St Ives Bay carbon capture trial ‘very low risk’ – report
By Paul Homewood
h/t Doug Brodie
Plans to add magnesium hydroxide to the sea at St Ives Bay in a bid to combat climate change are "very low risk", according to an independent review.
Planetary Technologies and South West Water want to carry out a carbon sequestration trial.
They want to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it in the sea by adding the alkaline mineral.
The independent review of the plans was carried out by the Water Research Centre (WRc).
The Environment Agency (EA) is yet to decide whether the trial will go ahead.
It would involve magnesium hydroxide being added into the treated wastewater outlet pipe at Hayle Waste Water Treatment Works.
The wastewater pipe would transport the magnesium hydroxide 1.5 miles (2.4km) into the sea outside St Ives Bay.
Planetary said adding the alkaline compound to the sea would help counter ocean acidity caused by climate change.
‘Chemical dump’
In April 2023 protesters described the plan as a "chemical dump" and asked for a delay to allow time for results from a reported previous experiment to be "published and peer reviewed".
The planned June 2023 start for the trial was postponed and while the WRc carried out a "detailed and independent review" of Planetary’s proposal.
The WRc report has now considered the proposed trial as "very low risk" but with recommended changes for resubmission.
The key recommendations include:
- Additional sampling of the source material, the magnesium hydroxide
- Additional monitoring to detect impacts and help confirm modelled dissolution rates
- Planetary refining its calculations of the suitable concentration of magnesium hydroxide to use, using long-term data on multiple appropriate marine species
‘Trial is worrying’
Following the report, the Environment Agency (EA) said: "We will need to assess the changes before we can make a decision."
The Seal Research Trust has called for a closed water test of magnesium hydroxide in St Ives Bay to get a definitive understanding of its impact, before open sea trials take place.
Charity founder Sue Sayer MBE said: "The conclusion that there is a low risk to marine organisms from magnesium hydroxide in this trial is worrying, as no testing has been done on St Ives Bay seawater and species such as brown crabs and lobsters, let alone the long term testing on ‘multiple appropriate marine species’ recommended by the EA.
"Of even greater concern to us is the WRc’s assessment, that the formation of calcium carbonate sediment is a medium risk, as this will cover sea bed species and be ingested by seabed feeders such as seals."
‘Net carbon removal’
Planetary Technologies said: "We are extremely pleased that WRc recognises that our technology has the potential for ‘significant net carbon removal’.
"Our team is now working to update our trial proposal to take into account all substantive input from the EA and local community."
A spokesperson for South West Water said: "We continue to work with the Environment Agency as it makes its decision on whether to allow Planetary to carry out the proposed trial.
"We will not support any initiative that presents a significant risk to our local environment and our priority is always to protect our natural environment."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-68277585
I’m no chemical expert, but the idea of chucking large volumes of chemicals into one small area of sea seems highly irresponsible.
But I have other issues with this:
- The amount of carbon dioxide that could be captured in this way would surely be infinitesimally small, even if employed in bulk globally
- Magnesium Hydroxide would be used in the form of a mineral called brucite. a relatively rare mineral found in rocks. This of course would require some sort of mining operation, along with crushing, both of which would involve fossil fuel emissions. I suspect those emissions would greatly outweigh any savings!
This has all the trappings of a scam to make money.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I’m speechless. The insanity knows no bounds!
Don’t tempt them.
I could not agree more – UTTERLY INSANE on so many levels.
Paul’s analysis nailed it – it’ll make little or no difference to atmospheric CO2 levels and is most likely a grant-seeking scam.
I quick Google of the chemical reveals the following: “Magnesium hydroxide is used to treat occasional constipation in children and adults on a short-term basis. Magnesium hydroxide is in a class of medications called saline laxatives. It works by causing water to be retained with the stool. This increases the number of bowel movements and softens the stool so it is easier to pass.“
Will be interesting to see the subsequent toilet habits of the local marine population.
No doubt yet another money-grabbing scam to add to the ever-growing list.
