Laura Stieghorst almost missed the opportunity that has transformed her life.

It was 2021 and the young environmental science and policy student was in class at the University of Miami when she noticed an email pop up on her computer. It was a follow-up note from the XPRIZE Foundation, a non-profit group that hosts competitions meant to encourage technological development.

The sender asked if Stieghorst, then 23, had received an earlier message — one indicating she had won a $100,000 grant for her proposal to study technology to remove carbon from the ocean in the fight against climate change.

"I was both overwhelmed with joy and horribly embarrassed that I had missed the first email, possibly the most important email of my life thus far," says Stieghorst, who had no expectation of winning the carbon removal competition.

"It was more money than I had ever seen in my life!"

It was a pivotal moment that validated her research and belief in ocean alkalinity enhancement, a pioneering concept that involves adding alkaline minerals to the ocean to soak up carbon. Stieghorst had become familiar with the nascent approach to carbon removal while at university and dove into researching it when the XPRIZE competition was announced.

The premise is that adding alkaline materials — like magnesium hydroxide — to seawater will neutralize ocean acidity and allow the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In experiments at the university lab, she studied the dissolution of the mineral in specialized tanks that can create hurricane-force wind and waves to mimic ocean mixing.

"I took a class on extreme weather and climatology and that's when this concept of alkalinity as a counterbalance to ocean acidification was introduced and I thought, 'Wow, of course this makes sense — that the global carbon system has a counterbalance for this phenomenon of ocean acidification that we're seeing,'" she says. "Ocean alkalinity enhancement just seemed really promising to me."

The research and a partnership with Nova Scotia-based Planetary Technologies (see CSN story Inventive Intervention for the Climate) recently landed her at a facility on the Dartmouth side of the Halifax harbour, where she is helping prepare a team to trial an ambitious carbon removal process that could eventually be expanded around the world.

Sieghorst is working with a consortium of groups, including Carbon to Sea, which is leading the initiative to evaluate whether ocean alkalinity enhancement can safely remove and store billions of tons of CO₂.

Her work over the next three months will build off initial field trials in the harbour last year to determine whether controlled amounts of antacid could neutralize CO₂ in the seawater.

"Carbon to Sea recently launched one of the world's first open-source R&D initiatives focused on ocean climate science to actively support scientists conducting research and companies piloting new technologies, focused on emerging ocean-based carbon dioxide removal solutions," says Miriam Zitner of the Carbon to Sea Initiative.

"Laura...has joined us in Halifax as a field research associate for the duration of this alkalinity addition to provide technical support as needed and chronicle the experience and lessons learned."

For Stieghorst, now 26 and based in New York, it is a trajectory that has ramped up quickly from a youthful fascination with the ocean in her hometown and the ways it was changing: coral bleaching, water temperatures that soared to 100 degrees, and invasive species that were gobbling up reef fish.

"I was always very aware that my connection with nature and water was very much defined by pollution and development, and trying to preserve what was left of those ecosystems against these harms. It was very much a solution-oriented perspective looking at how we can reduce harms," says Stieghorst.

That passion has taken her from running experiments in a university lab and founding Basico, where she acts as an independent scientific advisor for clients interested in CO₂ removal, to discussing her work with U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris at a conference for youth climate leaders in 2023.

If her research succeeds, not only would she be part of a climate solution, but she could help spur on a market in which businesses pay to remove carbon from the atmosphere to offset their carbon emissions.

"I'm very optimistic about this approach," she says, adding that she hopes to return to sea to do more research and plans to apply for a scholarship to continue her work. "I would say that it’s my optimism that keeps me in this industry and keeps me excited to keep working on it. I think that there is an incredible potential for carbon removal."

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