The idea of fertilizing the oceans with iron in order to reduce greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere is actually growing in popularity because of the market demand for carbon offsets, but some scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts have their doubts about the process, according to an article from the Cape Cod Times.

I did a blog not too long ago on this same subject, and if you do not remember, adding iron in the ocean would increase the growth of phytoplankton and other CO2 reducing plants, which in turn could reduce CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere.

Scott Doney, a WHOI senior scientist of marine chemistry and Hauke Kite-Powell, a research specialist at WHOI's Marine Policy Center told a group that environmental concerns, the lack of long-term testing and the dangers of moving forward based solely on commercial interests were some of the cons. "Once the carbon is sequestered in the deep ocean, it is dispersed and impossible to audit, said Doney.

WHOI biologist goes further and believes this (iron fertilization) could just be another money-making scam without regard for the health of the planet since there is no way to hold companies accountable for the actual removal of carbon from the atmosphere.

As a kid growing up along the Rhode Island coast I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the beach and swim on a regular basis during the summer months. I hated sun bathing, so my place was in the water. Other than a thunderstorm and those dreaded crabs, the one thing that could ruin a nice swim in the bay was the seaweed. That stuff would just magically appear from out of the blue and just surround you, and by that time I was done for the day. I also remember throwing the stuff at my older sister and she would start screaming, which was funny at the time. Anyway, speaking of seaweed, a group of scientists at the Climate Conference in Bali believe that seaweed could be a potent weapon against global warming by sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere at rates similar to the largest rain forests, according to an AP article. The seaweed's rapid rate of photosynthesis is the main factor in its effectiveness in carbon absorption.

While most of the recent focus to carbon sinks have been on the forests, seaweed scientists (I still can not get over that title! Imagine your dad asking "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "I want to be a seaweed scientist daddy!") believe the world should look to the sea, where nearly 8 million tons of seaweed and algae are cultivated every year, especially in Asia. The scientists believe that more efficient cultivation methods could make this work. Seaweed can also produce clean-burning bio-fuels.

On the other hand, skeptics say seaweed is cultivated and harvested in cycles of only months compared to trees, which are more effective at carbon storage since they can last for years. Floating seaweed farms could also complicate fishing and shipping activities.

Update........

Oh, I almost forgot, If you were wondering what happened to part 2 of the Fred Singer video interview last week it will be posted either tomorrow or Friday. Katie was unable to finish editing the Singer video last week since she was in New York City doing a number of interviews for Headline Earth. One of those interviews was with the famous Dr. James Hansen, and you will be able to see part one of her three-part, one-on-one interview with Dr. Hansen starting next week.

Wired.com came out with an interesting article several days ago, listing in their opinion, the ten most radical geo-engineering ideas to fight global warming. Here is the link to The Year's 10 Craziest Ways to Hack the Earth. Some of the more extreme measures........

--Building an army of 300 foot tall scrubbers which absorb CO2. What happens to the CO2 after that is still unanswered according to the article.

--Dusting hurricanes.

--Building a giant space solar shield using 16 trillion mirrors!

Which one is your favorite? For those of you who are regulars in the comment section, do you think Patrick's tunnels should be on the list?

A field of soybeans

Scientists from the University of California at Irvine believe that they have come up with an idea to slow global warming. The research team says that growing shinier crops could reduce maximum daytime temperatures by as much as 1.9 celsius (3.4 F) in agricultural regions.

Growing more reflective plants will increase the amount of sunlight reflected back from land. which could offset the damaging effects of the loss of Arctic sea ice, according to the article from the Guardian Unlimited.

The California team, led by Chris Doughty in the department of earth system science, told the American Geophysical Union Conference: "Slowing or reversal of regional warming trends may be achieved by manipulation of land surface albedo. This approach is most feasible in agricultural and forestry areas, where the land surface is already under significant human influence."

One example of this idea is the creation of the extra-hairy variety of soy bean to fight pests. This particular variety reflects about 5% more sunlight than normal.

More details about this research will be published in an academic journal later this year.

The story also notes that other scientists have proposed similar ideas (higher reflectivity) to cool the planet, such as growing broadleaf varieties of trees instead of conifers and painting roads, roofs and car parks white. I don't know about that idea of replacing conifers, supposedly conifers absorb a high amount of CO2, and those white roads would get awfully dirty looking pretty quickly! I guess that would keep the road sweeping crews very busy throughout the year.

