Kauk says the approach holds unique promise for rapid, even exponential growth, and at a price that businesses and governments that aim to “decarbonize” their economies could afford, while making a profit for the entrepreneurs. But Shopify will be the first to buy carbon-offset credits from the company as part of its corporate commitment to address climate change. Venture capital funds have already invested millions in Running Tide. “When we started learning about Running Tide’s approach, I was blown away by the simplicity,” says Stacy Kauk, who directs sustainability efforts at Shopify, a $150-billion e-commerce company. ![]() High-tech innovations are emerging around the world: Towering banks of fans that can pull CO2 from the sky pumps injecting plant-based biofuels into the Earth.īut Running Tide seems to be capturing attention, and investment, because of its low-tech elegance. Last year Microsoft pledged $1 billion to the effort, and some of that money will be used to purchase carbon offset credits generated by large sequestration projects. Some, like Microsoft, are pledging to go carbon negative, pulling more CO2 from the air than the company’s operations have emitted since its founding. With climate change’s effects accelerating, deep-pocketed corporations are setting aggressive goals to offset their emissions. The Dartmouth-trained engineer comes from a Maine fishing family he once wanted to be a fisherman, but after seeing global warming's effects on Gulf of Maine fisheries his goal turned to reversing the damage. Maine Public Marty Odlin, CEO Running Tide Technologies, in its big workshop on Portland's waterfront. So what we’re trying to do is just give it a nudge, and accelerate it,” Odlin says. “On geologic time scales it can remove 400 gigatons, 800 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere. This year’s goal is more modest: just 1,600 buoys deployed to demonstrate that in principle, the system could safely and economically be expanded to a global scale: millions of microfarms floating in the open sea, moving billions of tons of carbon from sky to ocean floor every year. “That gets you millions of years of sequestration. “The kelp will sink to the ocean bottom in the sediment, and become, essentially, part of the ocean floor,” Odlin says. ![]() After about seven months, the mature blades get too heavy for their biodegradable buoys, and sink. The kelp soaks up carbon, via photosynthesis, and grows. He sees individual kelp microfarms floating hundreds of miles offshore, over the deepest parts of the world’s oceans. Odlin wants to mimic the natural processes that turned ancient plants into carbon-storing fossil fuels - and do it in a hurry. “Essentially what we have to do is run the oil industry in reverse,” he says.
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