Dumping iron at sea can bury carbon for centuries, study shows

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/18/iron-sea-carbon?intcmp=122


A magnified view of the plankton three weeks after its fertilisation with iron. Photograph: Philipp Assmy/Awi/EPA

Dumping iron into the sea can bury carbon dioxide for centuries, potentially helping reduce the impact of climate change, according to a major new study. The work shows for the first time that much of the algae that blooms when iron filings are added dies and falls into the deep ocean.

Geoengineering – technologies aimed at alleviating global warming – are controversial, with critics warning of unintended environmental side effects or encouraging complacency in global deals to cut carbon emissions. But Prof Victor Smetacek, at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, who led the new research, said: "The time has come to differentiate: some geoengineering techniques are more dangerous than others. Doing nothing is probably the worst option."

Dave Reay, senior lecturer in carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, said: "This represents a whole new ball game in terms of iron fertilisation as a geoengineering technique. Maybe deliberate enhancement of carbon storage in the oceans has more legs than we thought but, as the scientists themselves acknowledge, it's still far too early to run with it."

[FedUpWithIt All]

1. What can possibly go wrong....

The potential risks we'll take and lengths we will go to continue our current, unsustainable, way of life are impressive.

[pscot]

2. If my pigs had wings

I could fly them to market. Just think of the savings in transportation. Engineering is working on it right now.

[CRH]

3. Monsanto I believe, will soon have your pig with wings, ready for shipment. n/c

[mopinko]

4. Doing nothing is probably the worst option

i believe.

[Nihil]

5. How long before they claim that the dead zone they create in the process is also beneficial?

> The work shows for the first time that much of the algae that blooms
> when iron filings are added dies and falls into the deep ocean.

As opposed to previous studies that found that it didn't store anything like the
amount of carbon "expected" and that "much" of the deadly algae bloom
didn't just "die & fall into the deep ocean".

The great "benefit" of this approach is that once you've killed off the original
pelagic and benthic life in the region, you can happily dump more shit into
the ocean with no further harm ... BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING DEAD NOW.

As someone else noted upthread, isn't it pathetic how desperate and downright
suicidally destructive some people are prepared to get in order to maintain
business as bloody usual (complete with the enhanced profits from this latest
trash-an-ecosystem-for-cash scheme)?

[kristopher]

6. That's nonsense.

Everything you wrote here is nonsense. The previous studies didn't produce findings on what was being sequestered, they didn't have a sampling method or an effective control so they didn't know what was sequestered. Saying that they "found it didn't store anything like the amount expected" completely mischaracterizes their work.

What pelagic and benthic life will be "killed off"? The entire freaking point is that these are already dead zones because there is a limiting factor that leaves the area an ocean desert. If we bring water to the Sahara and make it lush, I suppose you'd bitch about that also?

If they could figure out a way to do it with a nuclear reactor you'd change your opinion in a heartbeat.

[NickB79]

7. "The previous studies didn't produce findings on what was being sequestered"

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/03/24/iron-dumping-experiment-is-a-bust-it-feeds-crustaceans-doesnt-trap-carbon/

A controversial geoengineering experiment that Greenpeace campaigned against (to little avail) has concluded, and researchers say their findings deal a major blow to the geoengineering technique known as ocean fertilization. As 80beats explained in January, the researchers dumped 20 tons of iron sulfate in the ocean near Antarctica in an effort to spur enormous blooms of phytoplankton, a type of algae; researchers theorized that when that plant life died and sank to the seabed it would lock away the carbon dioxide it had absorbed while growing. They hoped that widespread use of this technique could slow global warming.

