• The UK government has initiated a new carbon capture project — SeaCURE — that could pave the way for large-scale removal of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere using the ocean.

• The SeaCURE pilot plant will be built at the SEA LIFE centre in Weymouth, with a £3 million grant from the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) through its Net Zero Innovation Portfolio as part of the Direct Air Capture & Greenhouse Gas Removals Innovation Programme.

• SeaCURE’s system — similar to capturing the CO₂ bubbles from a fizzy drink — makes use of renewable energy to remove carbon from seawater, then releases that seawater back to the ocean where it naturally replenishes the lost CO₂ by sucking carbon from the atmosphere. 

• The project is led by the University of Exeter, in collaboration with Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Brunel University London and industrial partner Eliquo Hydrok.

• The demonstration plant in the UK will operate at a rate of 100 tonnes of CO₂ removal from the atmosphere per year, developing and testing state-of-the-art approaches to verify that CO₂ removal, and carefully building the evidence base required for larger-scale plant deployment.

• Carbon dioxide is a key driver of climate change.

• The ocean currently absorbs around 25 per cent of the CO₂ — the most prolific greenhouse gas — emitted each year by humans. 

• The SeaCURE team stresses that the world must focus on reducing carbon emissions.

• Capturing carbon gives the hard-to-decarbonise sectors a chance to develop zero carbon technologies without contributing further to the climate problem. 

• Furthermore, carbon removal could dramatically improve the rate at which atmospheric CO₂ can be stabilised and reduced toward pre-industrial levels.

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