Is ocean iron fertilization back from the dead as a CO₂ removal tool?

[Greg Rau]



https://news-mongabay-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/news.mongabay.com/2023/11/is-ocean-iron-fertilization-back-from-the-dead-as-a-co%E2%82%82-removal-tool/amp/

“

• After a hiatus of more than 10 years, a new round of research into ocean iron fertilization is set to begin, with scientists saying the controversial geoengineering approach has the potential to remove “gigatons per year” of carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere.
• The idea behind ocean iron fertilization is that dumping iron into parts of the ocean where it’s scarce could spark massive blooms of phytoplankton, which, when they die, can sink to the bottom of the sea, carrying the CO₂ absorbed during photosynthesis to be sequestered in the seabed for decades to millennia.
• So far, proof that this could work as a climate-change solution has remained elusive, while questions abound over its potential ecological impacts.
• Scientists with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, U.S., recently received $2 million in funding from the U.S. government that will enable computer modeling research that could pave the way for eventual in-ocean testing, effectively reviving research into ocean iron fertilization.”

[Ken Caldeira]

It is a shame that people need to sell basic ocean biogeochemistry research as if it were applied ocean biogeochemistry research.

There should be more funding overall for both basic and applied scientific research.

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[Sev Clarke]

It will be interesting to see what phytoplankton blooms develop from the Klyuchevskoy eruption in the Kamchatka Peninsula, and whether anyone measures its CDR effect, see https://apple.news/AB3RTQGYiQ62WSLo9E0JnzQ

and https://www.earth.com/image/klyuchevskoy-volcano-erupts-on-russias-kamchatka-peninsula/

Ash colour looks as if it might contain a fairly high iron content, plus silica and possibly phosphate.

[Tom Goreau]

The Kamchatka eruption didn’t just dump a lot of iron, silica, and trace metals into the Bering Sea that might have caused a phytoplankton bloom and local CO2 drawdown, it also sent a huge plume of SO2 into the atmosphere that circulated the entire Arctic for weeks, so it also provides a test of whether sulfur aerosol inputs cause arctic cooling, and how long it takes to dissipate when stopped. Three natural experiments for one, that didn’t cost millions!

 

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

“When you run to the rocks, the rocks will be melting, when you run to the sea, the sea will be boiling”, Peter Tosh, Jamaica’s greatest song writer

 

 

 

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/04B0BCE0-6F5C-429F-BDF9-96F5BD6E16FC%40me.com.

[Tom Goreau]

Ocean Iron fertilization to remove CO2 is controversial for several reasons, one being whether or not the iron is supplied in a usable form, and a second being how well this iron is recycled biologically, quite apart from uncertainty in optimal iron/carbon/nutrient ratios and where the carbon actually ends up in the ocean.

 

A just published paper on iron regulation in bacteria provides insights into the first two questions that could increase the efficiency of iron fertilization.

 

Gram negative bacteria are known to make electron-dense iron-rich intracellular storage particles called ferrosomes, this paper shows that ferrosomes are also important in Gram positive anaerobic bacteria, suggesting a wide-spread and ancient conserved biochemical regulatory pathway.

 

The key finding is that these particles are amorphous biological iron phosphates with a Fe/P ratio of one.

 

While this ratio is consistent with ferric phosphate, FePO4 and not with ferrous phosphate Fe3(PO4)2, the fact that it is amorphous implies rapid formation without ordered crystal formation presumably on an organically chelated matrix, thus avoiding entropy constraints required to precipitate ordered crystals.

 

Lack of crystallinity makes non-equilibrium uptake and release easier, and suggests that the iron compounds now being used for iron fertilization experiments may not be in the form that biology uses for iron transport and use.

 

It is strongly recommended that natural disordered biological forms of iron will be much more effective for iron fertilization, inspired by nature’s own solution!