While the iron did prove an algae bloom, researchers involved in the Lohafex project found that little biomass sunk down to the sea floor. Their results, announced in a press release, suggest that iron fertilisation could not have a major impact, at least in that region of the oceans. “There’s been hope that one could remove some of the excess carbon dioxide – put it back where it came from, in a sense, because the petroleum we’re burning was originally made by the algae,” said [researcher] Victor Smetacek…. “But our results show this is going to be a small amount, almost negligible” [BBC News]. Researchers also announced the surprising reason for that result: The plankton bloom wasn’t a carbon sequestration hot spot, instead it was an all-you-can-eat marine buffet.

You were saying?

[kristopher]

10. "at least in that region of the ocean"

Among other things...

First comment at your link:

1. Russ Says:
March 24th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I must disagree with the inference on the tagging of the LohaFex experiment as a bust. What this experiment showed is that iron replenishment and ocean ecorestoration is indeed very possible. That the bloom created was quickly converted from living plant biomass into living animal biomass is the natural scheme of ocean ecology. Especially so under the conditions encountered by the LohaFex team.
There can be no question that the few tonnes of replenished iron restored ocean plant life at the same levels of efficiency shown by decades of research, that being each tonne of iron yields the plant biomass equivalence of 367,000 tonnes of CO2. Given that this vast amount of biomass is now in the web of ocean life means it is restoring vital ocean fertility.
Recall that the Southern Ocean has suffered decimating loss of plant life, due to iron depletion effects of high CO2, more than 10% of ocean plants are missng from what was seen less than 30 years ago. So while those few tonnes of iron may not have sent the CO2 to the bottom it has taken that amount of CO2 out of the ocean acidification pathway and repositioned it in the standing living biomass of the Southern Ocean. Had those few millions of tonnes of CO2 not become Southern Ocean plant life it would surely now be Southern Ocean acidifying death.
This work showed that there is an absolute need to carefully pick the ocean ecosystem that one aims to replenish and restore to achieve the greatest benefit. It also shows that one must design the work to meet minimal ecosystem demands in terms of scale, timing, location, and ecological implications. What LohaFex did was to replenish a very small amount of iron into a very small patch of ocean that was surrounding the new bloom and already enjoying abundant blooming.
It was surely clear from the first water samples taken ...

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/03/24/iron-dumping-experiment-is-a-bust-it-feeds-crustaceans-doesnt-trap-carbon/


My recollection is that there were severe weaknesses in their sampling methods because a great deal of the detritus was transported out of the area of study by surface currents.

[NickB79]

12. The poster of that owns a company looking to make money off iron fertilization

Which is something to consider, IMO:

"My own company Planktos Science is well known in this field and in fact we worked hard some few years ago to convince the German Institute and Prof. Smetacek to engage in a much larger more ideally situated, longer term, and better suited iron replenishment experiment. Sadly the attacks on this topic by means of lies and subterfuge of the likes of Greenpeace and other nare-do-wells scared the Germans and their Indian partners into this minimalist effort which is now most useful in proving How Not To engage in meaningful ocean restoration. "

So what do you think, is his assessment of Greenpeace as a lying, devious organization spot-on or not?

[kristopher]

13. Ouch.

Ok, you got me on Greenpeace. I frequently point to them (and every other environmental organization) to support my objection to deploying more nuclear power. However I do think the points made in that comment are valid including the idea that there is a lot of knee-jerk opposition to OIF.

One thing I haven't made clear is that I don't think there is much promise for OIF or any other presently conceived method of carbon sequestration to make a meaningful contribution to the problem. The limit of my support is that we should have a much better understanding of what exactly is possible so that the information can be a settled part of the discussion about our path forward.

My objection to the comments on this (and similar threads) is that the responses are largely not in line with the science that is being reported. So while my feeling is that geo-engineering isn't the "answer" I still want more and better information that can confirm or disprove my feeling. It is extremely difficult to monitor the progress of experiments like these, so any results have to be examined with great care and an eye to the total body of work that is out there.

But again, yes - you got me.

[NickB79]

8. I'd bitch about bringing water to the desert and making it lush

Unless you're crazy enough to think that there aren't delicate, unique ecosystems found in the deserts and it's nothing but sand and rock.

