It’s Not Just the Rock—It’s the Soil (And it holds on tight) -- Our latest greenhouse study with data from our greenhouse experiments is now available on EGUSphere as a pre-print.
After five years of EW field&lab work and a two‑year greenhouse experiment (focussed on a subset of 4 soil types, 13 rock and industrial feedstocks), our new preprint on enhanced weathering has gone online on EGUsphere. In the blog post linked below, we walk through what we actually saw when we tracked alkalinity in leachate and cation retention in soils.
A few takeaways for EW and CDR projects:
* Soil type is as important as rock type. pH, clay content, carbonates and CEC can completely change whether added rock dust shows up as measurable alkalinity export or mostly stays in the soil.
* Alkalinity export alone underestimates and can even misrepresent CDR. In our experiment, 10–50× more cations stayed in soil pools than left in leachate over 1–2 years.
* A large part of “theoretical” CDR is delayed or locked in soil processes that current models and MRV approaches may not yet capture well.
If you work on EW deployment, MRV or modelling, the details matter here. We summarise the key results, implications, and what we are doing next (including new experiments and sample collaborations) in the blog (see 1st comment)
It's 𝗢𝗰𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗣𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆 where I invite you to a 15 second ocean meditation with one of my photos or videos.
Let's protect the beauty and abundance of our oceans!
Some of what's in it is reassuring. Some of it raises questions that are going to take more work to answer.
That's the conversation we're trying to have on 16 June. Free to attend, virtual. Register here:
https://t.co/f6YbYhHvvB
Building a dataset that actually moves a field forward takes time. It means running experiments across different conditions, not just the ones that give you the results you're hoping for.
The reason we are presenting it publicly, live, is that we think the field benefits more from open discussion of a complex dataset than from a polished summary of selected highlights.
Chasing Net Zero Is Futile (For Now) – Part Seven: What My Long COVID Taught Me About Climate Pragmatism
I have Long COVID. It limits what my body can handle. A 12-hour train ride to a conference isn't "choosing the planet" for people like me. It's physically impossible.
Building this diagram gave me an unexpected view of our CDR portfolio I'd never had before.
Three large pathways are missing from our portfolio: BECCS, large-scale afforestation, and blue carbon.