C&EN Uncovered: Can altering ocean chemistry fight climate change?

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Craig Bettenhausen: Craig,
welcome to CNN uncovered. I'm

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Craig Bettenhausen. CNN
uncovered is a podcast series

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from Stereo Chemistry. In each
episode, we'll take another look

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at a recent cover story in
chemical and Engineering News,

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and hear from CNN reporters
about striking moments from

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their reporting, their biggest
takeaways, and what got left on

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the cutting room floor. This
episode, we're looking at a

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recent cover story about a CO
two abatement method called

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Ocean alkalinity enhancement
that aims to use the world's

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oceans to remove more carbon
from the atmosphere. Are Earth's

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vast oceans our biggest allies
in the fight against greenhouse

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gasses. Can we augment the power
of nature to keep our planet

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alive longer? We'll put a link
to the story in today's show

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notes. I'm here with CNN
assistant editor Fiona Samuels,

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who wrote the article. Hi Fiona.

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Fionna Samuels: Hi Craig. It's
so nice to be here.

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Craig Bettenhausen: Yeah, good
to have you.

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for

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So for anyone that hasn't had a
chance to read the story yet,

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can you give a brief recap of
what's in the article? Yeah, so

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basically, I reported on a few
different experiments, field

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trials, specifically, that are
happening around the world to

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look at how we can add alkaline
substances to ocean water in

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order to help it draw down more
carbon dioxide from the

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atmosphere. And all of this is
in an effort to sort of stymie

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the worst effects of climate
change. And how did you get

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interested in this topic? It
actually started out looking at

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solar radiation modification, or
solar geoengineering, which is

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putting stuff into the
atmosphere to reflect sunlight

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back into space. But it turns
out that there are almost no

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field trials happening in that
space right now because it's so

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controversial, and the method is
very questionable. But there is

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quite a few different things
happening in the marine carbon

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dioxide removal space. So
instead of reflecting sunlight

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to cool the planet, removing
carbon dioxide to help cool the

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planet, interesting. So one of
the things I had noticed in your

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story is this experiment called
Loch Ness. Tell me about Loch

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Ness. The experiment not the
Celtic sea monster or both. I'm

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flexible.

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Fionna Samuels: So unlike the
monster, I guess this experiment

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is real and it's officially
happening. They just got the

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permit, finally approved with
the EPA. It's being led by a

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researcher at Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute. His

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name is Dr Adam Subhas, and what
they're doing is they are

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releasing a solution of sodium
hydroxide into the water and

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looking at where that alkaline
water goes, and measuring a

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whole bunch of different things
to try to see if they can

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quantify how much carbon dioxide
is absorbed by the water because

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of that increased alkalinity.
Seems too simple to be

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intuitive. Can you explain how
would dumping a bunch of lye

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into the water do anything about
carbon dioxide in the

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atmosphere. Well, so carbon
dioxide dissolves in water

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naturally. This is an ongoing
geochemical process, and when

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the gas dissolves into the
water, it quickly reacts to form

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carbonic acid, which then
dissolves into different

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carbonate ions. And because it's
an acid protons, so that's why

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we get ocean acidification. And
it was really interesting

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because many of the researchers
that I spoke to for this story

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started off as researchers of
ocean acidification. So the pH

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plays a big role in how much
carbon dioxide can be absorbed

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and then sequestered in ocean
water. And by raising the pH or

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making it more alkaline, not
only are you sort of combating

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that acidification that happens
with carbon dioxide dissolution,

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but you're also making it so
more carbon dioxide can be

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absorbed and then sequestered as
carbonate ions and bicarbonate

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ions. It's a little bit like
magic, to be honest.

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Craig Bettenhausen: And what
kind of scales would this need

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to operate on to make an impact?

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Fionna Samuels: Well, that's a
great question. So right now,

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humanity is releasing carbon
dioxide on gigaton orders of

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magnitude. So that's 1 billion
metric tons, and it's our annual

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emissions are close to 40
billion metric tons. Obviously

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we need to reduce emissions.
That's number one. But there are

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certain sectors that can't be
easily decarbonized. So

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aviation, agriculture, those
cows are going to keep farting.

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So we need to do more than just
radically decrease emissions.

