One of the world’s most influential climate leaders to speak at the Laguna Art Museum this Saturday
By MARRIE STONE
Nature provides endless examples of elegant design. Look to the structure of a snowflake, the pattern of a wave or the spiral of a pinecone to appreciate all the natural art embedded in our environment.
Beyond its beauty, nature’s elegant design also offers artful scientific lessons. Birds and the shape of their wings, for example, inspired human flight. Leonardo da Vinci made careful study of avian physiology in his sketches of “flying machines.” The unique bumps on humpback whale fins – which reduce drag and increase lift – inspired the design of wind turbines. And artificial reefs are now being used to attract oysters because of their natural ability to improve water quality.
Biomimicry – “imitation of the living” – takes inspiration from nature’s mechanisms and translates them to human engineering. One of those promising mechanisms exists in our own backyard.
Inspired by the biological process by which mollusks produce seashells, Director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management and Professor of Sustainability Dr. Gaurav Sant created a technology to reverse the effects of climate change. This Saturday, Jan. 11, he arrives at the Laguna Art Museum (LAM) to explain how.
In his talk “Seashells: From Concrete to Climate Change,” Dr. Sant will introduce his company, Equatic, which has developed a system that removes carbon dioxide from seawater while simultaneously producing valuable green hydrogen, a source of clean energy that can replace fossil-based fuels. By leveraging the size and scale of the earth’s oceans, Equatic’s process permanently stabilizes carbon dioxide while producing clean energy. Their two prototype plants, which opened in Singapore and Los Angeles last year, have successfully removed more than 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide from our oceans while producing 2,000 tons of green hydrogen.
The company is currently preparing a $100 million plant in Canada that is projected to eliminate 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. (For comparison, a roundtrip flight from London to Los Angeles emits 3.5 tons of carbon dioxide.) They aim to remove five million tons of CO2 per year beginning in 2030.
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Courtesy of LAM
One of “Time” magazine’s” top influential climate leaders, Dr. Gaurav Sant, will speak at LAM this Saturday, Jan. 11 at 6 p.m.
Since oceans make up 70% of the earth’s surface, they’re a natural place to search for environmental solutions. Oceans absorb roughly 30% of all carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. But all those gases lead to the acidification of our oceans, harming aquatic ecosystems and endangering the environment.
“When you think about large-scale problems, you need large-scale solutions,” said Sant. “Since time is of the essence, the coupling of an engineering solution to a natural system is the only way to bring a significant solution.”
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Mollusks make seashells as a part of their biological process. Those shells are made of calcium carbonate and other minerals absorbed from the sea. Shells lock carbon dioxide into a stable, solid form. That mechanism inspired Dr. Sant and other scientists to ask the question: how can we facilitate the absorption and storage of carbon dioxide from seawater while reversing the effects of acidification? The answer is electrolysis. This technology mimics what the ocean’s ecosystem does naturally, only it does it 99,000 times faster. At the same time, this process produces green hydrogen to power its own facilities and provide additional sustainable energy.
“Ensuring the affordability and global accessibility of carbon management technologies is foundational to mitigating and reversing ongoing and accelerating climate change,” Sant said.
Inspired by seashells, Dr. Gaurav Sant’s company Equatic is using the natural power of the ocean to remove harmful CO2 and produce clean hydrogen fuel
Landing a scientific luminary like Dr. Sant is quite a coup for both LAM and Laguna Beach. Time magazine named him among 2024’s top influential climate leaders. And he was among Forbes’ 50 superstars who are leading the charge to combat the climate crisis with real, tangible impact. Sant was also a finalist for the 2024 Earthshot Prize, a global initiative launched by Britain’s Prince William in 2020 to search for and scale up the most innovative solutions to the world’s greatest environmental challenges. Earthshot named him a finalist in the category, “Fix Our Climate.”
In addition to co-founding Equatic in 2021, Dr. Sant has also co-founded Concrete-AI Inc. and Nextli Technologies Inc. and is the founder of CarbonBuilt Inc. While teaching at UCLA, he published more than 200 articles and provided expert testimony to the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives and the California State Senate, and offered strategic consulting, core R&D and innovation support to Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, foundations and global industrial organizations.
This talk – an inspiring fusion of creativity and science – offers an apt ending to LAM’s 2024 Art + Nature series. The annual initiative, now completing its 12th year, brings together thousands of participants to foster a love of nature, raise environmental awareness and discover connections between science and the arts.
“It is an enormous pleasure to welcome Gaurav Sant to Laguna Art Museum as the final speaker in our Art + Nature Speaker Series,” said LAM’s Executive Director Julie Perlin Lee. “Art + Nature celebrates the dynamic exchange between artists and environmental awareness, making it is a truly perfect match to invite a recognized leader in science, sustainability and innovation such as Gaurav to show us how creative thinking and technology will positively impact our environment’s future.”
Advance tickets recommended. Museum members: $35, Non-members: $45. For tickets, click here.
