Michel Jullian wrote:
Mmm, growing the algae without harvesting them _could_ be sufficient
(pending calculations), but only for a one off operation: present
excess CO2 sequestered into the living algae biomass increase,
period. Could win the prize though.
What surprises me most with this scheme is that one should need to
bring fertilizers into the oceans, which already contain all the
minerals you can dream of in amply sufficient concentrations. The
increased growth action of the dust, if confirmed, might not be one
of fertilization, maybe it increases photosynthesis by
reflecting/diffusing the sunlight rather.
Haven't been following this thread closely ... but a number of years ago
someone tried the experiment of seeding a small area of the ocean with
iron; it caused an immediate algae bloom. Apparently it's in short
supply. At that time it was proposed that bombing the oceans with iron
would suck a lot of CO2 out of the air. The problems with such an
approach, if actually tried on a large scale, are likely to be pretty
horrible, though, or so I would guess.
Anyway, back to the harvesting hypothesis, whether or not we can
stimulate growth one way or another.
I have an idea for that, it's a bit... well here it is anyway. Highly
efficient phytoplankton harvesters + phytoplankton -to-oil converters
already exist actually, they are called whales :))) I guess you see
what I am coming to: instead of harvesting the algae ourselves we
would heavily repopulate the oceans with herds of whales (porn movies
-or audio clips rather- featuring actors of the right species like
they successfully use to repopulate pandas in China??), the whales
would harvest the algae and process them into whale oil, and then we
would harvest the whales and sequester the oil, plus use some of it
as fuel.
Sounds awful and cruel I realize (reminds me of that whale briefly
brought into existence together with the petunia pot in The Hitch
Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was that in the film Fred?), but... if
our own survival is at stake, well... your thoughts welcome :)
Michel
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jones Beene"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Friday,
February 16, 2007 9:43 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]: Russ George challenges
Branson on ABC
Well, that sound-byte is a bit disingenuous, as Russ has "borrowed"
the (unpatented) idea and experimental results of the late John
Martin, who was less optimistic about the outcome ... JM was former
director of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Landing_Marine_Laboratories
... and one assumes (hopes) that George would give credit to Martin
at some point in the process ... whether Martin's estate would win
or share in the prize is unclear. I think some of the personnel
from Martin's Moss Landing team are the same in any event.
Martin's issued a caution regarding Global Warming consequences.
Before getting too enamored with the implications of those
successful iron fertilization experiments - which have been in the
public record for 16 years - one must face several caveats.
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/oceangard/overview.php#n27
Though iron fertilization may be one of several effective method of
lessening the impact of global warming by increasing algae growth,
and CO2 uptake, the scientific evidence is incomplete and suggests
there may be unintended consequences, especially at the scale
necessary for global change. Of course if the Algae were harvested
as an oil substitute - then that would probably help immensely, but
just growing it without harvesting as R George is proposing - is
not sufficient.
Methane BTW is a far more worrisome threat than CO2, being twenty
times more potent as a greenhouse gas and the Arctic (vast areas of
Siberia Canada, Alaska) is now releasing much more of it than
anyone ever thought possible - so perhaps that gas should be
addressed first - big prize or not.
Jed Rothwell wrote:
Russ sez he can sequester carbon. Here is a direct link to the
vid, from Tom Valone:
www.planktos.com/media/rg_kgo_small.wmv
- Jed