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Scientists think we need to also
start removing carbon dioxide

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from the atmosphere, but if
we're thinking on gigaton scale

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of emissions, we want to
probably remove gigatons of

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carbon dioxide. That would be
great. We can't do that right

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now. We're not even to millions
of metric tons. So one of the

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researchers, David Ho, had a
really good analogy. He thinks

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of carbon removal like a time
machine. So if you're thinking

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we're emitting 40 billion metric
tons of carbon dioxide annually

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around the globe. And if we
could remove 1 million metric

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tons with these carbon dioxide
removal techniques, you would

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have had gone back 13 minutes in
time. That's equivalent to 13

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minutes of carbon emissions. So
the scale is huge, and.

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It's impossible to do it with
carbon dioxide removal

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techniques alone. Emission
reduction is absolutely vital.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So I can
imagine getting sodium hydroxide

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on a laboratory scale. You can
get it at the hardware store,

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but on that kind of scale, we're
not just talking about that kind

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of material. Where are we going
to get that much base

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equivalence, that much
alkalinity? Yeah,

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Fionna Samuels: so now you're
talking about sort of the life

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cycle of these sort of
techniques. And there's actually

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a few different techniques. It's
not just putting sodium

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hydroxide in the water. So with
sodium hydroxide, the Loch Ness

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team is truly only interested in
figuring out if ocean alkalinity

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enhancement is a viable
solution, and so they're

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basically using the cleanest
form of alkalinity in the sense

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that sodium hydroxide, they can
be incredibly confident of what

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they're putting in the water.
They can be very confident about

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the kinds of reactions that are
happening. Sodium ions already

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exist in seawater. Hydroxide
ions also exist in seawater, but

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obviously at a far lower
abundance and the pH, they very

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well constrained how the pH will
fluctuate after their release

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and at different timescales
after the release. That's why

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they're using sodium hydroxide
in the real world. You're right.

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Sodium hydroxide is not
necessarily a viable way to

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increase the alkalinity of these
bodies of water, because you

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would need vast amounts of it.
And right now, a lot of sodium

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hydroxide is actually produced
in chlorine chemical reactions,

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but we produce chlorine for
other chemistry is happening

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anyway. Other researchers are
looking at alkaline minerals. So

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like olivine is a big one, and
that would come from mining

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minerals around the world. We
humanity, different people are

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already sort of spreading these
mined minerals on agricultural

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fields and elsewhere. So those
sources of mineral alkalinity

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exist already, which is why
these folks who are using

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minerals argue that that might
be a better option. A third

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technique actually uses
electrolysis to separate

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alkaline seawater from acidic
seawater. But the problem with

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that is then you have a bunch of
acid, and there's not a huge

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market for acid to change the pH
of things. So you're right when

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it comes to scalability, the
life cycle of these chemicals is

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very important to consider,
where they're coming from, where

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the byproducts are going. If
we're thinking about mining

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alkaline minerals, you need to
think about if those mines are

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emitting more carbon than can be
taken up by the ocean or other

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carbon dioxide removal
techniques where the energy is

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coming from. All of this stuff
is a big question mark. The

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field trials right now are
really focused on whether or not

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the chemistry is workable from a
standpoint of like we

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theoretically know that this
should work, but does it in the

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real world.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So that
suggests the question, how are

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they going to tell what are they
measuring to see if this

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Fionna Samuels: works? They're
measuring a bunch of different

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things. So the Woods Hole folks
are. They're throwing the whole

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instrument laboratory at the
problem. They're going to be

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taking water in through the ship
that they're driving and

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releasing the alkaline solution
behind to sample for the

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pressures of oxygen and carbon
dioxide dissolved in the water.

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They're also going to be looking
at how the pH changes. They're

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going to be looking at total
dissolved inorganic carbon,

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which is all those carbonate
ions. They're going to be

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looking at changes in the marine
life in the area. Of course,

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they're going to make sure that
they're not, or they plan to

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make sure that they're not going
to be dumping anything on a

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whale's head, right? But as long
as there's not any big animals

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around the they're gonna dump
this solution, and then they

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will be taking a plankton net
and dragging the plankton net

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behind the boat to look at how
these little, tiny marine plant,

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like creatures, plankton, is
hard to find. Sorry,

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Craig Bettenhausen: yeah, things
at the bottom of the food web,

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how the bottom of the food web?
Yes, yes, they're

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Fionna Samuels: looking at how
plankton, which is the bottom of

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the food web, will be affected
by this experiment in the real

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world, because other researchers
have already looked at how

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plankton are affected in
microcosms and mesocosms, which

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are basically containers filled
with seawater.

