Re: [geo] Re: Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT Technology Review

[Geoengineering News]

*Poster's note: *Reviewer 2 does geoengineering

did
a podcast on Iron Salt Aerosols.
*Title*: Iron salt aerosols - FiekowskyReviewer 2 does geoengineering


*Description:*

Peter Fiekowsky and @geoengineering1 discuss Iron Salt Aerosols. Do they
work (in 14 different ways)? How can we know? Is Peter's new voluntary
regulation body bona fide, or hopelessly compromised? Reviewer 2 asks all
the important questions, but doesn't necessarily get definitive answers.
*Some links to listen to podcast: *

*Apple:*
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reviewer-2-does-geoengineering/id1529459393


*Google Podcast:*
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8zMjkzZDIzMC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/MGIzZTNiZTUtMjIzNC00ODdiLTg1MDQtZTY0NDdjYzA5MmM4?ep=14

*Spotify:* https://open.spotify.com/show/2KSB1lU18qh5gYIRDYPJMb



On Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 4:18 PM Andrew Lockley 
wrote:

> I'm aware of this. One of the problems with ISA is its messy cascade of
> impacts. I'm not even sure which is intended to be most prominent, and over
> which timescales. Launching large ISA particles from low altitudes in low
> turbulence regions with high precipitation and abundant cloud nucleation
> particles is likely to lead to short lifetimes, where the ISA does more for
> ocean fertility than anything else. In damp clean air, it's likely to
> influence clouds most. In high, dry air deployment it may have a greater
> effect on methane. So what exactly is it for?
>
> Anyone with expertise in this is welcome to come on the Reviewer 2 Does
> Geoengineering podcast to discuss the subject.
>
> Andrew
>
> On Mon, 20 Feb 2023, 04:29 Robert Tulip,  wrote:
>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>>
>> Iron Salt Aerosol adds iron chloride to the air, and has significant
>> cloud brightening potential as a form of solar geoengineering.
>>
>>
>>
>> ISA differs from iron sulfate, which you mentioned, which is proposed as
>> only an ocean fertilisation method for CDR and fisheries enhancement, and
>> is not deployed as an aerosol.
>>
>>
>>
>> It is interesting that the MIT article implied the cloud brightening
>> effect of ISA could be a negative in view of public hostility toward solar
>> geoengineering, regardless of benefits and safety.
>>
>>
>>
>> Once we are allowed to do field tests, data will emerge on the balance of
>> brightening and GGR effects of ISA.  Before that it is premature to assume
>> one or the other is more important.
>>
>>
>>
>> I note your comments are presented “as moderator of the Google group”.
>> New readers may be unaware (as I understand it) that you are moderator of
>> the geoengineering group, not the CDR group.
>>
>>
>>
>> Robert Tulip
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com <
>> carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com> *On Behalf Of *Andrew Lockley
>> *Sent:* Monday, 20 February 2023 8:05 AM
>> *Cc:* carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com <
>> carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com> <
>> carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <
>> geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [CDR] Re: [HCA-list] Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT
>> Technology Review
>>
>>
>>
>> As moderator of the Google group I am just responding to the the points
>> earlier stating that iron sulfate aerosol is not suitable for the CDR list.
>> My personal view is that greenhouse gas removal fits very closely with CDR,
>> to the point that they are are essentially interchangeable terms. Iron salt
>> aerosol, where it is used to destroy methane seems to be a more appropriate
>> fit for the CDR list than the geoengineering Google group. unless there's a
>> lot of pushback I prefer to keep ISA in CDR and not geoengineering
>>
>>
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 19 Feb 2023, 10:16 Clive Elsworth, 
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Ye
>>
>>
>>
>> I am not aware of any new data on iron salt aerosol. However, TIO2
>> provides little or no ocean fertilisation, which an iron containing aerosol
>> does, albeit very diffusely if dispersed as intended.
>>
>>
>>
>> A TIO2 -based aerosol is more suitable for use near icefields, where iron
>> may colour the surface of the ice and fertilise growth of sessile life such
>> as biofilms and moss that would likely accelerate the melting rate during
>> summer months.
>>
>>
>>
>> Clive
>>
>> On 18/02/2023 23:17 GMT Ye Tao  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Clive and Peter,
>>
>> Have there been new data to substantiate the claims of effectiveness and
>> scalability? I believe that previous discussion threads on ISA that I have
>> witnessed and engaged in (based on papers cited in the ISA field and
>> beyond) were consistent with a lack of laboratory experimental evidence to
>> support effectiveness and scalability of this otherwise tantalizing
>> concept.
>>
>> Clive, if I remember well, you wrote in the past that you did not believe
>> ISA was optimal and were

[geo] Re: Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT Technology Review

[Andrew Lockley]

I'm aware of this. One of the problems with ISA is its messy cascade of
impacts. I'm not even sure which is intended to be most prominent, and over
which timescales. Launching large ISA particles from low altitudes in low
turbulence regions with high precipitation and abundant cloud nucleation
particles is likely to lead to short lifetimes, where the ISA does more for
ocean fertility than anything else. In damp clean air, it's likely to
influence clouds most. In high, dry air deployment it may have a greater
effect on methane. So what exactly is it for?

