Turning the Tide On Climate Change With Green Sand Beaches

Capturing a trillion tonnes of excess CO2 in rock using the power of natural wave energy

The nature-based, permanent, scalable, and affordable solution to climate change.

Nature Has Shown Us How This Sand Can Help Save the Planet

Weathering is the Earth's Natural CO2 Removal Process

For billions of years, rain falling on volcanic rocks has slowly weathered them down before flowing to the ocean, where a reaction removes CO2 from the atmosphere. In this way, as part of the long-term carbon cycle, trillions of tonnes of CO2 has been stored in rocks under the sea.

Helping Accelerate Nature

We take the volcanic mineral olivine from below the surface directly to coastal areas to make green sand beaches. The power of wave action breaks down the rock, accelerating a reaction that removes harmful CO2 from the atmosphere/oceans.

Harnessing Nature

Project Vesta’s approach dramatically accelerates Earth's natural longterm CO2 removal process. We make green-sand beaches with a highly abundant volcanic mineral, olivine. We acquire nearby olivine and transport it to beaches where wave action speeds up the carbon dioxide capture process, while also de-acidifying the ocean.

Acquire Olivine

A green mineral that can help reverse climate change by naturally removing CO2.

Make a Green Sand Beach

Olivine is transported to nearby beaches and coastlines

Use the Motion of the Ocean

Natural wave energy does the rest, breaking down the olivine so it removes CO2

To the Sea Bed

CO2 is captured in the water and in limestone rocks at the bottom of the ocean

"California’s top climate scientists not only support the notion that rocks can sequester carbon, they are clamoring for viable experiments to test the theory."

-San Francisco Chronicle

The Imperative For Carbon Dioxide Removal

"It is time for the IPCC, governments and other research-funding agencies to invest in new, internationally coordinated studies to investigate the viability and relative safety of large-scale CO2 removal... Significant CO2 removal will need to begin around 2020, with up to 20 gigatonnes of CO2 extracted each year by 2100 to keep the global temperature increase “well below 2 °C.”

“Climate scenarios that keep global warming within Paris Agreement limits rely on large-scale application of technologies that can remove CO2 from the air on a huge scale.”

"All analysed pathways limiting warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot use CDR to some extent to neutralize emissions from sources for which no mitigation measures have been identified and, in most cases, also to achieve net negative emissions to return global warming to 1.5°C following a peak"

"Models show the great difficulty of meeting Paris Agreement targets without them, and thus their potential viability is significant now... There is a long lead time between research and implementation so that research would still be required now even if implementation is envisaged some decades in the future... Failure of such technologies to deliver would then condemn humanity to a dangerously warming world.

“Climate scenarios that keep global warming within Paris Agreement limits rely on large-scale application of technologies that can remove CO2 from the air on a huge scale.”

The Time to Act is Now

In order to avoid climate catastrophe, we must limit global warming to “well below” 2°C (3.6°F). Society is now on track to overshoot our emissions target before 2030.

Cutting emissions will not – cannot – be enough. We must remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in massive quantities – tens of gigatonnes per year.

Project Vesta Announces Key Milestone In Pursuit of Gigatonne Scale CO2 Removal

On Earth Day 2020, Project Vesta announced that we have taken the first steps to go from the lab to the beach. We have selected a beach for our Phase Ia Safety Pilot Project and have commenced sampling.