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Craig Bettenhausen: Yes, I liked
in your story, you had this

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vocabulary where the mesocosms,
and started right off with that,

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I immediately, I was like, I
need to I'm in just so I can

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find out what that word means.

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Fionna Samuels: Yeah. So
mesocosm is basically like a

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giant test tube, like 1000s of
liters of water in a test in an

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enclosed container. And then the
microcosms are smaller volumes

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of water, so more on the liter
scale. And the nice thing about

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microcosms is that, because
they're so small, you can

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standardize a bunch of
experiments across the world,

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you can have a bunch of
different labs doing a very

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similar experiment with
different samples of water. So

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like you can go out and scoop
ocean water off the coast of

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Maine or off the coast of
Australia or off the coast of

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England, right? Like any of
these places

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Craig Bettenhausen: and the
mesocosms, these are in the

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water. But not the water can't
pass from one side of this

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mesocosm out into the general
correct

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Fionna Samuels: so the 1000
liter containers, the mesocosms,

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they are just containers in the
ocean. The researchers flood the

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container, collect all this
water and then make sure that if

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there are any fish or anything
else accidentally get caught up,

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to remove the fish. Because
that's too complex, they're

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really only interested in the
plankton, the bottom of the food

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web at this point. Historically,
the research so far has really

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only been interested at that
level. Future research, though,

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might look at some fish larva,
but yeah, and then that water is

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totally isolated from the
surrounding water, so anything

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that's added to the mesocosm is
contained within the mesocosm,

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and you don't worry about
putting anything into the

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surrounding open water system.

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Craig Bettenhausen: Yeah. I
wanted to ask about that because

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you encountered some critics,
some people that aren't happy

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about this. Were they worried
about the Loch Ness project

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specifically? Were they
skeptical about ocean alkalinity

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enhancement, or were they
against climate change

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mitigation as a whole effort?

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Fionna Samuels: Yeah, so I
think, I think you're talking

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about James Carey, one of the
sources in my story, yes, he was

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skeptical about Loch Ness
specifically, but also about

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ocean alkalinity enhancement,
more generally, Loch Ness, he's

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not totally convinced that they
will be able to measure all the

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things that they want to
measure, because it's just open

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water systems are incredibly
complex, and so measuring

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anything in the open ocean is
going to be very difficult. The

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Signal to Noise is very hard to
tease out. So he was skeptical

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about that. But more broadly, I
think he has concerns about

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scalability. And scalability is
a big question in all of these

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things, because we are emitting
so much carbon dioxide that it

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almost doesn't pay to do any of
this before seriously figuring

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out ways to cut emissions. The
scientists, of course, argue

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that we need to have a solid
research based foundation to

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even have discussions about
carbon dioxide removal on a

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grand scale. But others, of
course, worry that focusing on

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research for future
applications, sort of moves the

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goal post for the current needs
of just emission reductions.

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Yeah, I run

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Craig Bettenhausen: into that
debate a lot like I should be

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redoing this at all, and it's a
lot of the same dynamics of a

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lot of people think we will need
these carbon removal

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technologies a little bit down
the line. But yeah, there's

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lower hanging fruit that we
should be picking but it won't

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be ready then, if we don't start
working on it. Now, it's a

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difficult balance.

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Fionna Samuels: Yeah,
definitely. And again, all the

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researchers that I talked to
were not interested in selling

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carbon credits and they weren't
interested in trying to make

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this a commercial sort of
opportunity. They're really just

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wondering, Will this work, and
the models that climate

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scientists have run suggest that
ocean alkalinity enhancement and

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other carbon dioxide removal
techniques could be incredibly

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valuable, worthwhile pursuits in
the fight against climate

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change. But without doing these
experiments in the real world,

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in field trials, there's just a
big question mark about whether

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the real world is too
complicated for this to work.

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Craig Bettenhausen: I'm gonna
reveal my chemist background and

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say I'm curious about at the lab
scale, though. I mean, is there

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solid proof at the liter scale
that making the solution more

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basic will cause carbon dioxide
to dissolve into it? Do we have

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that basis? Really solid?

