Ocean fertilization won't work

"Give me a half tanker of iron and I will give you an ice age." Thus spake John Martin, famously and wrongly.

He thought, correctly, that iron can stimulate ocean plants. But he thought, wrongly, that this would make the ocean suck up CO2 and blunt global warming.

This was an idea with teeth, according to a NASA biography, because it took an oceanographic hypothesis and turned it into a techno-fix for a big social problem.

Now a new report for policy makers finds that the oceanographic hypothesis has merit, iron can fertilize ocean plankton. But the geo-engineering hope was wrong, this process can't capture enough CO2 to make a difference. From the report:

Lead author of the report Professor Doug Wallace from the Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften (IFM-GEOMAR) says: "The published findings suggest that even very large-scale fertilization would remove only modest amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over 100 years".

Too bad, it would be nice to have a solution in hand, even though ocean ecosystems would be put at risk. Then, at least, we could do something if we all start to Sizzle.

I knew John Martin, and it was interesting to watch this debate unfold over the last few decades. I suspect he's smiling at this news. His comment spurred a great adventure in oceanography, something he would be pleased to see.

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Moby Carbon

Wanna stop climate change? We need to start a whale nursery and fill our oceans with whales. Not just a few, I'm talking 36 billion whales. I call it the "Moby Carbon" project.

Here's what it's about...

Whale removal from the world's oceans is a little-known CO2 problem, akin to deforestation. The body of a whale contains up to 9 tons of carbon, more than any living thing except for the biggest trees. Our human whale extermination program of the last couple of centuries has reduced carbon removal from the atmosphere.

Time to re-whale the oceans so they can die and sink and store our waste carbon! And I don't mean just get back to pre-human levels of whales, I think we need to fill the oceans with whales. According to my calculations, with 36,000,000,000 whales (36 billion whales) on earth, they could live comfortably 100 meters apart and effectively remove all excess carbon from our atmosphere so we could live combustibely ever after, burning fossil fuels to our wallet's content.

I'm going to look for financing to launch Moby Carbon, I'm sure I can find a friendly country that will let me do a whale nursery for a share of the carbon credits.

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Ocean acid experiment

The great ocean acid experiment has a new front line...Puget Sound, near Seattle.

That's right, my home waters are going to show the world what an acidifying ocean means. Already, ocean waters in Washington are going more and more acid, thanks to the interaction of man-made CO2 and natural conditions.

By the way, oysters are having a hard time reproducing, there hasn't been a good spawn in more than 5 years. Tough news for an oyster-producing region and for oyster lovers everywhere (and who doesn't love a good oyster!).

But hey, let's just ignore it and go blithely ahead loving our fossil fuels. And maybe I can dip my silver spoons in Puget Sound for cleaning in a few years.

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Adventure science

Hauling a 120 kilo sled across the Arctic ice, and SWIMMING ACROSS OPEN WATER where cracks separate chunks of floating ice. This is Swim Around Bainbridge on steroids.

The Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 will trek across the Arctic in winter, in order to study the ocean acid monster (the CO2 problem formerly known as ocean acidification).

Can I come too?

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Climate control

What if we save the earth's climate without the pain of reducing CO2 in the air? Who would support action? I worry that the idea would become a political football, sort of like health care in the US.

Climate engineering is close to reality, probably a lot closer than global reductions in CO2 production. Aerosol particles are being considered to shade the earth, and seawater mists might work to make clouds reflect more sunlight. Both ideas could be tested fairly soon at a reasonable cost.

Critics correctly point out that climate engineering is risky, but so what's safe about our current CO2 orgy? We're pumping up our atmosphere with CO2 in a massive and risky experiment already. It's time to be brave, smart, and active, and that means we should consider designed climate engineering instead of our current accidental climate engineering mess caused by our love of combustion.

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Cry, the beloved oyster

Oysters are my favorite ocean animal. What can I say, they're charismatic and sexy and interesting and yummy and important and...well...beloved.

Imagine my dismay when I read this article. Actually, it wasn't a big surprise to me, I've heard about this before. But the news just keeps getting worse.

Acid in the ocean seems to be killing oysters today, as we sit on our cushioned chairs and sofas watching TV. It's not a future crime, or a distant speculation of what might be. It's here and now.

Cry, the belove oysters, while it still might make a difference. Cry, and then get off your cushions and do something. And it won't help to simply stop eating them. Indeed, eat an oyster first, and then go charging of to save them, fortified with the elixir of life.

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Earth Day--store CO2 in ocean?

What is Earth Day? Happy celebration of planting trees? Yes, and more. In 2009, Earth Day poses a new challenge. It's questions like: should we store CO2 under the ocean? How we respond will determine our fate.

On one side, we can do NIMBY or NIMO and say: Not In My Ocean, too risky. On the other side, we might find a viable technology for reversing climate change by storing CO2 underneath the ocean.

How we settle on questions like this will determine our future. I think Earth Day 2009 presents us a challenge and an opportunity. Will we grow and change and solve problems?

Or will we atavistically look backwards for our models of problem solving?

It would be easy to look at things like banning DDT and say we need more of that kind of firm action stopping the bad people or bad things. But in this complex world, there are few if any simple answers and we won't be saved by a brave hero. This ain't no cowboy movie.

I don't know if ocean disposal of CO2 is a good idea or not. But I do believe that if we reject such options dogmatically, we're not likely to solve our looming problems and move forward into a better future.

So for me, Earth Day 2009 will involve a celebration and happy-making. And a redoubled effort to advance productive problem-solving as heart of the modern environmental movement.

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Climate fix experiment goes bust

Fertilizing the ocean to suck up CO2 failed in a recent experiment. The idea was to dump iron in the ocean, fertilize plankton growth, and sequester CO2 to lower atmospheric CO2.

The experiment showed that fertilizing ocean algae growth did a great job of feeding things that eat ocean algae--tiny animals called zooplankton. It was a nice job of creating an all-you-can-eat ocean buffet.

I'm not a big fan of geoengineering, but climate fix experiments are probably necessary in this world of rising CO2. The fact that the experiment failed allows smarter debates about future geoengineering schemes. Instead of only waving our hands, we can actually look at scientific experiments on the question of using iron to lower CO2.

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Climate change solved

There's now a carbon dioxide eating machine that can suck CO2 out of the air. And it eats more CO2 than it takes to produce the energy to run the machine. In other words, we come out ahead if we use it.

We're saved. Maybe, although there's a few details to be worked out like scale-up.

Naw, this can't be true. It would be too easy.

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Put the lime in the ocean and you drink it all up

The latest idea for sinking our excess CO2 is adding lime to the oceans (the mineral, not the fruit). The idea here is that increasing the alkalinity of the oceans would not only increase CO2 capture but also mitigate the problem of acidification. You'ld also try to get the lime from somewhere that the CO2 involved in creating and transporting it would be less than what you capture.

What's most interesting about this "fix of the week" is that Cquestrate is trying to run this as an Open Source project. You too can help figure out where and how to drop the lime. The Slashdotters have already claimed most of the good jokes, so time for you engineers to dive and be part of the solution. It'll be just like Firefox.

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