From BBC
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BBC environment correspondent
Reporting fromWeymouth
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A ground-breaking project to suck carbon out of the sea has started operating on England’s south coast.
The small pilot scheme, known as SeaCURE, is funded by the UK government as part of its search for technologies that fight climate change.
There’s broad consensus among climate scientists that the overwhelming priority is to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the chief cause of global warming.
But many scientists also believe that part of the solution will have to involve capturing some of the gases that have already been released.
These projects, known as carbon capture, usually focus either on capturing emissions at source or pulling them from the air.
What makes SeaCure interesting is that it is testing whether it might be more efficient to pull planet-warming carbon from the sea, since it is present in greater concentrations in water than in the air.
To reach the project’s entrance you have to go round the back of the Weymouth Sealife Centre and walk past a sign that says “Caution: Moray Eels may Bite”.
There’s a reason this ground-breaking project has been placed here.
It’s a pipe that snakes under the stony beach and out into the English Channel, sucking up seawater and bringing it onshore.
The project is trying to find whether removing carbon from the water might be a cost effective way of reducing the amount of the climate warming gas CO2 in the atmosphere.
SeaCURE processes the seawater to
