A corresponding case study to ocean liming is with a company called Cquestrate, who proposed an ocean liming scheme in the Nullarbor Plain of South Australia. Tim Kruger is the founder of this company, and aims to reutilise liming in a means to protect the environment from increasing global warming effects.
Nullarbor Plain is feasible for potential liming activity due to the abundance of limestone (over 200,000 km2), approximately 20MJ per m2 of daily solar radiation and only 200-300mm of rainfall per year (
Cquestrate, 2008).
According to calculations, the Plain contains 10,000km3 of limestone, of which, only 5% consumption would return the 305GtC of carbon dioxide emitted between 1750-2003 back to pre-industrial levels (
Cquestrate, 2008)!
Ideal!
This project however has been questioned with regards to using 'dirty energy' such as coal power to undergo calcination, but Cquestrate aim to use 'stranded renewable energy'. For example, according to
Kurokawa (2003) deserts are untapped resources which could utilise solar radiation through photovoltaic power generation schemes. As this is never used on a large scale, it is a cheap energy source and great in the right location. This reasoning is why Australia's Nullarbor plain has been chosen by Cquestrate, as it receives ample sunlight, and is abundant in limestone material (
Sandstone, 2007).
It would appear from the statistics that liming of the ocean could be the technological approach needed to stall the effects of current global warming, especially if the dirty energy solution can be solved, and could be applied in the large scale, as that is what the definition of geoengineering requires to take place. Also, despite the attributes listed by Cquestrate, there has been no mention of timescale, and how long it would take to reap the benefits of their project.
Who knows, Cquestrate could become future geoengineering giants (subject to project success)- watch this space!
S xx
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