Comments: Plankton kills iron fertilization project due to environmental opposition

I myself was never particularly enthused about this geo-engineering patch: pumping millions of tons of iron into the ocean hoping to grow some plankton to absorb CO2 that shouldn't be there in there first place..... This is not a solution, but a patch, just as pumping sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, which will likely cause acid rain, and then launching satellites to shadow the earth.....

A Solution would be to not put the CO2 in the atmosphere in the first place. There is a huge entropic cost in terms of trying to remove it (this requires energy).

Try some of these to make a positive change (sorted by cost):

Free

1) For "A/C" in the summer, open the windows at night and close them
during the day. Plant shade trees on the southern side of your house if your house is hot from the sun.

2) Composting turns garbage into fertilizer and prevents formation of
methane, which is 23 times worse than carbon dioxide in terms of climate effect. As a product, you get a free, natural compost for garden or grass.

3) Unplug all power adapters and turn off anything that is on 'Standby'- use
powerstrips with a switch for multiple plugs, if needed. Standby losses waste about
50 watts or power, or 36 kWh/month of energy in the average home. Some devices
like TVs and cable boxes have a long startup time, so make a decision as to what you are willing to wait for. Turn computers and monitors off when not in use.

4) Use a lid when cooking on the stove- this keeps steam and heat with your food.

Less than $50

5) Use a rake instead of a leaf blower: they are quieter and provide exercise too.

6) Use a clothesline (http://www.laundrylist.org)instead of the dryer- this has many benefits, such as cleaner clothes, clothes last longer, they do not get wrinkled if they are out too long, and each load saves about 5 kWh off of your electric bill.

7) Replace incandescents with CFLs- saves on A/C costs in summer
too! They come in different shapes and sizes, including floodlights, and each bulb uses about 80% less energy as an incandescent light bulb- shop around for bulbs.

8) Buy recycled products if you can find them- support recycling. A recycled product will typically need less energy for manufacturing than a product using virgin material.

Less than $500

9) Buy and use a REEL lawnmower ($80), which you push to cut the grass and
requires no gasoline, little maintenance, and it always starts- judge the size of your
lawn;

10) Buy local products & produce - if they are not transported, that saves gasoline, supports the local producer, and the produce is usually fresher and more diversified (http://www.localharvest.org). Also, for grass-fed, local meat (the way it is supposed to be done), try Eat Wild (http://www.eatwild.com/products/index.html). This will be more expensive than commercial meats;

11) If you have a wood burning stove, try biobricks (http://www.biopellet.net)- pellets for a wood burning stove- these burn more cleanly with less ash and are easy to start (available in New England and NY).

12) $(~3.15/Gal) try to use biodiesel for your furnace / boiler / diesel car (http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/retailfuelingsites/).

More than $500

13) Install a solar hot water heater- (http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/water_heating/index.cfm/mytopic=12850) fastest payback of all renewables. Our solar water heater provides all hot water for about 6 months/year, and pre-heats the water during the other months, saving fuel and money. Lowering the temperature to 120 F on your heater also helps reduce waste.

14) Replace drafty windows, if you can. If you cannot, use plastic ($10) over drafty windows or close the curtains at night ($0) during the winter. If you close the curtains make sure that they do not cover the heat registers.

15) Trade in the SUV for a car or even a hybrid vehicle, if you need a car- buy a used one to save money. The 2003 Toyota Prius gets better efficiency than the newer ones, which are bigger and more powerful.

Marc

Ok those are good points but my God are as a people that ignorant!!!!!

Plankton is very important!!!!!!!!
If you feed it only one thing it, iron or whatever concoction they are using, then only the breeds/species of plankton that are good at metabolizing the mix with thrive!!

Next thing you know only one type is prevalent in the cluster and the ocean changes ph or temp or whatever, if the change is too great the whole thing die all at once!! Very bad!!!

People should use things they do not understand

Cincy

Cincy

Please pass on to the short sighted experimenters: How dare you experiment with our planet! Keep your experiments in the lab! Stay out of our oceans where things can go catastrophically wrong. Don’t you realize what consequences you could’ve created! It’s like seeding the atmosphere with crap to reduce ozone depletion, but initiating a chemical reaction that destroys life on Earth. How vein you are. Keep your experiments in the lab!

Scott Price

I beg to differ. The earths atmosphere once contained a vast amount of CO2, and the levels now represent only 1/100,000th of the amount originally there.
It all disappeared as the earth cooled adn the oceans formed, dissolved in the early oceans, and then converted to chalk and limestone rocks.

The amount of CO2 we have now is tiny, but we have changed the level very quickly, hence the climate changes. But the CO2 will eventually transfer to the deep oceans and the CO2 levels in the atmosphere will fall back to pre industrial levels. It will only take a few hundred years to happen, and half the CO2 we have produced has already gone.... but maybe we shouild help it get there a little quicker?

john ashcroft

Iron fertilization will not work to mitigate climate change and lower carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. As phytoplankton grow, they take in carbon dioxide, but when they die they use oxygen and respire carbon dioxide. This will most likely create anoxic conditions, with catastrophic repercussions for other marine life. Some carbon dioxide will return to the atmosphere, some will remain dissolved (in ocean deep water) and some may make it to the sediments to become limestone.

Carbon will only reach the sediments if the water is shallow enough for sediments to reach the ocean floor without completely dissolving. This requires that the experiments be conducted in shallow water where marine life is more concentrated (the open oceans are like deserts because they lack nutrients in the photic zone)

Carbon dioxide in solution in deep water will eventually upwell as it reaches the end of the ocean conveyor belt. Much of this carbon dioxide will return to the atmosphere.

It seems clear that the only "permanent" sequestration is in limestone, and conducting these experiments in shallow water will have catastrophic effects on marine organisms. If you don't think that's a big deal, remember that fish are a key source of protein, especially in developing countries. If fish populations continue to collapse, people will have to turn to other sources including beef. As you may know, cows produce methane, which is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

I hope you can see that iron fertilization will not mitigate climate change.

Ellie Ferguson

I would just like to point out the amount of iron these people want to dump is most likely a tiny fraction of iron we deposit everyday into the ocean waters. We dump tons of trash every year into the ocean. I would suggest though you pick a better test spot that is nowhere near the suggested group of islands because they are very dear to many people!

Jason

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