Guest Put up by Willis Eschenbach
My buddy Matt was variety sufficient to ahead me some hyperlinks to a brand new scheme for sequestering carbon within the areas of the ocean which have little or no chlorophyll, which suggests areas with little of the oceanic inexperienced plants known as “phytoplankton”. Phytoplankton are the tiny chlorophyll-producing crops which might be the inspiration of all sea life—every thing that lives within the open ocean both eats phytoplankton, or eats one thing that eats phytoplankton, or eats one thing that eats one thing that eats phytoplankton, advert infinitum. With out phytoplankton, the ocean is evident blue and lacks life.
The scheme includes the work that an organization known as MyOcean Resources is doing to resolve what they name the “International Warming and Ocean Acidification issues” in a single go. They plan on constructing one thing known as “ECOPIA”, which stands for “Earth Local weather Optimisation Productiveness Island Array”. ECOPIA is meant to extend oceanic carbon sequestration. Details about ECOPIA is out there as a PDF from the hyperlink above.
(A brief digression. These acronyms like “ECOPIA” make me snigger. I’ve labored a number of instances as a marketing consultant to the US Authorities. Whenever you write a authorities report, they need a glossary of the acronyms on the finish. So I invented an acronym, “SPREVELUA”, and put it into my glossary, claiming it meant the “Society for the PREservation of VEry Lengthy Ineffective Acronyms” … in fact, not one of the bureaucrats who learn my report ever seen. However as I stated, I digress, let’s set sail once more on the marvelous ocean …)
Matt despatched the knowledge to me as a result of he is aware of I’m an information man, in addition to an erstwhile commercial fisherman and bluewater sailor. I’ve sailed throughout a number of the very areas of low chlorophyll that their scheme covers. So I got down to see if I may replicate their discovering that the low-chlorophyll areas of the ocean are increasing.
The knowledge he despatched me included two research which had been most attention-grabbing, here and here. Each research claimed that the areas of the low-chlorophyll elements of the ocean are getting greater. So I made a decision to see if I may replicate their findings. I used a special dataset, the AQUA satellite tv for pc chlorophyll dataset obtainable here, as a result of it’s the longest one obtainable. Listed here are the typical chlorophyll ranges from the primary of the 2 research, for the interval 1998 – 2013.
And listed here are my outcomes, for 2002 to 2021:
I’ve used a log scale, as did the paper above, to embody the vary of the info. As you may see, I get outcomes which might be nearly equivalent to the outcomes from their research, regardless of the totally different time intervals and information sources. In order that discovering is completely replicated. The world-weighted common chlorophyll degree globally is 0.38 mg/liter.
Nevertheless, I used to be completely unable to duplicate their outcomes relating to their declare that the least productive areas are increasing. Listed here are my outcomes displaying the decadal tendencies within the chlorophyll degree.
There are a number of issues of word right here.
• Some areas are certainly shedding chlorophyll, and a few are gaining. Nevertheless, they’re solely loosely associated to the areas of least productiveness proven above, notably within the southern hemisphere.
• General the oceanic chlorophyll is growing, not lowering. The worldwide common improve is about 0.012 mg/liter per decade.
• The tendencies are typically small in comparison with the typical chlorophyll degree of .38 mg/liter.
• The most important positive aspects are within the extratropics, notably the sub-polar areas, and the tropics on common is mainly impartial.
Having replicated one however not the opposite of these claims, I took a take a look at the ECOPIA idea. Their plan is to sequester 9 gigatonnes of carbon per yr. Their declare is {that a} glass lens 1m in diameter plus a number of hundred meters of fiber optic cable will sequester 50 kg of carbon per yr. They usually airily say they only have to “scale up constructing of buildings”. Yeah, like that’s really easy to do. Right here’s their graphic of the lens plus the fiber optic cable.
Their plan is to pipe mild down deep into the ocean, to extend phytoplankton progress. Let me word that if mild was all that was wanted to extend phytoplankton progress, we’d discover phytoplankton on the floor … however we don’t, as a result of the required vitamins (largely iron) aren’t obtainable. Their declare is that the decrease finish of the meeting will probably be down beneath the “thermocline”, which is the dividing line between the wind and wave blended floor waters and the subsequent deeper layer. They are saying there are vitamins aplenty in that deeper water.
As an apart, it’s removed from clear that hanging one thing like this down beneath the thermocline will work. The issue is that the currents within the blended layer are sometimes entering into a special course from the currents beneath the thermocline … and when that occurs, the fan arrays will probably be dragged in a special course, and should properly get pulled at an angle to the purpose the place they’re now not beneath the thermocline …
As well as, it’s additionally a lot colder down beneath the thermocline, so it’s not clear the place these cold-adapted phytoplankton will come from, since none reside there naturally
Nevertheless, I discover no indication anyplace that they’ve really tried this idea to see if it really works … which is curious, as a result of it might be “proof-of-concept” examined for a number of ten-thousands of {dollars} or so. Makes a person surprise.
In any case, assuming that fifty kg/yr of carbon sequestered per meeting is the case (they don’t current any precise experimental figures), this oh-so-simple “scaling up” to sequester 9 gigatonnes of carbon would require the manufacturing of at least 180 billion 1-meter glass lens plus fiber optic cable assemblies.
(By comparability, about 90 million vehicles and 135 million toasters roll off the meeting line every year. So if we may construct these lens/fiber assemblies on the charge of say 500 million per yr, it will solely take 360 years for the buildout … however I digress.)
Then they are saying these assemblies will probably be enclosed by “Ring Donut formed synthetic islands with a diameter of 50KM with an inner moon pool of 46KM diameter” … right here’s their graphic of the idea.