Anyone with expertise in this is welcome to come on the Reviewer 2 Does
Geoengineering podcast to discuss the subject.

Andrew

On Mon, 20 Feb 2023, 04:29 Robert Tulip,  wrote:

> Andrew
>
>
>
> Iron Salt Aerosol adds iron chloride to the air, and has significant cloud
> brightening potential as a form of solar geoengineering.
>
>
>
> ISA differs from iron sulfate, which you mentioned, which is proposed as
> only an ocean fertilisation method for CDR and fisheries enhancement, and
> is not deployed as an aerosol.
>
>
>
> It is interesting that the MIT article implied the cloud brightening
> effect of ISA could be a negative in view of public hostility toward solar
> geoengineering, regardless of benefits and safety.
>
>
>
> Once we are allowed to do field tests, data will emerge on the balance of
> brightening and GGR effects of ISA.  Before that it is premature to assume
> one or the other is more important.
>
>
>
> I note your comments are presented “as moderator of the Google group”.
> New readers may be unaware (as I understand it) that you are moderator of
> the geoengineering group, not the CDR group.
>
>
>
> Robert Tulip
>
>
>
> *From:* carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com <
> carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com> *On Behalf Of *Andrew Lockley
> *Sent:* Monday, 20 February 2023 8:05 AM
> *Cc:* carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com <
> carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com> <
> carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <
> geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [CDR] Re: [HCA-list] Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT
> Technology Review
>
>
>
> As moderator of the Google group I am just responding to the the points
> earlier stating that iron sulfate aerosol is not suitable for the CDR list.
> My personal view is that greenhouse gas removal fits very closely with CDR,
> to the point that they are are essentially interchangeable terms. Iron salt
> aerosol, where it is used to destroy methane seems to be a more appropriate
> fit for the CDR list than the geoengineering Google group. unless there's a
> lot of pushback I prefer to keep ISA in CDR and not geoengineering
>
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
> On Sun, 19 Feb 2023, 10:16 Clive Elsworth, 
> wrote:
>
> Hi Ye
>
>
>
> I am not aware of any new data on iron salt aerosol. However, TIO2
> provides little or no ocean fertilisation, which an iron containing aerosol
> does, albeit very diffusely if dispersed as intended.
>
>
>
> A TIO2 -based aerosol is more suitable for use near icefields, where iron
> may colour the surface of the ice and fertilise growth of sessile life such
> as biofilms and moss that would likely accelerate the melting rate during
> summer months.
>
>
>
> Clive
>
> On 18/02/2023 23:17 GMT Ye Tao  wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Clive and Peter,
>
> Have there been new data to substantiate the claims of effectiveness and
> scalability? I believe that previous discussion threads on ISA that I have
> witnessed and engaged in (based on papers cited in the ISA field and
> beyond) were consistent with a lack of laboratory experimental evidence to
> support effectiveness and scalability of this otherwise tantalizing
> concept.
>
> Clive, if I remember well, you wrote in the past that you did not believe
> ISA was optimal and were rather looking into another thing based on TiO2.
> Now you are again supporting ISA, I take it that new data and evidence must
> have emerged to rekindle your enthusiasm.   If new data or concept for *in
> situ* characterization have emerged, please share preliminary results.
>
> Or perhaps Peter has performed new experiments from the list I suggested
> to the core group on ISA? and things look promising?
>
> Looking forward to learning more,
>
> Ye
>
>
>
> On 2/18/2023 1:29 PM, Clive Elsworth wrote:
>
> Michael
>
>
>
> We calculate that potentially tens of Gt of CO2 per year could be safely
> removed by iron salt aerosol dispersal over remote iron poor ocean areas at
> low cost, if allowed. Of course this would need to be incrementally scaled,
> with lots of measurement, analysis.
>
>
>
> Clive
>
> On 18/02/2023 18:11 GMT Michael Hayes 
>  wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Clive, I'm aware of the chemistry, yet this is a CDR list not a CH4
> mitigation list. Removing CO2 has little involvement with CH4 mitigation.
> Use of iron salt is not a CDR method, and it has little if any relation to
> CDR policy or economics.
>
>
>
> The many CCed groups often welcome any comment on any

[geo] RE: Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT Technology Review

['Robert Tulip' via geoengineering]

Andrew

 

Iron Salt Aerosol adds iron chloride to the air, and has significant cloud 
brightening potential as a form of solar geoengineering.  

