Project Vesta

Project Vesta is a public benefit corporation[1] that researches and carries out accelerated weathering of the mineral olivine as a climate drawdown strategy to capture carbon in the world’s oceans.[2] They are focused on increasing the volume and quality of the scientific evidence behind accelerated weathering, in order to make it an economically viable opportunity for atmospheric carbon removal.[2] Vesta claims that their goal is US$10 a ton for reaching economic viability, but some critics do not think this is viable.[2] Executive director Tom Green claims "If we spread olivine over 2% of the world’s shelf sea, then that will be enough to capture 100% of human emissions.”[3] In 2022, Grace Andrews represented Project Vesta in the climate documentary "Solving for Zero" written by Bill Gates. [4]

Project Vesta
Type Public-benefit corporation
PurposeEnvironmentalism Environmental science
Location
CEO
Tom Green
Key people
Kelly Erhart, Grace Andrews, Ryan Hostak
Websitewww.vesta.earth


History

In 2019, Kelly Erhart co-founded the company[5] as a nonprofit[6] headquartered in San Francisco.[7] In 2021,[8] the organization changed from a non-profit to public benefit corporation.[9] Vesta announced in May 2020, that they began a controlled trials of the approach in two private beaches in the Caribbean and are looking for other sites to experiment.[2][3] The experiment was funded by a mix of crowdfunding, grants and carbon capture credits by companies like Stripe who purchased 3,333 tons of carbon sequestration for $75 a ton.[2][3] In 2009, one paper contended that the process is not economically viable at the scale needed to make a meaningful impact in carbon dioxide sequestration.[10] In 2020, the director of Project Vesta said that if the process could be done for $10 a ton, the project would be widely accepted by the markets and the public, especially as climate change became worse.[2]

In 2021, the company calculated that spreading olivine in 0.25% of the world's shelf seas will remove one billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.[11] The company said in 2022 it could remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate of $35 a ton if the process is scaled up to the gigatonnes.[12]

In 2022, the town of Southampton, New York, in collaboration with Stony Brook University, and Cornell University’s Cooperative Extension, and Project Vesta, began a pilot project to place 500 cubic yards of olivine on a Southampton beach that has been eroding as sea levels rise.[13][12] As part of the pilot and other experiments, the company monitored whether their approach releases concentrations of toxins from the olivine.[3]

Process

Project Vesta is testing whether the olivine weathering process will mitigate coastal recession[13] and reduce ocean acidification.[3][2][14] The Project Vesta process mimics natural weathering processes to transform the olivine into silicates and other stable chemicals, like calcium carbonate which precipitate to the oceans bottoms as marine life consumes the naturally occurring chemical and die (see Carbon in the water cycle for further info).[2] The wave action of beaches on crushed olivine allows for more rapid weathering than other natural deposits of olivine, which only absorb limited amounts of carbon dioxide.[3]

Since the olivine weathering process creates molecular byproducts such as calcium carbonate that could alkalinize acidifying seawater or release metals such as bioavailable nickel, the organization also researches chemical composition and toxicology of affected water and aquatic life.[3][9] Project Vesta publishes their scientific findings and as of May 2020 made their methods open source.[6]


References
  1. "15 Young Founders Rethinking Everything From Artificial Intelligence to Carbon Removal, Sustainable Fashion to...Pizza! Our definitive list of the up-and-comers to watch this year". Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur.com. 16 August 2022. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
  2. "A Caribbean beach could offer a crucial test in the fight to slow climate change". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  3. Peters, Adele (2020-05-29). "Ever been to a green sand beach? The newest geohack to fight climate change". Fast Company. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  4. "Meet the future in this online series about climate change". GatesNotes.com. 15 April 2022. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
  5. Purchia, Robyn (16 July 2022). "Let's keep the climate restoration movement growing". San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
  6. Delbert, Caroline (2020-06-11). "How This Strange Green Sand Could Reverse Climate Change". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  7. Palmer, Phillip (20 October 2021). "Cutting-edge technology battles climate change by using sand to pull carbon dioxide from atmosphere". ABC7 San Francisco. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
  8. "Entity details: Project Vesta, PBC". State of Delaware. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  9. Temple, James (30 March 2022). "Why using the oceans to suck up CO2 might not be as easy as hoped". Technology Review. MIT. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  10. Hangx, Suzanne J.T.; Spiers, Christopher J. (2009). "Coastal spreading of olivine to control atmospheric CO2 concentrations: A critical analysis of viability". International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control. 3 (6): 757–767. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  11. Fleming, Amy (23 June 2021). "Cloud spraying and hurricane slaying: how ocean geoengineering became the frontier of the climate crisis". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  12. Agard, Sade (26 August 2022). "The mineral that could remove 1 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere and protect shorelines and oceans too- but will it go to scale? Interesting Engineering". Interesting Engineering. Interestingengineering.com. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  13. Merrill, Kitty (26 May 2022). "Dredge Spoil + Olivine = A Nourished Beach In North Sea". 27East.com. Southampton Press. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
  14. Yeung, Peter (21 December 2021). "Could crushed rocks absorb enough carbon to curb global warming? A little-examined form of geoengineering takes what rocks normally do—lock up carbon—and spreads it through the oceans". National Geographic. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
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