Magnesium Hydroxide pumping won't happen at St Ives Bay
The company behind it say it's 'commercially unviable'
Plans to pump magnesium hydroxide into St Ives Bay have been scrapped, as the company behind it say it's 'commercially unviable'.
The proposals by Planetary Technologies, as a means of capturing carbon, had been criticised due to the risk to marine wildlife.
The company's CEO, Mike Kelland, wrote to St Ives MP Andrew George, saying they'd abandoned the idea saying:
"Planetary conducted a small-scale field trial at the wastewater treatment plant in St Ives Bay in September 2022 in partnership with South West Water to explore the potential of ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE). Following the trial, we spent time exploring potential alkalinity sources and supply chains. Based on this analysis, the scale-up of operations in Cornwall has been assessed as commercially unviable, and we will not be pursuing a wider programme in the region.
"The trial in Cornwall was nonetheless deemed a success, yielding valuable scientific data and insights. The results from the Cornwall trial have been published in a peer-reviewed journal. As the very first field trial of its kind, the results reported in this paper have been critical to supporting our understanding of ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE).
"We are grateful to the communities of St. Ives and Hayle for their feedback and engagement throughout our project evaluation process. We recognise the importance of the ocean in the community and value the open conversation throughout the process.
"Our vision remains to enhance the planet’s largest natural carbon removal process at many suitable locations around the world, and we hope the UK will continue to play an important role in the future.
Andrew George MP has welcomed the decision, calling it 'common sense for Cornwall':
“There remained uncertainty regarding the potential impact of pumping these chemicals on marine wildlife. The studies undertaken had not satisfied the Cornwall Carbon Scrutiny Group, in that the baseline data remained incomplete, the control and diffuser sites weren’t comparable and the target study species were not present at the time of the trials. The Environment Agency still had several outstanding requests of PT including dosing levels, before any decision could be made.
“This doesn’t mean the proposed technology should never be trialled, but it seemed clear there needed to be more research and robust studies prior to releasing chemicals the impact of which were not fully known.”
"This is good common sense for Cornwall, seals, safe seas and local economy."