Milk of Magnesia from my childhood.
Aqueous solution of Mg(OH)2?
The independent review of the plans was carried out by the Water Research Centre (WRc).
“Our work . . . supports the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We are focused on doing the right thing – protecting the environment, reducing our carbon footprint” — WRC
Independent of what?
It strikes me that if the idea is to neutralise dissolved CO2 in the ocean, then the quantities of Mg hydroxide would be vast. Also, this is a natural process – alkaline rocks are dissolved throughout the world.
If they are using it to precipitate out heavy metals, naturally present in Cornwall, they should carry the process out in a controlled situation ssuch as a sewage works.
“Planetary said adding the alkaline compound to the sea would help counter ocean acidity caused by climate change.“
Got any evidence for that in, say, the St. Ives Bay area?
They should say what the current pH is in St Ives Bay, just to show how “acid” it is. Amazing how often this scare gets recycled.
2010 – Acid Seas – Back to Basic
https://web.archive.org/web/20170305013029/http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/acid_seas.pdf
What ocean acidity? Did anyone think to ask?
Quick google search, first result back:
“MAGNESIUM HYDROXIDE treats occasional constipation.”
Perfect! just what the Bay at St Ives needs – a treatment for constipation 🙂
A March 2023 item on here on this project was appropriately headlined “Climate experiment to dump minerals in Cornish sea…”
Surfers against sewage need to be warned.
In fact all the signs are that we are all chronically deficient in magnesium. But wait till people hear it is going into the seawater, then it will be pure poison.
Also known as Milk of Magnesia.
TS – ‘a treatment for constipation’ – while swimming. Surfers against sewage could become contributors.
Seriously… if CO2 is removed from the ocean doesn’t it get replaced naturally. It’ll be like trying to drain a cistern before you turn off the mains tap that supplies it.
These psychotic eco-grifters have to be stopped before they destroy any more of our natural environment with their moronic ‘save the planet’ schemes.
Then there are all the Marine Conservation Areas around Cornwall. Who the hell is promoting this garbage! Marine Protected Areas (arcgis.com)
The UN Sustainable Development Goals
https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2023/12/11/30-by-30-a-boost-for-nature-recovery/
This time last year at the UN Biodiversity Conference, the UK formally made a commitment to protect and conserve a minimum of 30% of land and sea for biodiversity by 2030, known as 30×30. This target will be a key driver in reversing the decline of nature in the UK, by expanding and improving our protected areas and creating new areas for wildlife, allowing nature to spill over into the wider landscape.
These wildlife-rich areas also have benefits for people, by providing clean air and water, healthy soils, beautiful places to visit both within the town and wider countryside; and bolstering our resilience to climate change.
Exactly, the article says that long term tests have not been undertaken, so why in heavens name risk pristine (?) waters with yet more garbage on the say-so of some deluded idiots… sigh, sorry for the rant.
The things people in charge want and value, not what are objectively of value.
I guess this is about reclaiming carbon taxes ?
It’s a complete fiddle. It means anyone can dig up some brucite, expose it to the atmosphere and claim to be carbon neutral or even carbon negative.
Wait till the airlines hear about this.
Brucite mine
https://mine.nridigital.com/mine_mar22/brucite_company_insight
in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Far East it was mined by hand. That is, it was a GULAG. Hence no doubt the claim of low CO2 emissions per kg.
It’s not clear to me how much cash, who supplies said cash and who gets paid from this cash.
google comes up with this :
Planetary Technology conducted past experiments somewhat under cover in the bay. The chemical Magnesium Hydroxide will be pumped into St Ives Bay via the South West Water sewage pipe by Godrevy Lighthouse. The Magnesium Hydroxide comes from industrial waste, including Nuclear cooling water. Planetary have said that the Magnesium Hydroxide will be coming from China, Canada and the UK.
this is madness.
It’s a scam by the sound of it. That industrial waste will in any case end up being exposed to the atmosphere and the magnesium hydroxide will gradually turn to magnesium carbonate by reacting with carbon dioxide.
