COBRA Webinar – June 2023

Ocean Networks Canada and Solid Carbon: A Future for Carbon Dioxide Removal below the Deep Sea

Dr. Martin Scherwath (Ocean Networks Canada and SolidCarbon)

Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is a world-leading research and ocean observing facility at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and primarily operates ocean-based science monitoring infrastructure around Canada, from coast to coast to coast, Pacific, Arctic, Atlantic. With a vision to enhance life on earth by providing ocean intelligence that delivers solutions for science, society and industry, ONC is actively supporting climate mitigation projects, including leading the Solid Carbon project which aims to capture CO₂ from the atmosphere and sequester it in the deep ocean basalt where CO₂ then mineralizes and turns into carbonate rock.

This webinar will give a brief overview the history of ONC, which started collecting data in 2006 in Saanich Inlet near Victoria on the VENUS observatory, then in 2009 expanded to the large NEPTUNE observatory that connects researchers live through the Internet all the way out to the Endeavour segment of the Juan de Fuca spreading ridge 300 km offshore, and since 2012 operates an observatory in the high Arctic Cambridge Bay.

For the Solid Carbon project, it is planned to utilize one of the node locations in the Cascadia Basin, where instrumented boreholes are connected to the NEPTUNE observatory, continuing the legacy of one of the best studied pieces of deep ocean crust, and where hydrogeologic experiments have been conducted over the last decade. This site provides an ideal test bed for one of the safest and most durable forms of carbon storage, as will be explained. Current feasibility studies and proposed demonstrations aim to have this so-called negative emissions technology ready by 2030 and make use of the full 750 Gt of CO₂ reservoir capacity in the Cascadia Basin, with a global potential of up to 250,000 Gt of CO₂, to forever lock away any excess CO₂ that needs to be removed from the atmosphere as long as greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced as much as needed.