The most sensible Co2 geo-engineering project so far?
Geo-engineering – the practice of artificially altering our plants systems to reduce atmospheric Co2 – is seen by many as one of the only practical and feasible methods of fully mitigating climate change.
 But, there are many people  who harbour serious concerns about such schemes. The potential to make things worse is significant, particularly since we are dealing with often poorly understood systems and engineering on a giant scale = big potential for big problems. In fact, some of the schemes proposed can only (and have been) be described as complete madness.
However, somebody has come up with a sensible proposal at last. Researchers are proposing water treatment plants which will remove hydrochloric acid from the ocean using electrolysis which increases the alkalinity of the ocean and its ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
We like this idea for two reasons: First, it doesn’t involve making direct changes to our environment (such as huge space mirrors, or millions of floating pipes). Secondly, and more importantly: It can easily be switched off again. Should knock-on effects be observed we have an option to stop.
See post by Brett Anderson at Accuweather.
We could get the same effect by removing sodium hydroxide from wherever and dumping it (diluted) in the ocean. I’d propose an alternate approach, however:
1. Extract salt from the ocean via evaporation.
2. Electrolyze the salt to create elemental sodium and chlorine.
3. Send the sodium through a fuel cell to oxidize it, recovering a good part of the energy spent on electrolysis.
4. Dump the sodium hydroxide (from the oxide) into the ocean.
5. Ship the chlorine to places with problems getting good drinking water.
This way, the chlorine becomes a valuable by-product rather than something to be disposed of.