 

ISA differs from iron sulfate, which you mentioned, which is proposed as only 
an ocean fertilisation method for CDR and fisheries enhancement, and is not 
deployed as an aerosol.  

 

It is interesting that the MIT article implied the cloud brightening effect of 
ISA could be a negative in view of public hostility toward solar 
geoengineering, regardless of benefits and safety.

 

Once we are allowed to do field tests, data will emerge on the balance of 
brightening and GGR effects of ISA.  Before that it is premature to assume one 
or the other is more important.

 

I note your comments are presented “as moderator of the Google group”.  New 
readers may be unaware (as I understand it) that you are moderator of the 
geoengineering group, not the CDR group.

 

Robert Tulip

 

From: carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com 
 On Behalf Of Andrew Lockley
Sent: Monday, 20 February 2023 8:05 AM
Cc: carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com 
 
; geoengineering 

Subject: Re: [CDR] Re: [HCA-list] Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT Technology 
Review

 

As moderator of the Google group I am just responding to the the points earlier 
stating that iron sulfate aerosol is not suitable for the CDR list. My personal 
view is that greenhouse gas removal fits very closely with CDR, to the point 
that they are are essentially interchangeable terms. Iron salt aerosol, where 
it is used to destroy methane seems to be a more appropriate fit for the CDR 
list than the geoengineering Google group. unless there's a lot of pushback I 
prefer to keep ISA in CDR and not geoengineering

 

Andrew 

 

On Sun, 19 Feb 2023, 10:16 Clive Elsworth, mailto:cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk> > wrote:

Hi Ye 

  

I am not aware of any new data on iron salt aerosol. However, TIO2 provides 
little or no ocean fertilisation, which an iron containing aerosol does, albeit 
very diffusely if dispersed as intended. 

  

A TIO2 -based aerosol is more suitable for use near icefields, where iron may 
colour the surface of the ice and fertilise growth of sessile life such as 
biofilms and moss that would likely accelerate the melting rate during summer 
months. 

  

Clive 

On 18/02/2023 23:17 GMT Ye Tao mailto:t...@rowland.harvard.edu> > wrote: 

  

  

Hi Clive and Peter,

Have there been new data to substantiate the claims of effectiveness and 
scalability? I believe that previous discussion threads on ISA that I have 
witnessed and engaged in (based on papers cited in the ISA field and beyond) 
were consistent with a lack of laboratory experimental evidence to support 
effectiveness and scalability of this otherwise tantalizing concept.   

Clive, if I remember well, you wrote in the past that you did not believe ISA 
was optimal and were rather looking into another thing based on TiO2.  Now you 
are again supporting ISA, I take it that new data and evidence must have 
emerged to rekindle your enthusiasm.   If new data or concept for in situ 
characterization have emerged, please share preliminary results.

Or perhaps Peter has performed new experiments from the list I suggested to the 
core group on ISA? and things look promising?

Looking forward to learning more,

Ye

 

On 2/18/2023 1:29 PM, Clive Elsworth wrote: 

Michael 

  

We calculate that potentially tens of Gt of CO2 per year could be safely 
removed by iron salt aerosol dispersal over remote iron poor ocean areas at low 
cost, if allowed. Of course this would need to be incrementally scaled, with 
lots of measurement, analysis. 

  

Clive 

On 18/02/2023 18:11 GMT Michael Hayes   
 wrote: 

  

  

Clive, I'm aware of the chemistry, yet this is a CDR list not a CH4 mitigation 
list. Removing CO2 has little involvement with CH4 mitigation. Use of iron salt 
is not a CDR method, and it has little if any relation to CDR policy or 
economics. 

  

The many CCed groups often welcome any comment on any subject under the Sun. 
This list, however, is focused on removing CO2, not second or third order 
indirect subjects that can be tacked onto CO2 removal. 

  

Getting things done requires maintaining focus, and the GE list along with many 
others like it simply can not maintain focus and thus are of little use and 
even less importance. Converting this list to a CC of the GE list is not 
needed, yet there seems to be a core group interested in either taking the 
moderators' post to do so or simply overrunning the CDR list with non CDR posts 
and making the CDR list a defacto non focused GE list. I object to the petty 
politics and to the non CDR posts. 