[Nihil]

9. Oh really ....

"Everything you wrote here is nonsense."

Did you think you were talking to yourself again?




> Saying that they "found it didn't store anything like the amount expected"
> completely mischaracterizes their work.

*cough*
>> He admits the potential of carbon sequestration in the Southern Ocean
>> is smaller than originally thought. "We hoped we could remove one billion
>> tonnes of CO2 annually. Now we think it is half of that."
(http://www.indiaafricaconnect.in/index.php?param=news/107/it-technology/109)

(If you're that interested to prove yourself wrong then you can look back through
this forum for the past reports & threads.)


> The entire freaking point is that these are already dead zones because there
> is a limiting factor that leaves the area an ocean desert.

The "entire freaking point" is that they are trying capture & sequester CO2 by
dumping iron into the sea. The "entire freaking point" is the CO2 issue and
the various schemes people are scrabbling at to maintain BAU *and* make a
quick profit at the same time.

e.g.,
>>> Climos, a company with patents currently pending for methods to profit
>>> by selling carbon offsets from ocean fertilization.
>>> ...
>>> There are many known risk factors, including one newly discovered and
>>> described recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
>>> This study revealed that the kinds of plankton that are stimulated by
>>> iron fertilization include those that produce domoic acid, the cause of
>>> shellfish poisoning in humans and lethal to marine animals. Oops.
>>> ...
>>> To make matters worse, these tests were undertaken in spite of a
>>> moratorium agreed to by nearly 200 nations under the Convention on
>>> Biological Diversity, also defying the London Convention on Ocean Dumping.
>>> Such treaties and agreements are, apparently, just pieces of paper.
(http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=499)


Treaties & standards mean little to people who are so desperate to profit
from maintaining Business As Usual ... oil corporations, fracking companies,
nuclear power station builders, natural gas promoters, carbon credit fraudsters,
CCS con-men (and their supporters) ...


>>> The company (U.S. start-up Planktos, Inc.) was already selling carbon offsets
>>> on-line and the company’s CEO acknowledged that its ocean fertilization
>>> activities were as much a “business experiment” as a “science experiment.”
(http://www.handsoffmotherearth.org/learn-more/what-is-geoengineering/ocean-fertilization/)


If you think that "these are already dead zones" or that the area is already
some kind of "ocean desert" then you are truly ignorant of marine ecosystems.

There again, someone who thinks that piping water into a desert "to make it lush"
is a good idea suggests that they are truly ignorant of terrestrial ecosystems too.


> If they could figure out a way to do it with a nuclear reactor you'd change your
> opinion in a heartbeat.

Now you are just falling back to your usual factually deficient smears - the ones
that have been disproved *so* many times - that you've obviously (if unconsciously)
recognised that you are all out of valid arguments.

Stick to the things that you do best Kristopher - wind energy information, solar updates,
energy generation & consumption stats - and you'll hopefully not get so frustrated with
being wrong that you feel you have to fall back on libellous tantrums.

[kristopher]

11. I branched into studying energy policy out of specializing in ocean policy.

Cape Cod wind farm was the point of pivot, so I'm actually quite familiar with marine issues.

The issue of the "amount expected" is particular to that one location. As I recall, the study also had some weaknesses with quantifying the amount of detritus that eventually found its way to deep water because of transport out of the area.

"So desperate to profit from maintaining business as usual"? Since OIF has no need for any additional atmospheric CO2 nor can it be used to justify additional CO2, the route you take to get from 'OIF CO2 sequestration efforts' > 'maintaining BAU' is something that only you know. It certainly has no basis in reason.

And finally I have to say how very odd it is to hear you characterize comments about your avid support and promotion of nuclear power as slurs. You have a history going back nearly a decade of being focused on harassing anyone that opposes nuclear, so trying to hide your atomic glow with protestations of "libellous tantrums" is nothing short of delusional behavior.