Keep Our Sea Chemical Free!
Background
SOUTH WEST WATER (SWW)
From 2011 to 2021 SWW achieved the disgrace of 10 consecutive years of red rating by the Environment Agency for sewage pollution incidents. This is the lowest rating possible. In 2023 SWW were fined a record amount of £2.15 million for illegally dumping sewage in Devon and Cornwall and the company is currently under investigation by OFWAT for environmental performance failures. There are 2 sewage outflows that discharge into the Red River at Godrevy. This year there have already been 13 water quality alerts due to SWW sewage overflows in Red River. Based on the fact that the numbers of alerts at this location continue to grow each year, there are many more to come.
PLANETARY TECHNOLOGIES (PT)
A tech start up founded in 2019 based in Canada and led by software entrepreneur Mike Kelland. It was founded in 2019. Originally the company was called Planetary Hydrogen and it was linked to the mining industry. Their idea was to locate their technology at mine sites in order to process mine waste producing hydrogen and an alkaline byproduct. As far as we can tell, the company has now stopped this venture. The company was renamed Planetary Technologies, and is now concentrating on Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (adding mine waste to oceans to draw down Carbon Dioxide). Their business model is based around selling Carbon Credits. In 2022, they received $1million dollars from Elon Musk and the UK government awarded them hundreds of thousands of pounds to find a location for sea trials.
THE UNITED NATIONS
The International Maritime Organisation is part of the United Nations. In October 2023 it stated that it is extremely concerned that Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (the technique being pioneered by Planetary Technolgies and South West Water) has the potential to cause ‘deleterious effects that are widespread, long lasting or severe....there are risks of adverse environmental impacts of these techniques with limited knowledge of their effectiveness’ (IMO October 2023) The International Maritime Organisation has called for OAE to be effectively banned and have stated that testing should only happen in very specific circumstances - we don’t believe PT and SWW have met these criteria.
RUSHING TO TEST
Although the Environment Agency have deemed the next possible test ‘very low risk’ - we think there are worrying holes in the science. One of the most obvious is that there is no proper baseline monitoring of the existing ecosystem in the bay. Another is that there has been no specific testing of the impact of Magnesium Hydroxide on our local species.
One very perplexing aspect of Ocean Alkalinity Enghancement is that there is no way of physically proving that this techo fix actually works.
SCALING UP
The purpose of this test is to find a way of massively scaling this up - that would mean hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Magnesium Hydroxide being dumped into St.Ives Bay over the decades ahead. And not just here - Planetary Technologies want to expand this all over the world. This would come at a vast carbon cost with no way of knowing if this type of marine geo engineering actually works. Even in the best case scenario, OAE on a vast scale would have a tiny impact on climate change and it would comes with high risk and uncertainties.
MONETISING ST.IVES BAY
In 2022, Planetary Technologies decided to monetise St.Ives Bay by selling a form of carbon credits to big companies like Shopify. They made a deal with South West Water to share future carbon credit profits if they manage to scale up the experiment. The community living around the Bay were told nothing about this and we are still not clear about the details of the deal. Carbon Credits are notorious for allowing polluting companies to carry on business as usual and they’ve been proved to be worse than useless in many cases.
CLIMATE CRISIS
We are passionate about combating the climate crisis. Our oceans already play an incredibly important role in capturing Carbon Dioxide. Marine ecosystems are complex and already under severe stress due to pollution and industrial fishing. Oceans are not a dumping ground - we need to protect and renew them. There are many tried and tested ways of combating the climate crisis which do not put ecosystems and human communities at risk of potentially devastating impacts.
NATURE BASED SOLUTIONS
We support nature based, community led and socially equitable solutions for carbon capture. The ocean already does a remarkable job of storing carbon for us - we need to protect and enhance it. Nature based solutions work for communities and the ocean.
ST IVES BAY - The Ocean has Rights
Planetary Technologies and South West Water plans:
Geoengineering project proposal for St Ives Bay
On 19/01/23, Cornwall Seal Research Group Trust (SRT) were present at a routine Cornwall Marine Liaison Group meeting where a Canadian startup company, Planetary Technologies (PT), presented their plans for a Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) geoengineering project that would see tonnes of Magnesium Hydroxide (MH) released into St Ives Bay. SRT later learned that an initial trial took place in September 2022 that local communities and the public were not informed about (sound familiar?! - SoBs).
By March, PT had held two small public meetings in Hayle and Truro. SRT hosted two face to face meetings with PT’s CEO Mike Kelland and PR Lead Pete Chagrin, where SRT’s Steering Group were able to pose their questions about PT’s plans.
