CDR technologies remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or surface ocean. Typical methods involve either photosynthesis which converts it into biomass and oxygen, or capture it from the air or water, whence it requires sequestration or use. Concentrating aqueous CO2 in dense brine may also be used to sink it away from the atmosphere via the Solubility Pump.

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Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)View
Short DescriptionCDR technologies remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or surface ocean. Typical methods involve either photosynthesis which converts it into biomass and oxygen, or capture it from the air or water, whence it requires sequestration or use. Concentrating aqueous CO2 in dense brine may also be used to sink it away from the atmosphere via the Solubility Pump.
DescriptionCDR, or the more general term Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR), refers to destroying or removing a portion of the tropospheric gases and particulates that insulate the planet, thereby reducing the rate by which heat is radiated from it. These include carbon dioxide, water vapour, methane, nitrous oxide (N2O), ozone, volatile organic compounds (VOC), and the industrial gases: hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), perfluorocarbons (PFC), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). Although not gases, the particulates soot/black carbon, dust (some from meteoric or burnt up space junk sources), and microorganisms may also be regarded as warming agents because they typically absorb sunlight and warm the surrounding gas. On the other hand, tropospheric particulates such as sea salt and ice crystals will tend to have an albedo cooling effect, unless they are in the stratosphere where they may contribute to warming because they reflect radiation back to the planet.
MethodsEffectsProjects
Buoyant Flakes
Carbon biosequestration
Cooling
De-acidification
Global cooling
More fish
Possibility of deep sea hypoxia though needed for biosequestration
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Pending
Buoyant flakes made largely from waste materials ultra-slowly release nutrients in continently-remote surface waters to turn the dark blue seas turquoise with phytoplankton and increasing its albedo and that of marine cloud that cools the planet enough to offset current warming
Ice Shields/ISA
Arctic refreeze and GHG suppression
Irrigation
Reduce atmospheric methane concentrations in summer
Hazard of ice dam collapse
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Marine Permaculture Arrays (MPA)
Broken fronds increase CDR
Harvest revenues
May also use Buoyant Flakes to provide the nutrients
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Sea Plough
Assist phytoplankton and seaweed growth
Towing by FF-powered vessels is unsustainable
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Seatomisers/ISA
Minor potential to increase ocean flotsam
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Disseminating long-lived, ultra-slow-release, Buoyant Flakes carrying supplementary nutrients over the ocean surface mirrors what good farmers do on land. The flakes are made mainly from plentiful natural and waste materials using simple baking technology. They are designed to provide the iron, phosphate, silica and trace elements most needed by phytoplankton and seaweed to flourish.
In colder seasons, sea ice can be thickened by pumping seawater onto it in calibrated gushes so that it: forms semi-permanent, above and below ice polar habitat; enhances albedo; may stably ground the new ice arrays; stabilises coastlines, glaciers and the polar vortex; reduces or converts ebullient methane emissions; increases snowfall and off-planet heat radiation; and sequesters carbon dioxide and oxygen gases in the deep.
MPAs and their infrastructure are designed to bring cooling and nutrients so that kelp can be grown and harvested in most cool and temperate waters, often far from land.
Seawater moving through a submerged pipe conducts cool, nutrient-rich water diagonally upwards where it is useful to photosynthetic organisms. Whilst still conceptual, marine engineering is currently being carried out by the Australian Maritime College.
Floating Seatomiser masts use wind turbine energy to spray seawater droplets of specific size ranges into the lower troposphere. Commercial spray nozzles are modified to work at higher tri-phasic pressures and to produce droplets for different purposes: coarse and medium sized ones to humidify air at different wind speeds, and baffle-conditioned, fine ones from flat fan spray nozzles to generate evaporating droplets that nucleate marine cloud and/or create sea salt aerosols (SSA).
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