  

Best regards  

  

  

 

On Sat, Feb 18, 2023, 7:59 AM Clive Elsworth mailto:cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk> > wrote: 

Michael 

  

Iron salt aerosol relates indirectly to CDR. Reduced warming from reduced 
atmospheric methane would slow the temperature

[geo] RE: Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT Technology Review

[robert]

Replies appreciated.

 

It is obviously provocative for Peter Fiekowsky to compare views of climate 
scientists to claims that health scientists made for tobacco companies and that 
oil company scientists made about climate actions.

 

I think there is a real difference, in that climate scientists who disparage 
climate restoration honestly (but wrongly) believe that emission reduction 
augmented by some CDR could stabilise the climate, as presented in the IPCC 
consensus, and so are acting with integrity.  By contrast, tobacco and oil 
scientists display the Upton Sinclair syndrome, the psychological difficulty of 
getting someone to understand something when their income depends upon not 
understanding it.  To the extent climate scientists are committed to the 
ethical principles of evidence and logic, they have a major difference from 
morally corrupt scientists who say what they are paid to say.

 

There is now strong evidence that the IPCC belief about the lead role of 
emission reduction in mitigating climate change is false, for the reasons Peter 
outlined about risk of system collapse.  I would extend Peter’s argument to say 
carbon based approaches cannot prevent system collapse, and must be augmented 
by urgent focus on albedo enhancement.  This is a paradigm shift.  It is 
reasonable in such a case to criticise the ethics of those who stand on the 
wrong side of history, even though their personal integrity may be strong.  If 
you refuse to engage with evidence that refutes your opinion, and that refusal 
abets suffering, your opinion is unethical.

 

Mike MacCracken makes a great point that the role of the scientist is not to be 
an advocate.  But as Andrew Revkin notes, this misses the factional reality 
that advocates use the views of scientists to demonize and prohibit relevant 
science.   EWG, the advocacy group Andrew mentions, is the US Environmental 
Working Group, widely criticised for its product warnings which often ignore 
scientific data.  

 

Peter Fiekowsky’s argument implies that the scientists quoted in the MIT 
article are actually engaged in political advocacy when they oppose field 
testing of iron salt aerosol.  Advocates such as myself have just as much moral 
responsibility as scientists do to ensure their views and values have a sound 
evidentiary basis.

 

This material directly relates to carbon dioxide removal due to the massive 
potential of ocean iron fertilization and methane oxidation to affect the 
carbon cycle. 

 

One reader could not access the link I provided to my HPAC Issues Paper.  It is 
available at https://www.healthyplanetaction.org/hpac-participants-work

 

Robert Tulip

 

From: Andrew Revkin  
Sent: Saturday, 18 February 2023 9:12 AM
To: mmacc...@comcast.net
Cc: carbondioxideremo...@googlegroups.com; Healthy Climate Alliance 
; NOAC 
; Peter Fiekowsky ; Planetary 
Restoration ; geoengineering 
; healthy-planet-action-coalition 
; rob...@rtulip.net
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: [CDR] Re: [HCA-list] Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT 
Technology Review

 

Important discussion and Mike’s point about roles and sequencing has merit, but 
may be. missing an important negative feedback loop. 

 

That loop exists when the ethical frame of one faction in civil society, let’s 
say represented by EWG, is used to demonize and prohibit relevant science 
itself. 

 

(Typing on phone so hopefully this isn’t too telegraphic to understand)

 

 

On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 5:01 PM Michael MacCracken mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net> > wrote:

Dear Peter--A couple of comments:

1. What reducing methane emissions would do is to reduce the radiative forcing 
over the ensuing decade or two. With the heat from the higher levels having 
built up in the ocean, the time for recovery of the temperature (and climate)  
is longer, so until the heat comes back out of the ocean and is radiated to 
space and/or the time it takes to be mixed into the deeper ocean so it is not 
affecting surface temperatures.

2. On behalf of scientists, let me say that our mantra is to focus on the facts 
of what has happened and what would be expected to happen under various types 
of situations/scenarios--and for statements about such aspects to be made by 
those who truly understand/research the issue (speculation by scientists needs 
to be made clear that it is speculation) and strengths and limits of findings 
(so uncertainties) should be listed. Like it or not, the role of the scientist 
is not to be an advocate or to think of themselves as decisionmakers (even 
though some of us might want to be kings or the equivalent)--it is the 
decisionmakers (so, for government, the elected leaders; and, as appropriate 
for the question, business leaders--though the capitalist system would say 
their main, or even only, role relates to finances of their investors). I do 
agree that how scientists phrase things, how they explain their decision 
framework, etc. can all be relevant, but is it not the choices th