Blue carbon gives multiple CDR benefits at lowest cost

[Tom Goreau]

 

Blue carbon can sequester the most carbon in the smallest area at the lowest cost, but only if we stop destroying mangroves, sea grasses, salt marshes, and coral reefs, and start growing them back.

 

Solar powered Biorock electric reef technology greatly increases the growth, carbon storage, resilience, biodiversity, fisheries, shore protection, and aesthetic value of all of Blue Carbon ecosystems:

https://www.globalcoral.org/integrated-biorock-blue-economy-strategy-for-sustainable-islands-and-coasts/

 

[Michael Hayes]

A viral pandemic hit the shrimp farm industry and the ponds can never be sterilized to end the infection. The abandon coastal shrimp farm areas are around 40% of the historical global mangrove areas. Many believe that the damage is permanent, the trees will never comeback, yet I'm optimistic about the technical possibilities.

I propose that old ponds be rehabilitated by installing large HDPE pipe/tank networks be placed in the ponds and used as controlled bioreactors with Biorock grown over the pipes/tanks for armor. Beyond growing food crops in the large diameter reactors, sea grasses can be grown in some of the Biorock encased bioreactors. Sea grass builds soil faster than any other plant. Biochar can be layered in with the new soil to help the saline heavy soil become useful to the mangrove forest regrowth. 

This combination of technology might help grow food while the forests are slowly brought back. The CDR MRV values for what is done in the reactors can be relatively high compared to forest regrowth CDR MRV  numbers. Having both can be done.

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[Tom Goreau]

Here is a mangrove in Borneo illegally destroyed for fish ponds that a local Indonesian environmental regeneration group and I proposed to regenerate with Biorock-stimulated mangrove, as a sanctuary for orang utans fleeing Oil Palm deforestation, and as a truly sustainable biofuel source.

 

The red soil is oxidation of iron while drained anoxic carbon rich sediment turns into CO2.

 

We proposed to grow Mangrove Palms, whose tapped flower stalk sap can produce twice the biofuel energy of sugar cane plantations (which have to be cut, burned, and devastate soil nutrients). 

 

Unfortunately we couldn’t find any funding……

 

[Tom Goreau]

Correction. These were cut down and drained for shrimp farms.

 

About half the mangroves in SE Asia have been turned into shrimp or fish farms, usually with Development Bank loans. Most shrimp farms have been abandoned due to diseases, and they are spreading new diseases to coral reefs offshore. After farmers abandon their investment as not being worth harvesting, a large stinking pond sits where mangrove used to be, moving the shoreline way all inland when the next big storm washes away the sea dikes. This is the major cause of coastal erosion in SE Asia.

 

The result is that thousands of years of organic carbon accumulation are oxidized to CO2 in a few years, and these sources are not included in global assessments. With solar panel-powered Biorock regeneration we can turn the biomass and soil back into intense carbon sinks that also produce valuable sustainable products, turning the world’s largest and least quantified soil CO2 sources into the most intense natural CO2 sinks.

 

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[Bhaskar M V]

Growing Diatoms in the abandoned Shrimp ponds is a good way to start the restoration process.

The water quality will improve and this will help restore the mangroves.

Regards

Bhaskar

[Kevin Wolf]

Bhaskar,

Ocean Iron Fertilization experiments and other research show diatoms would be best at feeding the food chain and sequestering carbon.  Doing the research on how to produce diatoms in shrimp farms will benefit research on diatoms elsewhere.  Keep up the good work.

Kevin Wolf