In other words the absorption of CO2 is going to happen anyway (it would be difficult to stop it actually). What they are doing is inventing a scheme whereby they get paid for it.
The depths of dishonesty these days, by major corporations, is beyond belief.
Seawater has complex chemical equilibria involving carbonate, bicarbonate, dissolved CO2 gas, calcium carbonate solubility and pH.
It needs a proper chemist to look at this scheme to see what it all means. It’s all very complicated.
If you add magnesium hydroxide, it will scavenge carbonate out of solution and settle out as solid magnesium carbonate. But what does that mean for the calcium carbonate which makes up the shells of crustaceans ? Will some of that dissolve to make up some of the difference?
You are quite right. The sea is an almost perfect pH buffer, slightly alkaline pH=7.2. This is held clamped via a variety of equilibria, such as between CO2 in the atmosphere and bicarbonate and carbonate in solution, plus various insoluble salts. Carbonate in any case is strongly alkaline. Any excess alkalinity introduced by dumping a load of Mg(OH)2 into the sea will rapidly be dissipated and leave the CO2 levels unaffected.
Complete and utter twaddle.
Well, there is the bicarbonate/carbonate equilibrium to think of.
Almost all CO2 dissolved in the oceans is in the form of bicarbonate, due to that being the predominant species at the pH of the oceans.
Calcium bicarbonate is soluble. Calcium carbonate almost insoluble, as is magnesium carbonate. If we add basic magnesium hydroxide it should indeed pull down bicarbonate out of solution as magnesium carbonate solid. Leaving more space for dissolving more CO2 out of the atmosphere.
However there is another source which could make up the bicarbonate deficit in the short/medium term and that is dissolving calcium carbonate.
As far as I remember the solubility product for calcium carbonate is lower than that for magnesium carbonate. Ergo if you add more magnesium to the mix, more calcium carbonate will dissolve.
As a way of ‘adding base’ to the sea magnesium hydroxide is expensive.
A quick internet search shows a price of £236 a kg.
But this is a waste product, which otherwise they would have to pay to get rid of.
Now they will get paid for getting rid of it.
Very clever of them actually.
EVERYTHING the China-run UN recommends is designed to weaken or bankrupt the West. They also think mass, unvetted 3rd world immigration is good for Europe/the US – but of course China is excluded such a genius idea.
From what I remember from my horticultural days working in a busy garden centre / nursury this is a chemical we sold to help roses produce bigger more prolific flowers, its also known as epsom salts
We also used to spike each others coffee with it , with devastating results, this was a long time ago , jolly japes like this were acceptable in the work place and built character of course
Why would you put it in the sea FGS ?
Not Epsom Salts, which is Magnesium sulphate, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_sulfate
Roses grow on you… The main use of magnesium sulfate is in agriculture, to correct soils deficient in magnesium
https://byjus.com/chemistry/magnesium-hydroxide/
If it were Epsom Salts they could market the Bay as a spa for the arthritically afflicted.
If it were harmless they’d do it in the Thames Estuary.
And there was I thinking the oceans were alkaline.
The oceans are already alkaline, so how would this even make a quectoscopic (look it up) difference to planetary CO2 uptake. Utterly bonkers.
I looked it up. Internet can’t find it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix
Congratulations, Derrick! You may be the first person ever to use the word quecto in a sentence!
I do question your actual usage, as quecto is described as quecto-, a hyphenated prefix. You might should have used quecto-scopic.
Anywho, your use is spot on.
Hmmm. I think it would be similar usage to microscopic
If you said quectoliter, you’d be right. But quectoscopic . . . probably not.
Tomayto, Tomarto – it doesn’t really make a quectilla of difference.
This has been around for a few years, I suppose the scam is getting carbon credits to sell on. It is on the par with the sun blocking plans, total stupidity!
We need more CO2 not less in the atmosphere..
it’s an essential plant food which greens the planet.
Seaweed uses photosynthesis in the same way landweeds do. Won’t removing CO2 from St Ives Bay starve the seaweeds to death?
