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• Member since: March 7, 2008

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My comments

• Not a good idea as far as I can determine
  There are several potentially serious effects that may result from overly fertilizing the oceans as a strategy for mining atmospheric carbon dioxide. How serious these potential effects are does not seem to be well assessed at this time, and so these are concerns that need to be closely monitored.
  
  1. Biodynamic stasis of the ocean seems to be a somewhat slowly adapting/transforming mechanism, and therefore inducing rapid effects may be more counter-productive than productive by having destabilizing disequilibria impacts. And so, as rapid fertilization actions are accomplished, it is necessary to monitor ocean oxygen level, biodiversity impacts, and any changes in the sea-life balances in the area or region where iron fertilization is being accomplished.
  
  2. A particular problem that has been documented is that increased fertilization causes a burst of plankton life which then consumes the available dissolved oxygen, resulting in suffocation and a deadzone effect. It may be that iron fertilization may need to be accompanied by buoy systems or floating island that are solar PV powered or powered by other means to aerate the fertilized ocean region.
  
  3. The potential deadzone problem affects the mix of sea-life in the area, but more importantly causing a die-out of the plankton lifeforms. Instead of entering the foodchain and becoming integrated, the dead cyanobacteria and algae sink, and a few levels down become consumed by bacteria. The problem with this scenario, is that the impounded carbon largely ends up as methane and deep undersea methane hydrate deposits.
  
  4. Methane hydrate is an instable form of undersea carbon sequestration. As ocean currents slow and ocean temperatures rise, a point will be reached where massive amounts of methane stored tenuously in methane hydrate deposits will be released, causing feared runaway global warming that will not be stoppable, causing possibly massive extinctions and a slow recovery process that could take a couple million years. In ancient extreme global warming events, it appears that the oceans warmed to a point where massive methane hydrate melting and methane releases occurred.
  
  This appears to have been precisely what occurred prior to the dominance advent of the age of dinosaurs. Massive release of methane resulted in a highly combustible atmosphere that was ignited and the methane was oxidized to CO2 (and possibly CO). Atmospheric oxygen levels plummeted from 30% or thereabouts to 2%, probably within days, causing extensive suffocation of land animal life, and producing more methane through decomposition. The combined global warming effects caused drought and wildfires, which essentially eliminated land-based biological life. The increased acidification of the oceans, then eliminated coral reefs, shell fish, and most other sea-life. It allegedly took 2 million years for coral reef ecosystems to recover.
  
  Ocean methane releases have already begun occurring in some places. Releases have been documented in Monterey Bay. Extensive releases are also expected with the melting of tundra soils in Canada and Siberia.
  
  Methane hydrate appears to be the major dilemma with global warming, whether naturally caused by surges of volcanic activity or human activities and interventions. There appears to be an undersea methane hydrate account that is largely or entirely released with each major mass extinction event associated with global warming. The extinction of the dinosaurs may have been a triple-whammy effect of global warming, suffocation and global winter from solar blocking.
  
  5. The issue to ocean fertilization is whether this is a Band-Aid, temporary fix, or a meaningful durable solution. It could be a game of Russian Roulette? Or, an ill-conceived and short-sighted strategy that will backfire, make the situation worse, and damage the ocean?s abilities to naturally absorb and manage carbon and promote sea-life. Intuitively, I am troubled that fertilizing the ocean without adding more oxygen aeration is half-ass and destructive.
  
  Please expand your operations to monitor the areas that are fertilized with ongoing inventories of ambient sea-life, ongoing oxygen levels, other essential mineral and nutrient levels, die-off of cyanobacteria and algae, and bacteria proliferation at lower depth levels. Ideally, if done properly, other nutrients and oxygen may also be needed, and these fertilization areas will become feeding areas for other sea-life and the density of other sea-life and biodiversity will expand, and atmospheric carbon will be mined and durably impounded.

  March 27, 2008

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