I don't think this is a good idea. The ocean is very sensitive to change. Any time we try to add something to nature it doesn't work out. Think of all the invasive species we've introduced to balence things we've done. Leave the ocean alone.

I find this hard to accept coming from an oil company.

Kind of like messing someones house, then trying to sell them shampoo to clean up the dirt.

Perpetuating fossil fuel folly.....Please just leave the stuff in the ground.

Haha, why is Shell funding the feasibility study? Is there something they're trying to say?

Maybe this has been considered, but it seems like messing w/ the chemistry of the ocean, specifically so it can absorb more CO2 would be a bad thing(tm). What effect will this have on ocean life? I can't see this improving things down there. Being vegetarian, I don't eat fish, but isn't the fishing industry already having trouble? If this has a negative impact, won't that suffer further? Not that I really would feel sorry for the fishing industry, but it wouldn't help the current economic climate...

Um... Calcium Hydroxide is a suspect chemical in causing cancer. Does anyone else think that this just might not be a great idea?

Seems to me this is not a solution to a problem, but rather a great way to make a fantastically light hearted smiles galore fluff commercials letting us all know that Shell is doing their part to help save the world.

What ever happened to alternative sources of energy?

If things get too alkaline from adding the lime, they can just add some lemons to counteract it.

This is a sort of "kicking the can down the road" solution. It's kicking the can down a looooong way, but that's still what it is.

See, CO2 in the atmosphere increases the acidity of rain water thus dissolving minerals, like calcium, producing limestone. This process sequesters the vast majority of the carbon in the world in a relatively stable form until it gets released when rocks get pushed down into the mantle and melt at a subduction zone. So in order to sequester the carbon naturally without turning it back into the fossil fuel that some nitwit will insist on burning will eventually require not lime but feldspar or some other source of alkali elements to form limestone (the source of lime).

On the plus side this plan definitely reduces the problem of ocean acidification, but I would want to see whether this method of reducing the acidity of the ocean would help the shell producing critters in the ocean compared with the alternatives. The reason being that pH is, grossly, related to the concentration of different chemicals that drive certain chemical reactions. What we have here is a situation where CO2 drives pH down and alkali metals drive it up. For hundreds of years we've been adding the former, and this plan proposes adding both because the pH will go down on balance. It makes more sense to add only the latter as much as we can because we get twice the sequestering ability, comparatively, and actually increase the mineral content available for carbonate forming critters instead of just making the situation less bad.

Along the same lines as my previous post, this is fantastic news. The punch line: some scientists have found an enzyme that can catalyze the reaction that changes CO2 into carbonic acid: CO2 + H20 -> HCOO + H. It is the slowness of this reaction that leads to the incredibly long dwell time of CO2 in the atmosphere. The ability to speed up this step is fantastic news because it means they can dissolve feldspars much more efficiently.

According to the link the biggest hurdle they face is that the enzyme breaks down in the presence of oxygen. If they can get a version of the enzyme that is oxygen tolerant then they might be able to make carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) workable. What's more, use a biological feedstock in a CCS system and suddenly you're removing carbon from circulation instead of just preventing it from entering circulation.

As someone who has been very openly positive about iron seeding, I'd like to point out that this lime option is very different. They are apples and oranges.

Lime application would fnstantaneously alter ocean water chemistry in the top few meters of water, with many possible direct and indirect impacts upon marine organisms.

Lime is extremely energy intensive to make, does not exist in nature, and emits heavy metals from the kiln while being processed.

Who thinks we need to use huge amounts of coal and gas to solve the problem solved by their over-use. Mind boggling. Only petroleum engineers could come up with that one.

Conversely, iron oxide is a naturally occurring micro-nutrient already demanded by plankton that would be applied at concentrations orders of magnitude less than the lime. Iron oxide requires no processing other than crushing and sifting. For iron to have toxic side effects on aquatic organisms it would have to be applied at very high and expensive concentrations - which was never the plan.

FYI many vitamins essential to human health are toxic at high concentrations.

Same story -- just read some comments from chemists,etc

http://www.physorg.com/news135820173.html

The more reasonable comments are generally not supportive of this concept.

This seems like a rather backwards way of thinking to me. Gee wiz we sure seem to be adding alot of pollutants to the air. Hmm maybe we can suck it all into the ocean? That should fix the problem temporarily and make everyone shut up for awhile. High fives all around!

These people must be stopped.