The St Ives Bay community is very willing and able to engage, understand, scrutinise and hopefully pass on learning to other communities facing similar issues. Local communities here are extremely protective of their marine ecosystems that support health and wellbeing, as well as vital financial economies where tourism, based on a quality marine environment, is key. Additionally, Cornwall is blessed with a network of over 20 existing local marine conservation groups, all focused on protecting our vital coastal environmental assets in partnership with numerous NGOs such as SRT, supported by excellent marine focused Universities.
Science concerns
SRT began exploring relevant science and research. One paper showed that when used as a purifier in a closed system, ‘Magnesium Hydroxide can create nanoscale solid wastes containing a high concentration of pollutants that are harmful to the environment’ (Lui et al 2020). Hartmann et al 2023 stated that ‘the real world application of Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement remains unclear as its most basic assumptions are untested. Before large scale deployment can be considered, safe and sustainable procedures for the addition of alkalinity to seawater must be identified and governance established. The potential impacts of adding alkaline materials on marine organisms and ecosystems is still largely unknown. Overall the side effects of OAE on organisations and more importantly on ecosystems, is largely unknown and deserves research at the experimental level, to provide better knowledge in order to make informed decisions on whether or not alkalinity enhancement is a feasible mitigation strategy’.
Environment Agency and Water Research Centre
As a result SRT began writing to the Environment Agency (EA) outlining their thoughts and posing questions they did not know the answers to. To date they have submitted four letters to the EA. They were delighted when the EA contracted the Water Research Centre (WRc) to conduct an independent audit of PT’s project license application. As a result, after several online contacts with the WRc, they submitted a letter outlining their monitoring expectations and provided detailed data about seal habitat use in St Ives Bay. They also summarised the available scientific information (albeit limited) about seal senses, suggesting their likely abilities to detect changes in water chemistry and the marine environment.
See the SRT website for more details: https://www.cornwallsealgroup.co.uk/2024/01/the-ocean-has-rights/
Update and Further Reading
12/02/24: The Environment Agency release the Water Research Centre Audit Report
Today has seen the Environment Agency (EA) publicly released the Water Research Centre’s (WRc) report they commissioned about PTs geoengineering project in St Ives Bay. Click the following links to read the key documentation, including our immediate response from the Seal Research Trust
23/03/24: Open dialogue with Planetary Technologies
SRT remain in open dialogue with PT and on 15/03/24 PT presented their 2 day ‘Baseline’ results from May 2023 to the Cornwall Carbon Scrutiny Group (CCSG). 8 staff from PT were present along with 14 CCSG members. PT’s chief scientist agreed with CCSG that:
- The May data was not a comprehensive spatial or temporal survey
- This survey did not constitute a baseline
- PT’s preferred static species (bivalves) were not present for surveying at the diffuser site
- The control site had multiple parameters that varied from the diffuser site, so is not ideal or comparable, nor therefore suitable, as a control site
- Highly responsive communication systems are required by SWW and PT to avoid dosing during storm outflow events.
PT’s CEO Mike Kelland also confirmed that Carbon Credits are part of PT’s business model, albeit not being sold to support the St Ives Bay experiment. SRT consider PT’s scientific research should not be allowed due a commercial conflict of interest and a licence refused.
SRT have written to the EA to strongly urge them to make sure that if the trial is licenced, the following fundamental requirements should be part of PT’s licensing agreement:
- Long term, robust, spatial and temporal baselines (conducted seasonally and over multiple years) must be established and completed by PT BEFORE any trial takes place
- A transect of spatial survey sites into the bay at different distances from the diffuser are studied to take into account sediment movements in the bay, given toxic sediment accumulation is a medium level risk and would be a reason for ending the trial. Surveys must be established and completed by PT BEFORE any trial takes place
- Long term baseline surveys on multiple St Ives Bay marine species at different trophic levels (to assess the impact of magnesium hydroxide) must be completed by PT BEFORE any trial takes place
- Pool sized closed water and air locked system trials should be conducted on multiple St Ives Bay marine habitats and species across the food web, WHILST thorough baseline surveys are taking place.
SRT acknowledge that St Ives Bay’s diffuser location is a challenging one, but this is not a reason to not require a properly rigorous, scientifically robust baseline BEFORE any trial takes place.
PT’s reasoning for the current lack of data seemed to be… it is too costly, too hard, in too challenging an environment, to do more thorough research. This is just not acceptable, given the potential risks to St Ives Bay’s triple bottom line.
The decision was made at the meeting for a second meeting to be organised by CCSG with PT covering the Water Research Centre Report.
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