 

Published: 15 November 2023

Clostridioides difficile ferrosome organelles combat nutritional immunity

• Hualiang Pi, 
• Rong Sun, 
• James R. McBride, 
• Angela R. S. Kruse, 
• Katherine N. Gibson-Corley, 
• Evan S. Krystofiak, 
• Maribeth R. Nicholson, 
• Jeffrey M. Spraggins, 
• Qiangjun Zhou & 
• Eric P. Skaar 

Nature volume 623, pages1009–1016 (2023)

Abstract

Iron is indispensable for almost all forms of life but toxic at elevated levels^1,2,3,4. To survive within their hosts, bacterial pathogens have evolved iron uptake, storage and detoxification strategies to maintain iron homeostasis^1,5,6. Recent studies showed that three Gram-negative environmental anaerobes produce iron-containing ferrosome granules^7,8. However, it remains unclear whether ferrosomes are generated exclusively by Gram-negative bacteria. The Gram-positive bacterium Clostridioides difficile is the leading cause of nosocomial and antibiotic-associated infections in the USA⁹. Here we report that C. difficile undergoes an intracellular iron biomineralization process and stores iron in membrane-bound ferrosome organelles containing non-crystalline iron phosphate biominerals. We found that a membrane protein (FezA) and a P_1B6-ATPase transporter (FezB), repressed by both iron and the ferric uptake regulator Fur, are required for ferrosome formation and play an important role in iron homeostasis during transition from iron deficiency to excess. Additionally, ferrosomes are often localized adjacent to cellular membranes as shown by cryo-electron tomography. Furthermore, using two mouse models of C. difficile infection, we demonstrated that the ferrosome system is activated in the inflamed gut to combat calprotectin-mediated iron sequestration and is important for bacterial colonization and survival during C. difficile infection.

 

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[Michael Hayes]

As is widely known, many benthic thermal vents can supply the iron:

https://www.washington.edu/news/2015/07/08/seafloor-hot-springs-a-significant-source-of-iron-in-the-oceans/

As such, centering OIF operations upon a productive vent, or field of vents, would seem to be the most efficient technical strategy.

Moreover, the down range benthic sediment typically is also rich with Fe. Spraying such Fe rich mud on the surface water would likely recycle a number of locked in nutrients.

Moreover, enclosed offshore CDR farming operations likely will not need to import Fe or other nutrients if such mud is used. 

Combining enclosed CDR farming and OIF operations should not be a large technical issue if marine Fe is utilized for both. 

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[Tom Goreau]

Bear in mind that iron from vents is mostly linked to sulfide and not organically complexed, most of the iron minerals that precipitate from ocean vents is not in the best chemical form for efficient uptake, and that much of it “rains” out to the bottom without reaching the photic zone, so a business model based on continuous vent reliability is like counting on Kamchatka volcanic eruptions to dump silica, phosphate, and iron on the Bering Sea precisely whenever the diatoms need them!

[Michael Hayes]

If a vent shuts down, moving the operation to an active vent should not be overly difficult.

I was not able to find information on the type of Fe released by vents or of the quality of Fe in Fe rich mud. As far as the use of sulfur as a nutrient, there is a C cycle connection:

[...] And because sulfonates contain a carbon–sulfur bond, they are part of the global carbon cycle which controls the flux of carbon dioxide into and out of the ocean. This is increasingly important to understand as the climate changes.” [...]

https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/09/04/new-study-tracks-sulfur-based-metabolism-in-the-open-ocean/

Dealing with the full makeup of either the vent water contents and/or mud contents will need work, yet the mechanics of such operations likely will be far more simplistic and cheaper than mining, processing, and then transporting terrestrial Fe out into the ocean. 

Running the mineral rich water/mud through an enclosed farming operation before using the flow for OIF would likely allow the operator an ability to control what gets used for the OIF operations and/or what gets sent back down, or shiped to shore for commercial use. Mining such managed flows for a wide range of minerals is a maturing science, the profits can help with rapid expansion needs. Classical OIF has no self supporting means, no ancillary benefits.

[Tom Goreau]

Many submarine volcanoes are as ephemeral and unreliable as those on land.

 

They blow briefly, shut down, and later another one pops up someplace else you can’t predict.

 

Mariculture based on volcanic inputs is like counting on a Pinatubo whenever you need to cool down…….

[Michael Hayes]

Tom, vents clearly are not volcanoes eventhough both are geothermally driven. Marine CDR farming/OIF do not depend upon vents, yet vents may offer sustainable resources for farming if not OIF. Understanding the life cycle of vents, even being able to find them, is still a work in progress. However, vent sites are already being leased for mining, and turning such efforts to CDR work should not be fully discounted:

https://marinemadnessdotblog.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/new-map-gives-us-our-best-look-yet-at-hydrothermal-vents/