Marine Enhanced Rock Weathering: Ocean climate restoration with carbon-removing sand
Joining forces with coastal communities in the fight against climate change
Vesta accelerates the Earth's own long-term process of rock weathering.
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Vesta accelerates the Earth's own long-term process of rock weathering.
Coastal communities, habitats, and infrastructure are threatened by climate change and sea-level rise.
Vesta adds a carbon-removing sand made of the natural mineral olivine to coastal systems. This nature-based climate strategy reduces ocean acidity and removes carbon dioxide permanently.
how it works
Marine Enhanced Rock Weathering (mERW) makes coastal infrastructure climate negative.
If you are involved in coastal construction and want to help fight climate change:
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Olivine is a clean upland mineral which we grind into beach-compatible sand. It doesn't affect beach use, and once it mixes in, it doesn't affect beach color either.
For coastal communities or coastal practitioners interested in making your shoreline protection projects more climate-friendly, get in touch with us here.
Take a look at our case study, a pilot site in Long Island, NY.
Marine Enhanced Rock Weathering: A nature-based, permanent, scalable, and affordable solution to climate change and coastal protection that treats both the root cause and the symptoms.
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Through the natural process of weathering, rocks are dissolved by rain, slowly transporting carbon through waterways and into the ocean - where CO2 is permanently fixed into rock.This is how our planet has naturally captured the CO2 emitted by volcanoes over geological time. We can accelerate this process by taking carbon-removing olivine sand to the ocean, where it dissolves with the help of free wave energy, using it as a mineral for shoreline protection projects.
It's permanent.
Through Coastal Carbon Capture, carbon dioxide stays locked for years.
vs. Forestry
We love trees, and want many more of them planted. But they require lots of arable land, and the carbon they capture is released if they ever burn.
vs. Agriculture
Regenerative agriculture is mandatory for a healthy future, but it's not enough to count on as a carbon sequestration method: it's not permanent, and it demands a lot of land.
vs. Direct Air Capture
DAC is impressive, but expensive. Plus, when DAC is productized, it often puts carbon back into the atmosphere or into waste streams.
It's scalable.
With only 0.1%-0.25% of shelf seas we could capture 1 gigatonne of CO2.
Efficient
Coastal Carbon Capture utilizes the free energy of waves to grind and crush the olivine.
Turn-Key
We don’t need any clever new technology breakthroughs... It's ready for development now.
Abundant
Available on every continent and making up over 50% of the upper mantle, olivine is globally abundant and accessible.
It's smart.
Sequester carbon for as little as $35 / tonne.
AFFORDABLE
At full scale, costs less than 10% of the price of other carbon capture technologies.
LEVERAGED
For every tonne of CO2 emitted in the process of extraction and transportation of olivine, 20 tonnes of CO2 are removed from the atmosphere (~95% efficiency).
BENEFICIAL
Coastal Carbon Capture can also support de-acidification in the local ocean ecosystem.
