For a week or more a team of researchers from India and Germany have been tootling around aboard the well-known icebreaker Polar Stern in the roisterous Southern Ocean awaiting the okay to dump about 20 tons of iron sulfate in the sea. Late yesterday they got it, and the sprinkling began. Yes, yet another experiment in geoengineering against anthropogenic climate change via algal bloom. The idea, which has been around for a good ten years plus, is that in waters starved for certain nutrients, one can fortify them and set off a wondrous big frenzy by algae. The plants absorb CO2 while growing and quick enough die, sink, and take the incorporated carbon with them to Davey’s Locker. It’s called OIF, for Ocean Iron Fertilization.

The latest word is that the team now has a permit from the German government. That Germany has aegis over the Southern Ocean in this case has to do with purse strings and research grants. In the Times of India, TNN news service’s Amit Bhattacharya reports that, in South Africa where the expedition  embarked, a round of environmental advocates’ protests gummed the wheels on the license. The researcher on board and in charge, it says here, reports his team has a large, fairly isolated eddy – perhaps one of those swirling things the oceanographers call a gyre – picked out for the test. This story is short on who is paying for the experiment, called LOHAFEX, and on the rich and controversial history of other such experiments. As explained in the press release below in Grist, LOHA is Hindi for Iron, and FEX is for fertilization experiment.

Other Stories:

• DPA, the German news agency, reports (via the Hindustan Times) that the experiment has begun ;
• Bloomberg Todd White, Jeremy van Loon report a last-moment independent panel of experts found “no legal or environmental reasons” to stop the test.
• Telegraph Matthew Moore (2 days ago) leads on environmentalist challenges to the test which, at the time he filed, had put it on hold.
• AAAS ScienceNow Eli Kitsch writes a brief but informative report, including that the intended algal bloom could cover 300 square km of ocean. That’s a lot, but it’s also useful to remind oneself that, from space, a green dot well under 20 km on a side is not so huge. This one also explains exactly which German ministry held sway, and why.

Grist for the Mill:

Helmholtz Assoc. of German Res. Centers Press Release (re LOHAFEX) ;

Pic source ;

OTHER GEOENGINEERING NEWS:

A report from East Anglia University in the UK assesses the relative merits of various such schemes, including iron fertilization plus mirrors in space, sulphur dust in the upper atmosphere, and devices that scrub CO2 from the air.The report, it appears, gives a low grade to iron fertilization. A higher grade goes to burial of carbonized (to charcoal) agricultural waste. The report holds that geoengineering cannot do it alone but must be accompanied by hefty reductions in carbon emissions. The topic is hardly new – see previous posts from this site.

Stories:

• New Scientist – Catherine Brahic: Most effective climate engineering solutions revealed ;
• Reuters – Michael Szabo : New science could help solve climate crisis ;

Grist for the Mill: Univ. East Anglia Press Release ;

AND LAST BUT PERHAPS MOST INTERESTING:

Waterlogged Hay Bales – er, straw bales anyway – to the Rescue? A variant of another geoengineering scheme, charcoalization of crop residue and their burial on land, is in the journal Environmental Science & Technology published by the American Chemical Society. The Tracker does not usually pay attention to press releases that as yet have no apparent pickup, but given the other news, this fascinates and merits. For one thing, one of its authors is well-known and creative science fiction writer Gregory Benford (also a UC Irvine astrophysicist). Benford, it must be noted, has also proposed a giant fresnel lens in orbit as a potential way to cool Earth. The other author is a U. of Washington natural resources professor. They argue that the most effective way to employ agricultural waste against global warming is to gather billions of tons of cornstalks, wheat straw and such every year and sink it all into the deep sea bottom. That seems to resemble the ocean fertilization trick while shifting the fertilization part to land. Gee, so much for tilling such things back into the soil, or conversion of cellulose to fuel. They call it CROPS, for Crop Residue Oceanic Permanent Sequestration. Whattayaknow, a slick acronym whose translation is reasonably clean in its contrivance! One suspects Benford – he is a writer.

Grist for the Mill: ACS Press Release (item #3); Full Text of journal article ;

Pic source ;

-CP

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Environment & Energy Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.