Bianca Bahman snorkeled off the western coast of Flores, a volcanic island in eastern Indonesia. Bahman steered the underwater camera on a pair of small pontoons.
A three-dimensional map of the ribbon-shaped leaves is created from high-resolution footage captured from two slightly different angles.
Bahman is a project manager for Tidal who wants to use cameras, computer vision and machine learning to get a better understanding of life beneath the ocean. The same camera system has been used by Tidal for several years.
According to MIT Technology Review, Tidal hopes its system can help preserve and restore the world's seagrass beds, speeding efforts to harness the oceans to suck up and store far more carbon dioxide.
The so-called moonshot factory is part of the X division. In order to inform and incentivize efforts to protect the oceans, it's mission is to improve our understanding of underwater ecosystems.
Bahman says that its tools can help unlocked areas in the ocean world.
The oceans may be able to pull down a lot of the carbon dioxide that needs to be removed from the atmosphere each year. Making that happen will require restoring coastal environments, growing more seaweed, or similar interventions.
seagrass is a fast-growing plant that can absorb carbon dioxide from shallow waters. The coastal meadow might be able to suck up more if more people take steps to expand them.
Scientists don't have a good idea of how much carbon the plant sequesters and how much influence it has on the climate. Without that knowledge and affordable ways to verify that restoration efforts actually store away more carbon, it will be difficult to track climate progress and build credible carbon credit marketplaces.
Tidal hopes to crack the problem by developing models that translate the three-dimensional maps of seagrass into reliable estimates of the carbon held below. The missing verification tool could be provided if it works. The credibility of marine-based carbon credit projects and markets could be helped by this.
Tidal is testing its underwater camera systems at a workbench within X's building.
The team wants to create swimming robot equipped with its cameras that can remotely monitor coastlines and estimate the growth or loss of plant life.
Neil Davé is the general manager of Tidal.
Some scientists don't think that Tidal's technology will be able to accurately estimate carbon levels in distant corners of the globe. Nature-based carbon credits have faced growing criticism due to the fact that they can overstate climate benefits, create environmental risks, or present environmental justice concerns.
They don't know how well it will work. He says that is what the Tidal team went to Indonesia to try to find out.
The mandate to go after big, hard, even crazy ideas was what led to the launch of what is now known as Google X.
The self-driving car project was taken over by this division. The core products of its parent company were developed by it. The world got the augmented-reality headset from the company. It was possible to flirt with things like space elevators and telepathy.
X pursued climate-related projects from the beginning, but has had a mixed track record.
Makani was an attempt to capture wind energy from large, looping kites. The project to produce carbon-neutral fuels from Foghorn was abandoned after finding it would be hard to match the cost of gasoline.
Malta, a spinout that uses molten salt to store energy for the grid in the form of heat, is one of the two official climate graduates. They are still trying to gain traction in their markets.
X hasn't delivered a breakthrough success in climate or clean tech. The question is whether changing strategies at X will improve the track record.
Astro Teller told MIT Technology Review that the division pushed hard on radical innovation. He says that it has turned up the "rigor dial" in many ways, focusing more on the feasibility of the ideas it pursued.
Projects that directly addressed energy technologies and climate emissions were the high-risk ones of the earlier X climate efforts.
There are differences in the climate projects that X is currently pursuing. Mineral, which is using solar-panel-equipped robots and machine learning to improve agricultural practices, is one of the two other companies.
X is creating tools to ensure that industries can do more to address environmental dangers and that the environment can survive in a harsher world. It draws heavily on its parent company's strengths, including its ability to derive insights from massive amounts of data using artificial intelligence.
It might seem like such efforts aren't much different than flying wind turbines.
While Teller allows that their new thinking may be changing the character of the things that you see at X today, he pushes back against the idea that the problems it's pursuing aren't as important as in the past.
He doesn't know if Tidal has to apologize for something.
He says that humans need the oceans and are killing off the oceans. We need to find a way to get more value from the ocean while regenerating it. We need to find a way to get automation into the ocean.
Informal conversations at X about the mounting threats to the oceans and the lack of knowledge needed to address them led to the founding of Tidal.
He says the goal was to save the oceans. It was based on the fact that the oceans are the most neglected or abused resource in the world.
The first thing they decided to do was focus on one application: aquaculture, which uses land-based tanks, sheltered bays, or open ocean pens to raise fish, shellfish, seaweed, and more. Half of the fish eaten by humans are produced by these practices. The commercial pressures to overfish, the emissions from fishing fleets, and the environmental impact of trawling could be alleviated by the more they are used.
Tidal believed it could provide tools that would allow aquafarmers to monitor their fish in a more affordable way, spot signs of problems earlier, and improve their processes at a lower cost.
Winni WintermeYER is a woman.
Some of the prototypes were tested for underwater camera systems. Computer vision software can identify objects and attributes within footage. goldfish were used to start it.
They have been testing their tools in the harsh conditions of the North Sea for the last five years.
Davé showed a black-and-white video of the chaos that ensues when salmon are competing for food. It is not possible for the naked eye to understand what is happening in the scene. The computer vision software tags each fish with tiny colored boxes as it identifies individuals swimming through the frame or captures them opening their mouths to eat.
Davé believes fish farms can use that data in real time. They may stop dropping food into the pen when the fish stop feeding.
The fish's weight, sexual maturity, and signs of health problems can be seen by the cameras and software. They can detect diseases that are too small for the eye to see.
Grace Young, Tidal's scientific lead, says that they knew from the beginning that it would be a business. It would be a stepping stone to work on other problems.
Tidal is confident that it has created a viable commercial application. We are able to see how the tools that we built can apply and make a difference in other ocean industries.
Seagrasses can cover up to 2% of the world's ocean floor. They protect coastlines and provide habitat.
Plants use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to make food. Carbon is stored and delivered into the sea. The carbon is captured and buried in other organic matter.
Globally, seagrass beds may sequester as much as 8.5 billion tons of carbon in the ocean, and less in the ground. More than 100 million additional tons are drawn down and stored each year on the high end.
Estimates of the total range and carbon absorption rates of seagrass are vastly different. There is no easy way to map the planet's extensive coastline. According to a National Academies study, only about 60 percent of the US waters have been surveyed.
Aoges Rusonto.
We know they are getting smaller. Mangrove forests and salt marshes are among the carbon-sucked habitats that are being destroyed by development, overfishing, and pollution. Hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide are released each year when shallow biological communities are drained and excavated. Climate change is putting strains on many of the species by making ocean waters warmer, more acidic, and deeper.
Nations can help halt or reverse these trends by converting developed shorelines into natural ones, actively managing and restoring wetlands, or planting them in new areas where they can do better as ocean levels rise.
It would be a lot of work. If it comes at the expense of coastal development, who will pay for it?
There is a chance that companies or governments could create market incentives to support preservation and restoration by awarding credits for the extra carbon that mangrove, seagrass, and salt marshes take up and store away. Carbon credits are expected to be traded in voluntary markets in the coming decades.
Verra has developed a methodology for calculating carbon credits. There is a long-running effort by the Nature Conservancy's Virginia chapter to plant eelgrass around the Virginia Barrier Islands.
Some marine scientists and carbon market experts argue that there needs to be more rigorous ways to make sure that these efforts are removing as much carbon as possible. We risk allowing people or businesses to buy and sell carbon credits if we don't help the climate.
As a growing body of studies underscored the need for carbon removal and highlighted the potential role of ocean based approaches, Tidal began exploring whether its tools could be used for seagrass.
Davé says that they read a lot of studies. It was discovered that we have some technology that could be used here.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), an Australian government science agency that has long used drones, satellites, acoustic positioning systems, and other equipment to survey coral reefs, mangrove forests, and seagrass, was the subject of a series of conversations with the team.
Seagrass is difficult to map on large scales because it is hard to distinguish from other dark spots in shallow waters.
Aoges Rusonto.
Researchers with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation pull up and look at the seagrass.
Steven says that the world needs to be able to map and measure change more frequently. The use of Tidal technology is part of an arsenal of methods that help us quickly survey, process, and deliver information to decision makers. It's addressing a fundamental problem.
Tidal will be helped by the CSIRO to test its system. They collaborated on a field trial off the coast of Fiji in the summer and another off the coast of Indonesia in the fall. One of the world's largest and most diverse expanses of seagrass can be found in the latter country.
Tidal used an off-the-shelf underwater vehicle with a basic camera to pair its software with. If the researchers could use standard hardware, their approach would be more widely available.
The thing didn't work. The tides were not as high as expected. Bahman says the team was forced to stop every few minutes because of the seaweed build up.
The Tidal team came up with the idea of putting its camera system on a float that could be pulled along by a boat. The researchers use a set of ropes and cleats that allow them to dip the camera deeper into the water in order to get a better picture.
The "Hammersled" is being tested out by researchers at a pool in the middle of a company's campus.
The system worked well enough during a few tests in a large pool in the middle of Alphabet's campus in Sunnyvale, California, where team members pulled it by hand over patches of plastic.
The bigger question is whether Tidal can translate its maps into an accurate estimate of the carbon seagrass holds and buries in the ocean.
Steven and his colleagues started sailing around the islands after arriving in Labuan Bajo, on the western tip of Flores. To study the wide variability of the natural world, they launched drones from the deck and prioritized sites with many different species.
The Tidal team passed through after the researchers selected, measured, tagged, filmed, and photographed their 100 meters.
The Hammersled was pulled by a little Indonesian fishing boat. Bahman and other staffers jumped into the water with goggles and flippers to clasp a pontoon and keep the camera pointed straight as they traveled through the test area.
The researchers used spades, peat borers, and other tools to pull up the seagrass from the one meter square study plots.
The Australian scientists used hair dryers and makeshift ovens to dry out the plant materials on the main island. They ground them up and put them into hundreds of plastic bags.
The total amount in each plot will be determined in the months to come by analyzing the carbon content in each batches.
Terry Smith, a solutions engineer with Tidal, says that if the algorithm takes a look at the data gathered before they take the core samples and comes up with the same answer, then it will work.
Not everyone is convinced that seagrass is a good way to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
Some of the approaches to carbon removal that the National Academies has explored rank near the bottom in terms of their ability to scale up. There is a lot of competition with human activity in the narrow bands along the shoreline.
According to a professor of marine biogeochemistry at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, "We need to do everything we can to preserve seagrass."
He says that the answer to the big question is no. There isn't enough area to sequester enough carbon to make a difference.
It is problematic to accurately determine the net carbon and climate impact from seagrass restoration.
Aoges Rusonto.
Depending on the location, the season, the mix of species, and how much gets eaten by fish and other marine creatures, the amount of carbon sequestered varies dramatically. Some of the carbon in the seafloor can leak into the surrounding waters, where it can remain in the ocean for thousands of years. Methane and nitrous oxide are potent greenhouse gases that need to be accounted for in any estimate of the climate impact.
The majority of the carbon in the seagrass beds is buried in the ocean.
The correlation between the two carbons is not straight forward. All sorts of validations are required to ensure reliable estimates of stored carbon.
Environmental justice was highlighted in an essay in The Conversation. The authors stressed that the local communities most affected by the project should have a say in it. Some coastal towns might not want to turn their harbor into a marsh.
They wrote that a lot of the world's population lives near the ocean and that some interventions might affect places that support jobs and communities.
Better understanding of the coastline's ecology is needed to address the scientific questions. Steven hopes that Tidal's technology will make it easier to conduct studies. He said it was a challenge. You need to begin somewhere.
As for the environmental justice concerns, Tidal stresses that nature-based approaches to carbon removal have the potential to provide multiple benefits. They could help to keep the population going. Local communities in Fiji and Indonesia will be trained by Tidal to participate in carbon markets.
Davé said in an email that their goal is to provide these communities with tools to be able to manage, protect, and repopulate their local systems.
What is the next thing for Tidal?
It will take months for the Australian team to finish analyzing the seagrass. Whatever they find, the teams will continue to conduct field experiments to refine the models and make sure they provide accurate carbon estimates across a variety of seagrass types.
It is possible that Tidal will partner with other research groups focused on the Bahamas.
Tidal believes that its suite of tools could be used to support other ocean-based approaches to carbon removal, such as growing more seaweed and restoring mangrove forests.
Providing carbon measurement, reporting, and verification as a service to offsets registries or organizations carrying out restoration work is one of the possible business models that Davé can envision. They may be able to create robotic systems that plant seagrass.
Even if the systems don't provide reliable enough carbon estimates, Tidal believes its efforts will still aid scientific efforts to understand crucial ocean ecosystems. Monitoring the well-being of coral reefs is gravely threatened by warming waters.
It might not sound like a moonshot in the way that X intended. There is no space elevator.
But by building tools that a variety of organizations could use in a variety of ways to unlock the secrets of Earth’s critical and fragile ecosystems, Tidal may be demonstrating a new way to take on really hard problems.
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