A major solution to the climate crisis may lie at the bottom of the ocean. Across the planet, basalt rock deposits on the sea floor have the potential to trap carbon dioxide, removing the heat-trapping gas from our atmosphere. That's why a team of scientists wants to build floating rigs at strategic offshore locations.

Rather than extracting oil from the ocean floor – as offshore rigs currently do – these futuristic platforms would be injecting CO2 into it. Powered by their own wind turbines, the floating stations would suck carbon dioxide out of the sky (or even out of seawater) and pump it into holes in the sea bed.

The scientists call their project Solid Carbon because, if it works as they expect, the CO2 they inject will forever be rock at the bottom of the ocean. "That makes carbon storage very durable and very safe," said Martin Scherwath, a geophysicist working on the project and a staff scientist at Ocean Networks Canada. Unlike other storage techniques, we wouldn't have to worry about carbon returning to the atmosphere and raising global temperatures. 

It's not yet certain whether these oceanic carbon-removal factories would work as expected. First, the scientists need about $60 million to test a prototype at sea.

Source: Science Alert

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