Coccolithophore Cultivation and Deployment

Planetary Bioengineering on Earth to Return and Maintain the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide to Pre-Industrial Levels: Assessing Potential Mechanisms

“…The following advantages of shellfish farming should be added to this list: shellfish build food security; shellfish don't require feeding; shellfish don't require irrigation; shellfish don't require agricultural land; bivalve welfare is not as serious a concern as it is for terrestrial farm animals. Our claims are not limited to bivalve molluscs, however; cultivation of coccolithophores [92,106,107] crustacea, corals, and molluscs [76] on a massive scale would make a huge and continued ameliorating contribution to climate change on this planet. An important feature of what we are suggesting is that the calcifier farming exercise should be seen as a means of producing CaCO3.…”

“…We also emphasise that this CaCO3 not only sequesters atmospheric carbon but has the bio-circular economic potential for use as a sustainable biomaterial in a wide variety of different ways, and that the activity has enormous potential for sustainable aquaculture, conservation, and restitution of marine ecosystems [76,77,91,92]. Put simply, we advocate accelerating implementation of a historically proven natural solution to the Earth's climate crisis by actively cultivating oceanic calcifiersusing engineering and technology to assist and guide natural systems on a path to planetary harmony.…”

“…We argue that if the level of finance and global effort that are readily foreseen for forest management (two trillion trees) and flue gas treatments (returned to the atmosphere in 10,000 years) were to be applied to expansion of shellfish and coccolithophore cultivation [92] around the world, significant amounts of carbon dioxide could be permanently removed from the atmosphere within the timescale that is currently envisaged for carbon capture by afforestation. There's money in Alonso et al…”

An Assessment of the Potential Value for Climate Remediation of Ocean Calcifiers in Sequestration of Atmospheric Carbon

“…Coccolithophores are the most prolific producers of CaCO3 in the oceans, accounting for almost half of the total CaCO3 produced in today's oceans annually [30][31][32]. Evidence from the deep ocean indicates that over the past 220 years there has been a 40% increase in coccolith mass in the deep-sea sediments [33].…”