.””
https://www.charlottebetts.com/artists-colonies-in-cornwall-at-the-turn-of-the-c20th/
Shortly after came the Carbon belching London-Penzance railway.
As far as I can see the locals are justifiably up in arms and the artists have yet to speak. According to the consultation documentation this is an Alkalinity Enhancement trial.
https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/dcis/planetary-ocean-alkalinity-enhancement-trial/
The killer line: “”Since climate change has caused the ocean to become more acidic””
No it hasn’t, as any Chemist worth their salt knows.
Maybe Planetary should move into the boiler water treatment game. At least then they can claim to be proteccting the Magnetite layer…
On my way to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
They all voted for Labour,
Not realising they’d pay for
that for the rest of their lives.
The chemical is, or should be, harmless. The amounts proposed are small. It would be absolutely ineffective.
I think it is a scam, but just by someone near St Ives Bay trying to get rid of a modest amount of magnesium hydroxide. It makes no sense to bring the stuff from China to that location.
“”I think it is a scam””
A true Damascene moment. After all, they won’t be trying that at Newquay….
Raising the pH will precipitate much sludge, ask any chemist…
You think it’ll actually be able to raise the pH level by any measurable amount?
Well, magnesium hydroxide is a sludge, But it is a stronger base and more soluble than the alternative sludge, calcium carbonate. And precipitating that sequesters CO2.
But you can’t make progress this way.
I have been asleep for several weeks and have woken up to find it is the First of April.
The proponents wish to add a magnesium to the bay waters yet the EA is concerned about the effects of calcium carbonate sediment on animals? Is there some form of alchemistry involved?
Seems like a wikipedia moment, when looking up what MgCO3 is, and everything is about Dolomite minerals – CaMg(CO3)2.
The chemistry does seem interesting and complicated – magnesium “calcite” is not stable, and it’s going to change to something else. What? I don’t know, IMO, not enough is known to do a large scale “experiment”.
What they propose to add is magnesium hydroxide, Mg(OH)2.
South West Water have form when it comes to deliberate water poisoning – in 1988 they poisoned a drinking water reservoir in Camelford with 20 tonnes of alumimium sulphate leading to the Uk’s biggest mass poisoning event. Sadly it seems they have learned nothing.
“…while the WRc carried out a “detailed and independent review” of Planetary’s proposal”
In this era of pal review and questionable “scientific” organizations such as the Rocky Mountain Institute, I wonder just how independent and unbiased WRc really is. From their web site:
“We are focused on doing the right thing – protecting the environment, reducing our carbon footprint and that of our clients, and above all ensuring safe, healthy populations and habitats.”
Can’t really tell if they have an agenda or not.,
“This has all the trappings of a scam to make money.”
part 400
You can’t “acidify” the ocean. Especially with a trace gas present in an atmosphere 1,000-times less dense than sea water. How do we know this? Because all over the planet, undersea volcanic vents have been spewing trillions of gallons/liters of concentrated liquid acids into the oceans for millions of years, only to be quickly neutralized by the ocean’s natural buffering capacity. Humans and their activities are puny by comparison.
“The amount of carbon dioxide that could be captured in this way would surely be infinitesimally small”
The level of CO2 has changed by 140 ppm since 1850 according to the IPCC, so even if you believe that they can actually measure the increase to that level of accuracy, we are talking of a change to the composition of the atmosphere of much less than 1 thousandth of 1 percent per decade. Perhaps we should not say “infinitesimally small” but instead, totally insignificant?
“This of course would require some sort of mining operation, along with crushing, …”
Not just crushing, but grinding to about the same level as portland cement because if not fine enough a large fraction of the brucite will probably end up on the sea floor.
That being said, do people not recognize that virtually all the world’s rivers carry alkalinity to the oceans in the form of bicarbonate and the real, long-term issue is to make sure the CO2 thus transported in somehow returned to the atmosphere where it will do more good?
Somebody, somewhere, is already selling/marketing their existing inventory.
Somebody, somewhere (in St Ives), is likely acquainted with the sales rep in more was than one.
(My guess is that the wastewater Nitrate levels may have been part of the initial conversation … was the facility having problems meeting permit limits? Or was the old piping system corroding?)
People should read the history of St Ives to understand the critical role mining played in the town’s history. The massive shoals of fish which were the mainstay of the economy when Turner painted his iconic images were attracted by the minerals released into the water by the mining industry. These gave the water the unique colours that Turner was accused of faking until other artists came to visit.
When the mines shut down in the late 19th and early 20th century, tailing water diminished in mineral content and the fish (and pretty coloured water) went away. This is well documented if you ever visit St Ives as it is such a critical part of the town’s history.
Not to say that dumping Magnesium in the water makes sense, but this a whole story on mining and the environment that is rarely heard.
“…Planetary said adding the alkaline compound to the sea would help counter ocean acidity caused by climate change…”
Because a biologically active virtually infinitely buffered slightly alkaline ocean does not have enough acid gas carrying capacity. The stupid burns bright. Kind of like my Mg slide rule the time I got it too close to a Bunsen burner.
Leave the CO2 in the atmosphere where it benefits the plant according to over 3000 plant growth CO2 enrichment studies. More CO2 is good news.
During WWI and WWII a lot of vessels were sunk in the N. Atlantic, where they have been rusting ever since.
I wonder when and where these iron enriched waters will come back to the surface?
Where are the chemists hiding?If you remove CO2 from the atmosphere, you reduce the partial pressure of CO2 which is in equilibrium with dissolved CO2 in the ocean. This initiates outgassing of ocean CO2 back into the atmosphere to restore chemical balance!
This means any local project is really like a taking pee in the ocean. Meanwhile, as always, one has to take a holistic approach in such analyses. Climate science’s “all other things remaining the same” type modeling are built to fail because “none of the other things stay the same”! The LeChâtelier Principle (LCP) elephant remains unknown to climate science. With LCP, we think holistically: whatever CO2 we succeeded to remove from the atmosphere reduces what would be taken up by plants and plankton for example …
I don’t see how pumping Milk of Magnesia into St. Ives Bay will do much for an “upset ocean”.
PS Magnesium Hydroxide has low solubility in water.
Frankly,
this is hilarious. If only Peter Sellars were still around to make a parody….or maybe Monty Python. I can just see John Cleese making a face as Terry Gilliam describes dumping massive amounts of toxic material into the sea, in order to Save the Earth.
Magnesium hydroxide is not a cheap way to make something more basic. Sodium or potassium hydroxide is far cheaper. Must be a buddy that has a source of the mineral and can profit much more by selling it to them than to a refiner.