Collaborative geoengineering

[sevc...@me.com]

Sam Carana has made a good summary of two of my recent concepts that are designed to address both climate change and ocean acidification at http://geo-engineering.blogspot.de/2014/08/seven-ocean-fertilization-strategies.html  

Would members consider how the concepts and their supporting technologies might be: constructively criticised, improved, their effects modelled, be lab tested, and approved for mesocosm piloting. Full documentation is available on request from sevc...@me.com  They are made freely available under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) Attribution licensing.   

[Michael Hayes]

I greatly appreciate the scope of the concept and the aim of finding a key lever in addressing a multitude of issues.

The issues of long term cost and deployment control/monitoring (i.e. responsibility)needs to be addressed. In that, open water manipulation of the microbial loop can offer up a multitude of surprises and the microbial loop is, without exception, the most powerful/far reaching biotic process on this planet.

The issue of cost should not be devalued. An example of a costly event would be storm disruption of the floating fertilizer application/distribution. Winds will cause the flakes to collect in some areas yet be absent in other close by territory. Surface waters are highly effected by winds (the most dramatic example being the wind driven 'skin effect' of the ENSO). In short, the cost of 'maintaining' a coarse of treatment in any one target territory would be substantial and perpetual. 

Also, this type of somewhat random/uncontrollable distribution/collection may well cause over fertilization in some areas, which can lead to dead zones, while the majority of the target territory is void of 'treatment'. 

Further, the trans-boundary conflict potential is high as, once released, there is no controlling means/method to prevent high concentrations of fertilizer from building up in waters controlled by adverse actors.

In brief, it is important that these types of ideas are explored and exposed to the broadest possible 'constructive' critique. One related patent you may wish to review is here. The cost factor is somewhat addressed in the patent yet the cost of fuel/feed/labor makes the business model excessively weak. As an important environmental side note to the fish feed issue within the patent; 50% of all wild caught fish are reduced to fish feed which is simply unsustainable. And, we are now down to less than 20% of the (1950) original wild stocks. Ignoring that one fact/issue significantly weakens any mariculture profit reliant option. Growing/cultivating fish feed is the only solution for any mariculture based GE option.

Your floating fertilizer flakes corralled within large area floating pens (as depicted in the above patent), along with a more sound business model than described in the above patent, would begin to bring substance to this type of wide area fertilizer/albedo operation. And, as your are collecting multiple options along this line of thought, I would like to draw your attention to a paper published in 1942. REDUCTION OF CARBON DIOXIDE COUPLED WITH THE OXYHYDROGEN REACTION IN ALGAE. Yes, micro algae can be cultivated without light...of any type.   

I hope this is helpful.

Best regards,

Michael Hayes

[sevc...@me.com]

Sev Clarke in reply to Michael Hayes.

Thanks Michael, that feedback is indeed appreciated. 

Regarding the possible aggregation of buoyant flakes on the ocean surface, I doubt that it will represent much of a problem. Each flake will tend to be acted on similarly by wind, wave and current. Spread widely as intended, the approximate previous position of each flake would soon be taken by another. Excepting where they are thrown up on beaches, that are designedly remote from their point of dissemination, they will tend to retain their initial dispersion or a little more; and, because of their limited life, they will typically not last long enough to accumulate in accretive ocean gyres, as do some of our plastic wastes.

For the same reasons, they will not result in over-fertilisation, aided by the fact that, even if they did aggregate, the ultra-slow release of the largely insoluble and lignin-encased fertiliser would tend not to cause eutrophying blooms. The limited space on each flake would not permit more than one phytoplankton at a time at each site to access the flake's mineral content directly with its extractive ligands. This factor also serves to hinder dissolving iron from re-accumulating as fast-sinking particulates. 

I am indebted to you for directing my attention to the Lambert patent US 8535107. Whilst there are strong similarities, there are equally strong differences. Lambert uses inorganic supports, specifically expanded vermiculite and similar materials, to provide buoyancy, whilst my rice husks and the lignin that binds and encloses minute air pockets are both organic. Furthermore, Lambert uses his perlite, vermiculite, tiny hollow glass spheres and aerated ceramics as high-albedo reflectants, whereas I encourage phytoplankton to perform this task, knowing that most surfaces floating on the ocean surface will soon become coated in biofilm anyway. Lambert describes relatively large structures, such as solid pucks and arrays of buoys, that could become hazards to shipping, unlike my tiny flakes. Also, Lambert makes no apparent use of sustainable or waste materials. He uses energy-intensive methods to secure his fertilisers, and the materials that he uses are not as benign as mine to marine life - for instance ground glass is a known gastronomic hazard. Finally, as you say, Lambert's costs make his business model excessively weak. Mine is not, as the full documentation shows. My estimated carbon sequestration cost is $1.08/tonneC, which, even if were twenty times that, is still modest.