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Fionna Samuels: Yeah, they
figured that out. They are

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confident that carbon dioxide
will dissolve into water more

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readily if the water is more
basic, which is actually part of

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the reason why the oceans are so
powerful already. So the oceans

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are absorbing vast amounts of
carbon dioxide every year, and

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that's because their sort of
inherent pH is around 8.3 which

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is quite basic compared to other
bodies of water. In fact, tap

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water is often more acidic than
that, and sodium hydroxide is

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often used in municipal water
treatment plants in order to

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change the pH which helps
prevent corrosion from pipes. So

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you know, humans are already
doing pH modification on our

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drinking water and the ocean is
already super basic. It's just a

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question of whether or not we
can see these effects in the

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real world, because the ocean is
so huge.

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Craig Bettenhausen: Yeah. Are
there any other characters from

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your interviews that you wanted
to bring in but didn't quite

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Fionna Samuels: fit? That's a
good question. Yeah, the section

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that ended up not going into the
piece was really about how the

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researchers are communicating
with the public about their

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work, which was more of like a
social sciences kind of

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discussion. And those folks were
all great, and there are some

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really fabulous social science
research happening in this

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space, and really important
takeaways, like you need to talk

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to stakeholders before starting
your experiment, which seems

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really obvious, but sometimes
scientists are so excited to,

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you know, go out and start
collecting data that it might

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not occur to them that the
people living in these areas

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will feel very betrayed, almost,
if this kind of science happens

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without any of their input. And
so it's incredible. Incredibly

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important to have the local
communities involved in the

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whole scientific process from
even before applications for

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permits are submitted. And

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Craig Bettenhausen: so, I mean,
how was the community responding

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to the Loch Ness experiment? I
mean, they had your person that

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was opposed to it because they
didn't think it was going

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Fionna Samuels: to work, yeah.
So there have been some vocal

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opponents in the local
community, but it also seems

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like there was potentially less
I mean, there was some reporting

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that there are local community
members who are still not

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convinced that it's a good idea
to put stuff into the water. But

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there were also the Loch Ness
researchers did take lots of

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conversations into account and
change some of their

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experimental design based on
what the local fishing community

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said and other stakeholders
wanted from the experiment.

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Craig Bettenhausen: Yes, I guess
this is happening out of Cape

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Cod, and that is not an area
known for a lot of community

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activism. It's not a quiet sit
back and let everything happen

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to them, kind of a place, yeah,

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Fionna Samuels: the most
important thing with all of

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these environmental field trials
is to engage community members

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early and for the entire time
that you're doing the

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experiment, and do more than it
goes beyond just educating

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people. It actually requires
that they are involved in the

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decision making process. So Cape
Cod is not the

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Craig Bettenhausen: only place
that they're looking at this

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kind of thing. There are some
other experiments probing this

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idea of ocean alkalinity
enhancement.

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Fionna Samuels: Yeah. So the
other experiment that I talked

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about in the piece was really,
really small scale, tiny scale

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off the coast of Australia.
They're putting minerals down in

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the sediment in the water to
just see how worms and other

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creatures that live down there
will respond their results this

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really recent. It was our
winter, their summer, but they

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just recently finished that
project, and they told me that

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their results are promising. The
worms don't seem to care. But

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the scale at which they were
doing it is so small compared to

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what will need to happen. There

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Craig Bettenhausen: are scale
where they're like swimming down

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there with a single vial.
They're

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Fionna Samuels: swimming down
with a single vial, opening it

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up, pouring it and then watching
for a few weeks, taking samples

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every few weeks, and then taking
up sediment samples. Obviously,

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that's such a small scale that
that's not what any sort of real

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world application will look
like. We do actually have

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examples of real world mineral
applications. So there's a

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company called Vesta that has
done some olivine trials where

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they've put huge amounts of
crushed olivine sand along, I

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think it was the coast of New
Jersey, and off the coast as

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well, obviously, tons and tons
of crushed rock is a lot

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different than a tiny little bio
of crushed rock. And they're

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interested in figuring out some
kind of carbon credit, some way

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of making this technique
profitable. If there's any

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future in these sorts of
techniques, there should be

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small scale, very safe field
trials before actually

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approaching anything that looks
like what we would need to

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combat climate change in a real
way, which is unfortunate. It's

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like such a bummer, right? Like,
the best solution is for

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everyone to bike to work and go
from there,

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Craig Bettenhausen: stop eating
so much meat. Compost. Yeah, oh

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God.

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Fionna Samuels: There's this
carbon dioxide removal technique

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where you use electricity to
take carbon dioxide out of

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seawater and pretty much, and
then you put that carbon dioxide

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into the ground, you inject it
into some sort of geologic

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formation, pretty much everyone
thought that that was a very

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silly approach, because the
ocean is one of the most stable

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places for carbon dioxide to
Live. Carbon dioxide is

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sequestered into carbonate,
which is all of those sorts of

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ions that are in the ocean will
stay in the ocean as carbonate

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for 10,000 years. So it's silly
to take stable carbon dioxide

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out of the ocean to put
somewhere else, because the

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ocean is a really good home for
it. So

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Craig Bettenhausen: in June,
actually, I'm going to visit a

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pilot rig in New York City,
where a startup is testing a

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system like the enhanced ocean
alkalinity that you're

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describing. They're going to add
reactive alkaline minerals to

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remove CO two this time from the
East River in New York, instead

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of the ocean. What should I ask
them? What should I be looking

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for? What

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Fionna Samuels: you should ask
them, how they're measuring how

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much carbon dioxide is being
removed from the air, how

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they're measuring carbon dioxide
uptake. All

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Craig Bettenhausen: right, so is
there anything else to me

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reporting that you wish you
could have fit in somehow?

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Fionna Samuels: The one thing
that I didn't emphasize, and I

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would like to have emphasized,
is that a big piece of all this

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research is what the researchers
called monitoring, reporting and

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verification, and that goes into
sort of figuring out if this is

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a usable technology for
something like carbon credits.

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And what that means is that you
need to be able to monitor how

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much carbon dioxide is removed.
You need to be able to report

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it, which is a whole different
sort of infrastructure that's

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separate from the science. And
then you need to verify it so

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other people need to be able to
come in. And measure the same

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thing that you measured. And a
lot of this research right now

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depends on modeling. There are
very few field trials, although

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it's a growing field so there
will likely be more field trials

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in the near future, but
monitoring carbon dioxide

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removal on a global scale is
going to be incredibly

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challenging, which is why these
sort of open field trials are so

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important, because if you can
monitor it on the small scale,

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and you can prove that you are
able to monitor how much carbon

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dioxide is removed on the small
scale, and then other people are

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able to verify that you are
measuring what you think you're

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measuring, then that basically
opens the door to realistic

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sorts of deployments in the
future.

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Craig Bettenhausen: Okay, well,
Fiona, thanks for diving deep on

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this with us.

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Fionna Samuels: Thanks for
having me. Thank you so much.

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Craig Bettenhausen: And I
usually use that line. It's not

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always literal, but this time it
was,

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Fionna Samuels: I was gonna say,
that's a great pun you caught me

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off guard with that one.

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Craig Bettenhausen: You can find
Fionna Samuels story about

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oceans as climate change allies
on CNN website, or in the April

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00:21:00,740 --> 00:21:04,340
14, 2025, print issue of CNN, we
put a link in the show notes

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along with the episode credits.
We'd love to know what you think

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00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:08,750
of CNN uncovered. You can share
your feedback with us by

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00:21:08,750 --> 00:21:13,040
emailing C E N feedback at ACS,
dot, O, R, G, you can find me on

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00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:15,530
social media as at Craig of
waffles, Fiona. How can

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00:21:15,530 --> 00:21:16,520
listeners get in touch with you?

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00:21:16,580 --> 00:21:18,950
Fionna Samuels: I'm at F
Morningstar on blue sky.

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00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:21,050
Craig Bettenhausen: All right,
this has been C&EN uncovered a

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00:21:21,050 --> 00:21:23,930
series from C&EN Stereo
Chemistry. Stereo Chemistry is

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00:21:23,930 --> 00:21:26,600
the official podcast of chemical
and Engineering News. Chemical

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00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:28,730
and Engineering News is an
independent news outlet

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00:21:28,730 --> 00:21:30,710
published by the American
Chemical Society. Thanks for

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00:21:30,710 --> 00:21:31,100
listening.