I do not know how you can even construct such an object in a way that will face up to a severe storm. Per their description, the floor of the substitute island will probably be 2 km vast and 160 km lengthy (1.25 by 100 miles), and will probably be fabricated from … properly, additional deponent sayeth not. What may it probably be fabricated from? How will or not it’s made robust sufficient to resist flexing from the occasional big ocean waves?
To provide an concept of the scale, the highest floor space of every synthetic island will probably be about 300 million sq. meters. The highest floor space of the world’s largest container ship is 24,000 sq. meters, so it will take 12,500 of the world’s greatest ships to cowl the realm wanted.
And assuming the glass lenses are every floating independently, what is going to preserve them from bashing one another to dying within the first storm?
Then they declare that these synthetic floating islands will probably be stored from drifting till they crash into the shore someplace by “magnetohydrodynamics or vertical wings” … significantly? The forces on these buildings will probably be immense. Handwaving about MHD and wings gained’t lower it.
And the place and the way will they assemble even certainly one of these gigantosaurs? It’s 50 km (30 miles) throughout … looks as if the one manner could be to construct it in 12,500 large ship-sized sections, every weighing a pair hundred thousand tonnes, tow the sections 1000’s of miles out to sea, and bolt them collectively … nothing like that has ever been tried, and for superb cause. Tshe towing of simply certainly one of these sections would require a small fleet of tugs … and the considered bolting two 200,000 tonne buildings collectively in mid-ocean whereas each is independently bouncing up and down within the waves makes my blood run chilly.
I’m getting the sense that a few of these of us have by no means been by a severe storm at sea … not one thing for the faint of coronary heart.
Subsequent, we have now the value. They declare that it may be completed for a mere $10 trillion {dollars}. To begin with, they need to increase $20 million {dollars} for the preliminary funding …
Now, of us typically don’t notice how large a trillion {dollars} is. So let’s assume that they someway get their funding so fired up that they’re bringing in $20 megabucks each day of the yr … at that livid charge, how lengthy will it take to boost the $10 trillion {dollars}?
…
The reply is, if they’re bringing in $20 million {dollars} per day, it can take them 1,369 years to boost the complete $10 trillion.
…
And even these numbers appear wildly optimistic. They plan to construct 100 of those floating ring-shaped islands, every the equal of 12,500 gigantic container ships. These large ships value on the order of $200 million every … and the islands must be a lot stronger to take the strains. So the 100 floating islands will value on the order of $250 trillion … and even within the unlikely occasion that they might someway be constructed for a tenth of that, it’s nonetheless $25 trillion for 100 of them, which is greater than double their estimate for the entire challenge.
Lastly, as a long-time fisherman and seaman, here’s what I can assure would be the largest downside with this scheme, an issue which they don’t even point out …
Fouling.
Ship’s bottoms are painted with poisonous anti-fouling paint to maintain every kind of small marine creatures from taking over residence on the underwater floor—barnacles, limpets, mussels, copepods, and a number of various sorts of zooplankton (tiny animals) and phytoplankton (tiny crops) all like to colonize something underwater. Some sorts of antifouling paints have needed to be made unlawful as a result of when there have been quite a few boats in an space, they had been poisoning total bays and harbors … doesn’t bode properly for the ECOPIA concept of accelerating sea life …
These underwater surfaces will probably be heaven for phytoplankton particularly as a result of phytoplankton are crops, and like all crops they want mild. The phytoplankton will instantly take up residence on every of the fiber optic strands. And these few phytoplankton will choke off all the mild for the encompassing space that the ECOPIA individuals are relying on to create the midwater situations for giant plankton blooms … no bueno.
People have spent centuries making an attempt to stop fouling on the undersides of ships, with solely restricted success. Even the very best of antifouling paints wants renewing each few years, and never one of many numerous sorts of antifouling paints is clear, as could be required for this software.
And even when some magical clear antifouling is invented, it’s a close to certainty that they’ll nonetheless have to reapply it to the 180 billion items say as soon as each three years (though doubtless rather more ceaselessly) … which suggests you’d have to take a ship as much as ten miles out into the “moon pool”, haul out, clear off the fouling, prep the floor, and repaint at least 164 million of those lens/fiber optic assemblies each day, 24/7/365, endlessly.
Riiight … so setting the sensible impossibility of that apart, let’s assume that together with labor and supplies and transportation of the identical to midocean, it will value possibly $250 to resume the antifouling for a lens/fiber-optic meeting. It in all probability could be rather more, getting a fender in your automotive fastened prices greater than that, however let’s be wildly optimistic.
That may be a value of $15 trillion per yr … and so they declare the entire challenge will solely value $10 trillion …
Math. Don’t go away residence with out it.
And shifting on, final yr we had a drought right here in California, and everybody was raving about the way it was the results of evil human-caused international warming. However this yr, right here on our beautiful California hillside with a tiny little bit of the ocean seen within the distance, we’ve already gotten extra rain than we obtained all of final yr (rainfall yr, Oct. 1 to Sept. 30). And it’s humorous … however no person is ascribing that the majority good news to international warming.
Go determine. It’s nearly like they’re rooting for catastrophe to allow them to blame it on individuals … what a weird anti-human faith local weather alarmism has grow to be.
My perfect needs to all, inlaws, outlaws, local weather alarmists and sane individuals alike, and my due to Matt for sending me this attention-grabbing koan,
w.
PS: If the inventors of this scheme want to remark, they’re greater than welcome to elucidate and defend their concepts, and to level out any errors I’ll have made.
MY USUAL: I can defend my phrases. I can not defend your interpretation of my phrases. So to keep away from misunderstandings, if you remark please quote the precise phrases you might be discussing.
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