I watched a programme a couple of weeks ago about the National Aquarium in Plymouth, onebof their projects was replanting and replacing seaweed. Would they have a view on somebody trying to kill it?
I wonder what the fishermen of St Ives Bay think about this. I really cannot imagine anything more insane. Paul has it in. one – it’s an excuse for some clever charlatan to make money. I doubt it will fool the good folk of Cornwall.
“Plans to add magnesium hydroxide to the sea at St Ives Bay in a bid to combat climate change are “very low risk”, according to an independent review.”
Has anyone asked Greenpeace, Friends (??) of the Earth for their ‘expert’ opinions?
very low risk if working I suspect!
Hugh risk of wasting money, or rather transfering it to the usual suspects
It may be low risk but since its also of zero benefit, don’t do it.
If polluting seawater with magnesium hydroxide “combats climate change”, why do it at St Ives Bay rather than say Palm Beach, Monaco, or one of those expensive privately owned Caribbean islands?
Or the Bay of Bengal, Arctic or Antarctic?
Gamecock recommends you get your magnesium from magnesium glycinate supplements, not magnesium hydroxide.
It’s occurred to me what a huge irony there is here. The Red River discharges into the Hayle Estuary and originally included the tailings from the Camborne and Redruth Mines. South Crofty mine is now in the hands of Cornish Metals and is considered and of the four richest potential mines in the world. Part of the huge capital expense is dewatering the mine and the system is now in operation and discharges a huge quantity of clean and filtered water via the Red River in St Ives Bay – so much so that the estuary has now recovered much of its plantlife. So here we have a company that wants to pollute St ives bay while Cornish Metals is expending a huge cost on discharging clean water. And the irony? Cornish Metals is a Canadian company.
Is that ferric or ferrous irony?
I’ll get my hat. The limnologist in me made me say it.
Brilliant – we need a bit of humour, and (ferrous) irony…
I see less danger than irrelevance.
The concentration of Mg++ is ~1250-1350 parts per trillion. For Ca++ it is 400 parts per trillion. (Sodium ions are 10,500 parts per trillion for reference.) Bicarbonate, HCO3- is 140 parts per trillion and 90% of the CO2 dissolve in the ocean is in the bicarbonate form. In other words, the ocean is already over saturated with alkaline earth mineral ions by a factor of 10. Can adding MgO really have much of an effect?
The easiest way to sequester CO2 is to carry that mineral rich seawater to a warm shallow sea or atoll and let it get precipitated out as the precursors to limestone or dolomite. The is due to the instability of bicarbonate as the water warms. The alkali mineral bicarbonates will decompose to alkali carbonate mineral and CO2, sequestering half the CO2. These mineral carbonates are where much of the CO2 originally in the atmosphere is now located.
These mineral carbonates are where much of the CO2 originally in the atmosphere is now located.
I agree, but it is due to biological processes, not the inorganic process you describe.
It can form “abiotically” but if I’m reading this reference right, perhaps not at the current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and there are likely other materials at play.
Frontiers | Controls on the Precipitation of Carbonate Minerals Within Marine Sediments (frontiersin.org)
This fiasco would be highly amusing were it not for being pointless, unproductive and potentially dangerous. If I shake my head in disbelief much more I shall need medical attention.
It’s called “combating climate change.”
‘in a bid to combat climate change‘
Not sure how that compares to “tackling climate change.”
Brucite??? Does that mean it has to be transported all the way from Australia?
not sure what the “scientists” at the University of Walamaloo would have to say about that
Monty Python Bruce YouTube
In my experience, the main source of Magnesium Hydroxide is by extraction from sea water. (There used to be two plants in the British Isles dedicated to this activity, one at Hartlepool and the other at Drogheda in the Irish Republic doing just this.) The notion that it might be worthwhile to extract Magnesium Hydroxide from seawater only to then send it to St Bride’s Bay and put it back into the sea seems competely off the wall.
Steve!! That’s it! It’s not so much that there’s more CO2: there’s too much magnesium hydroxide!
Extracting magnesium hydroxide from seawater only to then send it to St Bride’s Bay and put it back into the sea is consistent with other climate action. It’s akin to breaking windows, digging holes and filling them back in, and taking buckets of water from the deep end of the pool and pouring them in the shallow end.
This scheme can only be classified as eco madness / greenwashing presumably with a view to generating carbon credits , and illustrates how poorly vetted such schemes are.
However, the majority of magnesium hydroxide is not produced directly from Brucite but rather from the precipitation of lime and sea water or brine, both processes require significant energy inputs and CO2 outputs, I have not had sufficient time to checked this out but does this scheme attempt the sequestration the CO2 that is produced in the production of the magnesium hydroxide in the first place. The final point being the majority of Magnesium Hydroxide is produced in China India and the USA so great prospects for generating UK JOBs!
I tried to reply to kzbkzb below but the comment has been deleted.
He is correct about the complex equilibria governing the pH in the sea. In fact, the sea is an almost perfect pH buffer, slightly alkaline with a pH = 7.2. This is held clamped by various equilibria including that between atmospheric CO2 and bicarbonate and carbonate, along with various insoluble salts. Carbonate is strongly alkaline. Any excess alkalinity generated by dumping magnesium hydroxide into the sea will be rapidly dissipated leaving CO2 levels unchanged.
This is a complete scam.
Is it just me that doesn’t feel comfortable allowing those either responsible for or those allowing the pumping of shit into our coastal waters to be the judge and jury on the merits of a get rich quick scheme to combat sea water acidification at St Ives that hasn’t yet actually been assessed and declared a problem?
Planetary said adding the alkaline compound to the sea would help counter ocean acidity caused by climate change.
What ocean acidity???
These people must be out of their tiny little minds. Their ignorance is staggering.
Didn’t Sodastream solve the CO2 capture issue, ages ago?
Amazing folley or is it a scam to make money for producing zilch ?
The EA must have shares in the water Research Centre.
History is full of jokes and anecdotes regarding attempts to control the oceans, eg like passing into the sea, and of course our very own King Canute !!
‘Combat’ implies straightforward honest fighting on equal terms. “May the best man …
‘Tackling’ suggests grabbing round the knees from behind. Then tramping on its head (or not) depending on whether the referee is watching!
In this context the latter is preferable!
This makes no ecological sense as others have pointed out. The sea is well buffered and adding Magnesium will lock up carbonates which are the very things which are supposed to be less available because climate change.
What I would like to know is who has a disposal problem which this will solve or OTOH which subsidy makes this boondoggle profitable?
Delusion justifies almost any insanity.
A meaningful risk assessment of a proposed action requires the risk assessor to be competent and requires all relevant risks to be assessed, neither of which apply in this situation.
As Prof. Ian Plimer put it, “The oceans can only become acidic if the earth runs out of rocks.”
The plan has an element of low cunning. The pilot project will release three hundred tonnes of Magnesium Hydroxide (releasing two hundred tonnes of hydroxide ions*) into the sea and monitor for effects. Such an addition might be noticeable – with sensitive equipment – in the Bay itself, for a short time, but generally there will be no effect on anything.
The lack of harmful effects will be played up, “We tested!” and the failure to budge the pH will be countered (if even mentioned**) by, “It was only a test! A successful test! Give us lots of money!”
I doubt that one in a thousand civil servants and politicians remembers, if he or she ever knew, what a ‘chemical base’ even is. The scheme stands a fair chance of sliding, whole, down their throats, like a £4 oyster in the rip-off West End sea-food restaurants they patronise. Come to think of it, such a restaurant is probably as near as they get to the sea!
*The surface waters of the world already contain a thousand-million tonnes of free hydroxide ions.
**Of course, since pH changes all the time in surface waters, they may get lucky and have something to cherry-pick from.
The end product is Magnesium Bicarbonate which, according to the Web, exists only in water. Magnesium Bicarbonate undergoes decomposition forming magnesium carbonate, water and free carbon dioxide.
