2.4 Technical

Do those conducting the project activity possess the technical capacity to understand project impacts, and effectively monitor and measure results?

Our principles

• We must demonstrate a level of technical expertise required to fully characterize the potential impacts of our intervention prior to deployment.

• The quantification tools we use must enable comprehensive monitoring of risks specific to the system deployed, both during and after deployments.

• We must maintain the technical capability to fully understand the impacts of our work and refine the system based on the data collected.

• Measurement and monitoring instruments and models used in conducting research and/or evaluating results must be described as it relates to their role in quantification, and independently validated where appropriate.

• Technology systems must be tested, documented, and verified with sample data prior to being used in planned research projects.

• Where possible, subject matter expertise relevant to each component of the system deployed should be developed and resourced in-house. Where this expertise does not exist, collaboration with external researchers and subject matter experts is required.

How we demonstrate these principles

• Running Tide’s technology stack, which is primarily developed in-house, enables rigorous monitoring and the ability to evaluate the effects of an intervention. Many of these components are described in detail in our Framework Protocol.

• Running Tide has significant in-house expertise for components critical to our carbon removal system, including a full oceanography and ocean modeling team, in-house laboratories with the capacity to conduct all necessary environmental and ecological screening, and regular verification hardware system testing to confirm open ocean viability.

• Specific instruments used on a per-deployment basis are detailed in each Deployment Report, along with an in-depth description of models used and how they inform quantification results.

• Prior to conducting initial research projects, Running Tide successfully completed three separate deployments of fully operational verification hardware systems into the North Atlantic, providing real-time ocean data and in-situ imagery over multiple months. More information on these specific trials is linked here, and a more comprehensive history of our verification hardware testing can be found in the “Open Ocean Observation Platforms” section of the Framework Protocol.

• In addition to our documentation, Running Tide has also released several videos related to our quantification approach, linked here and here.

As our work progresses, we have identified a clear need to increase our in-situ measurement capacity, gaining additional visibility into what is occurring in the ocean in real time (and over longer periods of time). We will maintain a strong focus on the dematerialization of our sensor systems to reduce size, improve efficiency, and scale sensors to production, while staying in line with our ecological impact design philosophy to maximize information gained with the minimum possible footprint.