P.S. My flakes are not constrained, but are to be monitored as moving, visible plumes. Fish caught and additional carbon flux within a managed plume would be subject to a royalty payment or carbon credit. Gaining international recognition for such may be one of the two the most difficult hurdles, the other being flake dissemination approval. The global cooling and extreme weather mitigation effects are thought to be non-monetizable.  

Best regards,

Sev Clarke

[Michael Hayes]

Sev et al,

I would like to read your full proposal and any documentation you can send would be welcomed. In response to your clarifications:

1) The eddy effect, often found within oceanic surface flow patterns, would seem to dictate that the floating particles will accumulate in uneven patterns. The field of Lagrangian Particle Tracking, which illuminates this phenomenon, can provide substance to the view that floating particles will, in general, not remain in an even dispersal pattern. The modeling of the Fukushima Daiichi events' marine dispersal pattern shows what may be an analogy to what you are proposing, at the Lagrangian level.

A non-Google Earth 3-D video of the event modeling can be found here. 

2) The IMO/CBD has placed significant limits on OIF and your approach is far more like OIF than dislike OIF. Can you provide a...compelling... argument that there is a significant distinction between your particles and OIF?

3) "Fish caught ..... within a managed plume would be subject to a royalty payment....". How do you propose laying legal claim to fisheries? Providing open water nutrients can not be equated to 'farming/ranching' as you have no effective control over the animals and the animals will spend most of their life cycle in non-treated waters. Commercial fisherman, I being an ex-fisherman, will simply ignore such claims (accompanied by a multitude of one finger salutes).

However, it would be interesting to observe a small start-up 'fertilizing' an area, such as Bristol Bay, and then suing the commercial fisherman for monetary gain due to the fertilizer dispersal. As a truly humanitarian suggestion, I highly and strongly recommend flak jackets for the start-up principles and I would not accept any invitations for bear/dear hunting outings. BBQ invitations should also be avoided.

As a final thought on this one point, are you prepared to 'pay' for any and all wildlife kills and or human health damage due to a blooming of toxic algae? Also, marine bacteria and viruses evolve rapidly in response to nutrient availability and thermal changes/challenges.  If you wish to profit from this form of open water/uncontrollable fertilizer application, you must take full responsibility of any and all side effects resulting from such an activity. Finding financial backers who will knowingly walk into such a potentially vast scale of liability will be challenging. 

Best regards,

  

Michael Hayes

360-708-4976

The IMBECS Protocol Draft and Blog

 

 

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[sevc...@me.com]

Michael,

The marine dispersal pattern from Fukushima seemed to show a dispersion similar to that of diffusion through gas or water, superimposed upon transport by wind and current. It did not show much in the way of aggregation. This was also the case with the rogue OIF experiment off Canada’s West coast. Moreover, when a patch of loose, floating material enters an eddy it tends to form something that looks like a spiral galaxy, yet there seems to be little tendency to concentrate the material, if anything the reverse. The patterns formed are uneven because the different patches entering the eddy typically do not carry the same identifying material. However, should the entire set of patches entering the eddy be covered roughly equally with flakes, I doubt that one would observe noticeably uneven patterns within the remaining lifetime of the flakes. Concentrations of buoyant material, such as those forming the Great Pacific garbage patch, take years to form. Lesser concentrations from small gyres tend to be dispersed by strong winds. 

My flakes are a more complete form of OIF. Call it husbanded ocean fertilisation (HOF), where the nutrients cause neither eutrophication nor are largely wasted to the dark depths. Transforming the analogy to land, HOF is fertilisation that remains where it is needed beside the plant roots, causing neither harmful runoff nor aquifer contamination. If the authorities prefer global warming, ocean acidification and extreme weather events to go catastrophic, rather than modelling, cautiously testing, and implementing those climate engineering techniques that show good promise, modest risk and potential profitability, then they will deserve the people's wrath and bitter regret that follows. Unfortunately, such irresponsibility and delay will not allow most of the biosphere to survive. If the IMO, CBD and LC/LP folks cannot take adequate account of these existential threats, then they should hand over the responsibility to a body than can, as is suggested on page 37 of Grant Wilson's paper http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2312755 or by his other option, “World Commission on Climate Engineering”, detailed by Parson and Ernst. 

Regarding your royalty payment objections, Island and other states are already charging foreign fleets fees to fish in their territorial and EEZ waters. They also often charge local fishers with fishing licence fees. Furthermore, as a fisherman would you not strenuously object to another vessel taking advantage of the burley you had distributed to catch the fish attracted to it, thereby robbing you of the fruits of your labour? This is not, in principle, different from being allocated temporary rights to a plume of ocean that you are fertilising and managing under independent scientific monitoring and UN governance. 

