\n<\/p>\n
Odlin confirms that for all of the Icelandic wood-chip ocean deposits, it was impossible for Running Tide to monitor the wood chips for more than three hours after their release, saying, \u201cWe couldn\u2019t measure signal from noise in the ocean on the alkalinity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite having sold credits to Stripe, Shopify, Microsoft, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, financial pressures on Running Tide continued to mount as the flow of funds from Silicon Valley dried up. According to one former employee, Odlin would start meetings in spring 2024 by announcing that the company had only a few more weeks of funds before it would have to close. That June, Odlin admitted defeat.<\/p>\n
In a LinkedIn post on June 14, 2024, Odlin wrote that \u201cthere simply isn\u2019t the demand needed to support large-scale carbon removal.\u201d The company ceased global operations that month. Nearly all employees in Iceland and the US were suddenly let go. One employee was presenting about Running Tide at an algae conference when he was told the news.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were happy with our credits. We were filling our contracts. We were selling additional contracts. It just wasn\u2019t enough,\u201d Odlin says. Running Tide had sold $30 million of credits and said it had commitments for tens of millions more, but by Odlin\u2019s estimate, the company needed somewhere between $100 million and $150 million of sales. \u201cThat was, like, the rent we were designed for.\u201d<\/p>\n
The legacy the company leaves behind after its wood-chip dumping is unclear. It\u2019s simply not known what effect the sinking of biomass will have on the ocean, and the scientists and deep-sea experts WIRED spoke to remain hesitant about pursuing such marine geoengineering until more is understood about the deep sea.<\/p>\n A pile of wood chips left by Running Tide at Grundartangi, filmed in October 2024.<\/p>\n <\/span>Video: Alexandra Talty<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Dumping biomass in the ocean could create \u201cdead zones,\u201d areas where aquatic life is starved of oxygen, says Samantha Joye, a Regents\u2019 Professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, who has worked on dead zones in the Mississippi Delta as well as on the cleanup of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.<\/p>\n Deep sea environments\u2014some of which provide life-saving drugs or insights into how early Earth formed\u2014could also be forever damaged, Joye adds. A recent carbon flux report<\/a> by Convex Seascape Survey, an international research collaboration, found that once the seabed is disrupted<\/a>, this could actually halt the ability for sediments to absorb carbon. Joye also points out that without proper research, ocean alkalinity enhancement could also cause spikes in ocean acidity if it draws lots of carbon into the sea that isn\u2019t then distributed into its deep waters\u2014the very opposite of what the treated wood chips were trying to achieve.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n