Re: [CDR] Real-time MRV for Ocean CDR: The Solubility Pump

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Michael MacCracken

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Jan 31, 2023, 9:37:10 PM1/31/23
to Salvador Garcia, Carbon Dioxide Removal

I'm a bit confused. The water pumped up is likely supersaturated in CO2, comes to the surface and warms as it spreads out, meaning it gives off CO2. Now, how does this water go back down, or is he saying that because this water is brought up, other water that is cold at high latitudes that has current pCO2 will sink. I'm not expert on this but I hope the calculation gets looked at pretty carefully.

Mike MacCracken


On 1/31/23 9:21 PM, Salvador Garcia wrote:
Hello everyone!  Here’s a potential game-changer on MRV for Artificial Upwelling - data every hour.  I look forward to your thoughts, ideas and observations.  

- Salvador
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Chris Vivian

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Feb 1, 2023, 5:21:44 AM2/1/23
to Michael MacCracken, Salvador Garcia, Carbon Dioxide Removal

The OCS flyer makes a fundamental error in its initial assumption that upwelled water from 400m depth will have the same pCO2 as it had when that water was last at the surface in ~1750. This ignores the fact that during the centuries this water was beneath the surface mixed layer it was receiving a continual rain of decaying organic matter derived from the productivity of the surface mixed layer. This remineralisation of organic matter would have steady increased the pCO2 of the subsurface water over the centuries to the high levels indicated by Mike.

 

Chris.

Peter Flynn

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Feb 1, 2023, 12:46:53 PM2/1/23
to Salvador Garcia, Carbon Dioxide Removal

Like Michael MacCracken, I have serious qualms about the concept. The argument that deep ocean water that equilibrated with an atmosphere at 270 ppm CO2 will be undersaturated when brought to the surface ignores the addition of carbon to deep water, including by the biological “snow”. All that I have read is that the deep ocean is supersaturated with CO2 relative to atmospheric pressure, hence will release CO2 if brought from the high pressure depths to shallow. One sometimes sees the argument that biological growth will take up more carbon than is released, but much productivity in the shallow ocean doesn’t leave the ocean, it simply is passed up the food chain. I think much more science is needed re the impact that releasing deep water into the shallow ocean will have on CO2.

 

Peter Flynn

 

Peter Flynn, P. Eng., Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor and Poole Chair in Management for Engineers

Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Alberta

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Mike Williamson

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Feb 1, 2023, 12:47:43 PM2/1/23
to Michael MacCracken, Salvador Garcia, Carbon Dioxide Removal
I agree with Mike MacCracken that this model may well result in CO2 bubble formation as the deeper, cool water becomes supersaturated with warming and depressurization as occurs in the "killer lakes" in Africa. Free CO2 released at the sea surface is heavier than air and can displace it, creating anoxic conditions at the sea surface. In a worst case senario, bubbles in the assending water could increase inflow at the base of the device in a feedback loop with unintended consequenses.

Mike Williamson

From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Michael MacCracken <mmac...@comcast.net>
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2023 6:36 PM
To: Salvador Garcia <sga...@ocean-based.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CDR] Real-time MRV for Ocean CDR: The Solubility Pump
 

Tom Goreau

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Feb 1, 2023, 2:48:21 PM2/1/23
to Peter Flynn, Salvador Garcia, Carbon Dioxide Removal

Hard to know where this nonsense came from, but deep water is continually enriched in CO2 from decomposition of organic matter in deep waters and on the bottom, so when it is upwelled it is highly enriched in CO2 compared to surface waters, and so a SOURCE to the atmosphere.

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
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Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
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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

 

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

 

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Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

Albert Bates

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Feb 2, 2023, 11:21:29 AM2/2/23
to Carbon Dioxide Removal

Tom, I have also heard it said that "upwelling" is unlikely once you get deep enough. Something about the molecular weight of the carbon keeping it down. Apart from the biological carbon pump, is there any truth to this idea?
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