Proper monitoring, governance and, if necessary, insurance would help ensure that your activities did not cause irreparable damage, as well as quantifying the marine enhancement and carbon biosequestration services that you, or the fertilising agent, were providing.

Best regards,

Sev Clarke 

   

On Tuesday, September 2, 2014 3:04:21 PM UTC+10, sevc...@me.com wrote:

[Chris Vivian]

Sev,

 

I strongly agree with Michael Hayes comments on:

 

1. The aggregation of buoyant flakes -  I think this will happen as Michael says and is due to Langmuir circulation - see this Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langmuir_circulation and this recent article http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2014/08/30/3220549_oceans-distinctive-lines-caused.html?rh=1.

 

2. Royaly payment from those who catch fish within the 'managed plume' - I doubt that has any legal basis. Your equating such payments with states charging foreign fishing fleets to fish their EEZs does not hold water as those states have a clear legal basis to do so under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). You need to talk to an international lawyer about this.

 

3. Liability - Michaels' comments seem very valid to me.

 

A couple of other comments:

 

4. Unless your bouyant flakes are incredibly small, you are going to get many more than one phytoplankton organism accessing a flake's mineral content as these organisms can be as small as 1 micron in diameter.

 

5. It should also be noted that the London Protocol (LP) amendments covering ocean fertilisation set a minimum standard and that Contracting Parties are at liberty to set more stringent measures if they so wish - Article 3.4 of the LP.

 

Best wishes

 

Chris.

[sevc...@me.com]

Chris,

Thanks for the advice and the references. You will note from these references that the Langmuir bands that represent small to mesoscale up- and downwelling are quite narrow. Thus, even should such banding of buoyant flakes occur, because of the ultra slow release of the minerals and the wind-driven motion of the bands over the sea that successively re-fertilise each patch of subsurface water, the effect will be pretty much the same - a fairly even fertilisation of the regional ocean surface by the moving bands of flakes.

Of course there is little or no current legal basis for the assumption of legal rights to marine catch caught in such managed plumes, or to carbon credits therefrom, that are located on the high seas. However, there are accepted practices that could be said to generate precedents for them. Some of these could include: clearance/safety rights around offshore drilling platforms and wind farms; non-interference with the contents or equipment of mariculture installations, or with floating pens, long lines, nets, buoys, sonobuoys, beacons, markers and mobile sensors; rights to tagged fish; salvage rights residual to the original owner; rights to balloon-borne and parachuted equipment and data; survey and delivery drones; designated oceanic war graves; hazardous material (say nuclear ones that could be turned into a dirty bomb) in historical ocean dumping or accident sites; floating oil spill booms and containment equipment; ocean movie sets; ocean race routes; naval wargame exclusion zones; designated shipping lanes; rescue operation sites; undersea antiquity/exploration sites; crime scenes, as in downed aircraft; Interpol's and other rights to intercept, board, search and take control of ships or to apprehend suspected criminals or cargoes; maritime actions in support of Security Council motions; burley tracks; sea-ice installations; limitations on sonar use to track fish or vessels; marine conservation measures; ocean dumping regulations; and non-interference with approved scientific experiments and trials on the high seas.  

Should, as is most likely, active management of the high seas be one of our best options to avoid catastrophic global warming, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, starvation of the poor, sea level rise, and ever more extreme weather events, then organisations that regulate oceanic activities should help, not hinder, the development of responsible ocean management. Would your LC/LP group please propose the inception of such an international body to the other agencies involved in ocean management and global warming avoidance, so that there can be the necessary holistic and effective approach?

Under proper international governance, issues of liability should be able to addressed sufficiently well that they do not cripple the modelling, testing, development, funding and deployment of our more prospective and less risky solutions to climate change and its threat to the survival of our biosphere. This might be as simple as ensuring immunity from prosecution for authorised climate mitigation activities or for Good Samaritan/first responder actions, such as fire, emergency and rescue services enjoy.

The buoyant flakes are designed to be within an order of magnitude of the size of a flattened rice husk. Each flake will form the habitat for probably millions of phytoplankton and their tiny predators. You can judge this for yourself by reading the attached documents. In it you will see that I have tried to comply with the then LC/LP requirements, whilst still being effective in addressing multiple climate and ecological threats. Whilst these documents may be shared with colleagues and partner organisations, they should not be publicised until the concepts have received a modicum of scientific support, preferably through Earth System modelling and laboratory experiment.   

I take heart from your best wishes. Most of us on the Geoengineering website are trying to do our best for the planet. May I give you the same best wishes in return.

With my warm regards,

Sev

On Tuesday, September 2, 2014 3:04:21 PM UTC+10, sevc...@me.com wrote: