GIGANTIC SEAWEED FARM CAPTURING CO2

Imagine a huge seaweed farm the size of Croatia floating in the South Atlantic between Africa and South America.
Spinning in a natural ocean eddy, it sucks a billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere every year and sinks it to the ocean floor out of harm’s way.
Far-fetched? Maybe. But a British businessman plans to have this up and running by 2026.
Scientists say reducing the world’s emissions probably won’t be enough and that carbon capture will be crucial to limiting global warming. But carbon capture schemes have so far been relatively low-scale and seen limited success.
If they are going to work, they need to be bold, big, and attractive to investors.
Businessman John Auckland believes he has just such an idea. He wants to exploit what he calls “the wondrous properties” of the floating seaweed sargassum. He’s confident his Seafields floating farm will draw sufficient CO2 from the air to moderate the effects of climate change, while also earning its backers carbon credits.
At 55,000 sq km (21,200 sq miles) Auckland is thinking big. It needs to be vast to put a dent in the fifty gigatonnes of carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere every year. A gigatonne is a billion tonnes: the amount of carbon Auckland’s mega-farm aims to capture annually

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