So it has to remain in solution otherwise CO2 is re-release.
Any Chemical Engineers know for sure?
More crucially, can any Chemical engineers… VERIFIED BY MARIANNA SPRING… , know for sure?
I am neither geologist nor chemist but I find it bloody strange that you can get Brucite from the beach in Cornwall.
https://www.mindat.org/locentry-843823.html
Hint: Magnesium bicarbonate is Mg(HCO3)2
Magnesium carbonate is MgCO3.
Twice as much CO2 in Mg bicarbonate per atom of Mg.
If a compound can only exist in solution it is a formal compound not a real one.
If you deliberately prepare a pure solution of magnesium bicarbonate it makes some sense to say that such a compound is “sort of” in the water. However in a situation like sea water when the Magnesium, the Calcium, the Bicarbonate, etc. all exist as IONS (possibly coexisting with solid precipitates) it makes no sense at all to try and analyse the water as so much calcium hydroxide, so much Magnesium Carbonate…
Computer programs exist which work out the equilibria in complicated solutions in water, and the programs will tell you in a trice how change with a little more of this added in a certain process, and a little less of that taken away in a certain process. The changes are generally modest in their impact.That is why we say that the sea, for example, is well “buffered.”
Apparently there is locally a very good source of Brucite. It’s on the beach in Cornwall!
https://www.mindat.org/locentry-843823.html
Like all these scams even the best of people challenge them on the cost/practicality/ignorance/idiocy/supposed efficacy of the solution. The real counter needed is to debunk the false premise that supposedly needs a solution, regardless of whatever nonsense is being proposed.
What rise in ocean acidity?
Geologist Ian Plimer, I think, said the oceans sit primarily on a bed of limestone, so, barring local anomalies, there is no way they can generally become more acidic.
Net zero, of which this latest stunt is but an offshoot, is of course the prime example. The entire array of deliberately catastrophic measures being foist upon us, and largely accepted, is based on a few simple lies.
As always, follow the money. The HOW technical details have largely been debunked, as per the above comments. Check out the parent Canadian company as to WHY. Their business consists dealing in the acquisition and disposal of mine & industrial waste by products. QED !.
I thought the EPA was the guardian of our environment, the ones charged to prevent companies from polluting our waters by the addition of chemical substances. What gives? If this nonsense is “following the science,” we are doomed. Pouring drain cleaner strength bases into the Ocean–what could go wrong?
One day the CO2 equivalents of Marshall and Warren will show how utterly foolish we have been in regarding rising CO2 as a problem. (Marshall and Warren of Heliobacter pylori fame.
What effect will this have on the Moana Loa Keeling curve?
What and WHERE is the science underpinning this playing fast and loose with nature?
For something to be based in science there MUST exist statistically significant empirical data.
There exists no statistically significant empirical data of ANY KIND which supports the claim that CO2 returned to the Carbon Cycle by the actions of man during the last 150 years, can in any measurable way be shown to be responsible for all or any part of the current welcome warming, the fourth such warming in recent human history.
No data means no science. No scientifically claimed cause so no scientifically supportable effect QED.
So WHAT the heck are these bozos up to?
Money!
and politics -> POWER
No geoengineering is zero or even low risk. There’s always unintended consequences. I can see the headline now “St Ives Bay contaminated with chemicals”. Can you imagine what that would do for the tourist trade??
No geoengineering is zero or even low risk.
This is literally true, as tests are incremental steps toward full blown human mismanagement of the atmosphere.
Billions will die.
“When they polluted St Ives Bay, I said nothing . . . .”
I entirely agree with your comments Mr GC but the sheeple have already been (mis) informed so their ‘view’ is pre-decided for them.
Do these ‘scientists’ realise how big the sea is? They’re as dim as the believers that infinitesimally small alterations in CO2 are the main driver of climate, albeit never proven except by manipulation of statistics. One wonders whether a law could be passed regarding scientists who wilfully ignore proven science.
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