Among many types of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) facilities, wet type FGD using lime or limestone is most popular in the world because of its simplicity of operation and availability of lime and limestone. Seawater desulfurization utilizes the alkalinity of seawater, thus requires no addition of lime and limestone. The efficiency of seawater desulfurization depends on the variation of alkalinity of seawater at different locations. This study presents the effect of gas-water ratio and total alkalinity of absorbing solution on the removal efficiency of sulfur dioxide from the flue gas by means of seawater. Also this study provides an alternative way to increase total alkalinity of seawater by utilizing fly ash from coal-fired power plants. The increase of removal efficiency with increase of alkalinity was measured as 0.26 ± 0.01% per ppm of bicarbonate alkalinity from the set of experiments using seawater, underwater, and distilled water, the alkalinity of which were 111 ppm, 38 ppm, and 1 ppm, respectively. Capability to increase total alkalinity of seawater using fly ash was confirmed.