New Carbon Economy Consortium (NCEC) co-chair Amanda Ellis visited Dalhousie University in  mid-September for Dalhousie’s Innovation Week. The week included an impressive array of  both faculty and student innovators, especially at the Falling Walls pitch competition and  fascinating ocean related research and innovation linked to climate and C02 sequestration,  both “Blue” and what is becoming known as “Deep Blue” solutions. 

In addition to touring Doug Wallace’s lab (see monthly profile below) it was inspiring to visit  the Ocean Frontier Institute, now beginning work on The Transforming Climate Action (TCA)  initiative funded by Canada First Research Excellence Fund, the Creative Destruction Lab and  

the IdeaHUB where engineering ventures Planetary: ocean C02 removal through alkalinity  enhancement and pHathom: building a limestone scrubber for power emissions from fossil fuel  plants, were on display.

The work at Dalhousie discussed in the interview below represents the collective effort of a team  of investigators supported by grants from a number of organizations. The group includes: Katja  Fennel; Dariia Atamanchuk; Ruth Musgrave; Bin Wang; Arnaud Laurent; Hugh MacIntyre; Julie  LaRoche, Doug Wallace, Chris Algar + many others, including students and technicians from  several research groups.  

Special thanks to Douglas Wallace for coordinating the Dalhousie NCEC Interview. Doug is a  Professor at Dalhousie University in the Department of Oceanography. He studies  Oceanography, Chemical oceanography and Atmospheric science. Dalhousie University has  campuses located in Halifax and Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada.  

NCEC Interview Questions 

1. How does Dalhousie University contribute to removing carbon from the atmosphere? 

Researchers from several groups at Dalhousie University are working as a team to develop methods to assess the efficacy of increasing CO2 uptake using Ocean Alkalinity 

Enhancement (OAE), as well as investigating its potential impacts. Our research effort is  independent of but coordinated with R&D efforts of the Canadian company Planetary  Technologies. Planetary are pioneering Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement which appears,  currently, to be one of the most promising carbon removal technologies due to its  scalability and permanence. Whereas Planetary are developing methods to source and  deliver alkaline materials efficiently and safely to the ocean environment, our team at  Dalhousie is applying and developing methods to determine what happens to the material,  including its effect on CO2 uptake, using a variety of advanced observation and modelling  approaches. The key to this private-public cooperation is co-location and a common focus on a small coastal basin (Bedford Basin) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, by both Planetary and  Dalhousie. This allows for complementarity of research efforts (including both modeling and  observation/ experiment) and for active, deep dialog between private and public sectors. 

2. What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in carbon removal? 

One of the largest challenges is the multi-disciplinary nature of the problem which requires insights and skills of marine chemists, physicists and biologists to be combined. A further  challenge is scale. Even though the decision was made, early on, to focus research within a relatively small, semi-enclosed body of water (8 km x 5 km x 70 m maximum depth) of which we already had considerable understanding, characterization of the ultimate fate and  effectiveness of OAE requires working well beyond the confines of the Basin. Hence our  work spans distance scales ranging from meters to hundreds of kilometers. The research  also requires a level of integration of modeling and observation that has rarely been tackled before, involving measurement and modeling of multiple phases (including materials in  solid, dissolved and gas phases) within a turbulent and complex environment.  A separate challenge is funding: the work in Bedford Basin has only been possible given the ability to combine private sector research investments from Planetary with a combination  of traditional academic funding and philanthropic support to the team at Dalhousie.  Government funding is often slow to materialize and has been quite limited to date.  Currently, private sector funding for development of carbon solutions such as OAE, appears to flow predominantly to companies which may, or may not choose to use that to support  “independent” research by organizations such as Universities. However, this approach risks creating conflicts of interest or perceptions thereof. It is therefore critical that future  investment of private funds into research towards carbon “solutions” proposed by the  private sector be matched with investment into research by non-profit organizations that is  truly independent. Our experience in Bedford Basin suggests this can be highly effective when carefully managed. There is a need for policy in this area to help ensure that  investments in solutions prove credible and effective over the long-term.

3. Who are the key stakeholders in the carbon removal space? 

In our case, the key stakeholders are Planetary Technologies and our current main funder,  the international philanthropic organization “Carbon to Sea”. Gradually, additional partners are joining the effort including local business support organizations such as COVE (the  Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship). We also work closely with a number of  ocean technology companies to improve measurement capacity.

4. Who else is doing work like this in the field?  

There are a few related field trials into OAE being initiated in the UK, USA, Iceland and  elsewhere. To-date, the effort in Bedford Basin appears to be the most comprehensive and  may help establish a model for similar research efforts elsewhere. We have already learned  several valuable lessons which we are interested to share. 

5. How is this a viable financial model?  

This is not an issue for Dalhousie research which is focused exclusively on scientific research  in the public interest. 

6. How are you measuring carbon removal? How is it verified?  

We employ a combination of observations and modelling supplemented by experimental  studies (e.g. dye release studies to help characterize water motion). The combination of  modelling and observation is key, and we have developed an iterative process of  observation and model refinement. However, this is a two-way knowledge exchange  process so that the model helps inform the sampling and observational strategy. Ultimately,  carbon removal is estimated by models that are evaluated and guided to the maximum  extent possible by observation and empirical study. 

7. How do groups like the New Carbon Economy Consortium allow you to further your  progress? 

We are not yet fully integrated into NCEC however we see that sharing of perspectives of  carbon reduction and mitigation approaches can be valuable in order to more rapidly seize  opportunities and share ideas and perspectives. NCEC would provide a forum for sharing of  lessons learned, for example of how to make public-private partnerships effective,  transparent, and credible. The need for private sector funding of independent research into  carbon solutions, in parallel with support for industry efforts is very important, as  mentioned above. We would appreciate the opportunity for discussion of our experience of this and related matters within NCEC. 

8. How do you work with local communities?  

Dalhousie, as a local University, is already firmly embedded into the local community  around Halifax. The University has been very active in making sure that our research efforts  are well advertised and the researchers have engaged in various public outreach and education events. We endeavor to explain broadly, over local media, what the goals of our  work are and what our working relationship is with our main industry collaborator,  Planetary Technologies. Planetary, at the same time, has an extensive public engagement  effort and these activities are closely coordinated in order to ensure that messaging of both  parties is accurate and avoid misunderstanding of respective roles. 

9. Anything else you’d like to share? 

It’s important to note that the work at Dalhousie represents the collective effort of a team  of investigators supported by grants from a number of organizations. The group includes:  Katja Fennel; Dariia Atamanchuk; Ruth Musgrave; Bin Wang; Arnaud Laurent; Hugh  MacIntyre; Julie LaRoche, Chris Algar + many others, including students and technicians  from several research groups.  

Links for Further Reading 

• Alk Align Project https://alkalign.ocean.dal.ca/ 

• Science News Article https://www.science.org/content/article/climate-crisis-sparks effort-coax-oceans-suck-carbon-dioxide 

• Katja Fennel’s webpage https://memg.ocean.dal.ca/index.html 

• The CERTC Ocean Group webpage https://www.dal.ca/diff/cerc.htmlhttps://www.planetarytech.com/