Geoengineering The Gulf Of Maine

Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.

According to Chemistry World, the ocean is the largest carbon sink on Earth, holding about 38,000 gigatons of carbon. That’s 40 times more than in the atmosphere and 15 to 20 times more than the carbon stored in all the world’s land plants and soils. That’s good.

But when carbon dioxide dissolves in water, it creates a weak acid that lowers the pH of the ocean. The lower the pH, the less carbon dioxide the ocean can absorb. Today, the ocean has the lowest pH in the last million years. That’s bad.

The LOC-NESS Project

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts have embarked on what they call the LOC-NESS project, which stands for “Locking Ocean Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope.” [Why everyone thinks it is clever to come up with such cutesy names should be the subject of its own scientific research.] The scientists say that “oceanic carbon is stored as dissolved bicarbonate — essentially dissolved baking soda — thanks to the natural weathering processes that enhance ocean alkalinity on geological timescales.”

The research into ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) has the potential to be an important means of carbon capture. “Highly monitored, carefully designed research projects such as LOC-NESS are critical to providing scientific assessments of the potential risks and benefits of these new and rapidly developing climate solutions,” the scientists maintain.

The concept of OAE is simple, Chemistry World explains. “Add naturally occurring and synthetic alkaline materials to the ocean to make it more alkaline, forcing it to draw down more carbon.” Alkalinity enhancement is already a restoration tool for lakes and rivers affected by acid rain, but reducing the acidity of the ocean has broader ecological implications. However, it is much harder to track the effects to determine whether they are actually working.

Early Research

Last August, over a period of 4 days, the scientists released 65,000 liters (17,000 gallons) of sodium hydroxide over an area of 1 square kilometer of ocean near Cape Cod. In addition, they released 760 liters (200 gallons) of fluorescent rhodamine dye to monitor how the sodium hydroxide was dispersing.

This test zone was monitored using three vessels and four autonomous underwater vehicles. A suite of sensors tracked metrics like water pH and the partial pressure of carbon dioxide. In addition, the NASA Pace satellite provided an aerial view of how the chemicals were dispersing.

The scientists presented their provisional findings at the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2026 in Glasgow, where they said 2 to 10 tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide were drawn into the ocean during the four-day monitoring period. Their modeling suggests it could rise to 50 tonnes over the course of a year.

“These early results demonstrate that small scale OAE deployments can be engineered, tracked, and monitored with high precision,” says Adam Subhas, a Woods Hole marine chemist and LOC-NESS principal investigator.

The team found no significant impact on the ecosystem. There were no measurable reductions in phytoplankton and zooplankton, and no impacts on organisms higher up the marine food chain. “It was really important for us to measure the fish and lobster larvae, after concerns of local fishermen,” said Rachel Davitt from Rutgers University.

Monitoring Results

To scale up the technology, the researchers need to understand how much carbon is truly being offset, as well as the energy needs for chemical production, distribution, and measurement. OAE may be durable, but monitoring is a challenge, the researchers admit. “The community of OAE practitioners has little experience deploying and tracking alkalinity plumes in the ocean, and we lack proven methodologies for quantifying the carbon stored by OAE.

“These methodologies will be crucial for the monitoring, reporting, and verification of OAE technologies, and are important for unlocking their sequestration potential. We will deploy state of the art equipment and instrumentation to measure and monitor alkalinity enhancement and the subsequent uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere.

“Alkalinity addition offsets ocean acidification, but the ecological impacts of large and/or sustained OAE are unknown. The effects of OAE on marine ecosystems during real world deployments have not been evaluated. While these effects are predicted to be either mild or positive, they must be documented and quantified. We will directly monitor primary productivity and the microbial community during our field experiments to establish the biological impacts of OAE,” the group says.

Push Back

Some environmental groups are none too pleased with the LOC-NESS program. In a statement, Friends Of The Earth said, “Sodium hydroxide is a dangerous, caustic chemical that causes chemical burns on contact with skin. Also known as lye, it’s an ingredient used in drain cleaners. This substance would be dumped into waters frequented by at least eight endangered species, including North Atlantic right whales and leatherback turtles.”

Eesha Rangani, Marine Working Group Coordinator at the HOME [Hands Off Mother Earth], said, “Elevated pH levels caused by sodium hydroxide can severely impact the hatching and development of eggs of endangered species like Atlantic sturgeon and Atlantic salmon in this region, reducing hatching success and creating developmental abnormalities. These disruptions pose significant risks to their already vulnerable populations.”

Phase Two

The next phase of the OAE research would increase the amount of chemicals released into the ocean by a factor of ten. “It looks like the researchers behind this project went back to the drawing board and somehow returned with an even more dangerous idea,” said Benjamin Day, senior campaigner for Climate and Energy Justice team at Friends Of The Earth.

“We should not be dumping dangerous chemicals into thriving marine ecosystems. Climate change is already threatening New England fisheries, and the last thing we need is additional threats from geoengineering. The public and the EPA must oppose this new, more threatening version of the LOC-NESS experiment.”

Is it too much of a stretch to say the experiment last summer was a drop in the ocean? Even if it results in allowing the ocean to absorb 50 tons of carbon dioxide, that is equivalent to the annual carbon footprints of five people in an industrialized country. NOAA suggests the cost of using OAE techniques at around $160 per ton of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere.

Who Pays?

Who is going to pay for all this? Microsoft and Google are waiting in the wings, ready to throw money at the technology by buying carbon credits, but whether that will provide any actual climate benefits is a matter of some debate. Tech companies are desperate to abate their massive emissions — or at least appear to be doing so.

The topic of geoengineering is one that produces strong opinions. Were it not Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute leading this parade, we would be greatly worried. The biggest risk may not be from the research itself but from the charlatans who will try to muscle their way in to serve their own agendas.

Commercial activity has already created a four-alarm climate emergency. There is little reason to expect for-profit enterprises to suddenly become good stewards of the Earth — not so long as there’s a buck to be made. Does that make us cynics? So be it.