Anyone need a ride?

A pair of scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have come up with a concept for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline!

The scientists, Jeffrey Martin and William Kubic Jr. have titled their concept "Green Freedom", and here is how it would work. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel such as methanol, gasoline and jet fuel. The closed cycle - meaning equal amounts of carbon dioxide emitted and removed from the air would mean that cars, trucks and airplanes using the synthetic fuels would no longer contribute to global warming, according to the New York Times article.

I know, you're saying that there must be a catch, well sort of........no prototype has yet to be built, but the scientists say it is all based on existing technology. One major caveat to building a (CO2 to gasoline) factory is that it would require a great deal of energy. A nuclear power plant and the development of a new electrochemical process might be able to overcome that obstacle.

The Los Alamos proposal does not violate any laws of physics, and other scientists, like George A. Olah, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist at the University of Southern California, and Klaus Lackner, a professor of geophysics at Columbia University, have independently suggested similar ideas. Dr. Martin said he and Dr. Kubic had worked out their concept in more detail than previous proposals.

What would be the cost of the project? About 5 billion.

The concept would be able to produce gasoline at a cost of $1.40 per gallon and it would be made economically viable at a cost of $4.60 to the consumer. Technology advances might be able to get that cost down to $3.40.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Dr. Tim Flannery, an Australian global warming activist, mammalogist and palaeontologist has proposed a radical solution to slow down global warming, which in his words is the last barrier to a climate collapse, according to The Age.

Flannery say's climate change is happening so quickly that mankind may need to pump sulphur into the upper atmosphere in order to survive.

His technique places sulphur gas into the earth's stratosphere to block out more of the sun's rays. How would this be done? Sulphur would be added to jet fuel and dispersed in the stratosphere. When should this happen? Flannery says we may need to be doing this in five years time. This process would also cause the sky to change color. But what color? Yellow?

According to Flannery, the world was much more susceptible to greenhouse gas emissions that had been thought eight years ago.

"Regardless of what happened to emissions in the future, there was already far too much greenhouse gas in the atmosphere," he said. "Cutting emissions was not enough. Mankind now has to take greenhouse gases out of the air," he added. In particular, carbon should be taken out of the air and converted into charcoal, then plowed into farmers' fields.

Here is a link to a Comedy Central interview of Dr. Flannery by the one and only Stephen Colbert from a couple of years ago. By the way, David Flannery was named Australian of the year for 2007.

The carbon cycle

I remember blogging about something similar to this last year, but the subject has come up again...........

Scientists have devised a new type of CO2 scrubber that will capture one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air every day, but it will take two years to contruct the prototype, so don't get too excited yet!

Also, as you may have already guessed, it is going to take an awful lot of these devices to have any type of measurable impact globally, so we are talking millions.

Physicist Klaus Lackner from Columbia University, says that the CO2 could be removed from the atmosphere by absorbing it in various chemical filters and using a newly discovered property of absorbent plastic sheets, which would be used to clean those filters so they can be reused. The captured CO2 would then be pumped into greenhouses to enhance plant growth, according to the Telegraph article.

"I’d rather have a technology that allows us to use fossil fuels without destroying the planet, because people are going to use them anyway", said Lackner.

By the way, there are other types of scrubbers already available on the market. If you would like to purchase one for your backyard you can get it here. It will only cost $5457.67. Shipping not included. Oh, you also need to purchase an initial supply of CO2 absorbent material for $80.

This idea initially sounds a bit crazy, but then you think about it.......

There has been a lot of discussion lately about alternative energy, especially due to the recent high cost of fuel, in addition to finding ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Well, our friend Laura Hannon, who was the original moderator of this blog sent me the link to this interesting concept about a new way to generate electricity.

Louis Michaud, a Canadian engineer, has found a way to generate energy from the tail of a man-made tornado engine by using the natural movement of warm and cold air currents. The key is to have a tight temperature gradient with the air at the surface much warmer than the air above.

Michaud proposes using wind turbines placed at the bottom of the tornado could generate electricity from sucked-up air. He calls his "tornado" the Atmospheric Vortex Engine (AVE).
Here is a link to his AVE site with diagrams and FAQ's.

The AVE structure would be an arena 200 meters (656 feet) wide with 100 meter (328 feet) high walls. The source of the warm air would be from the exhaust of a power plant.

With wind turbines at the inlets to the arena, Michaud calculates that as much as 200 megawatts of electricity (enough to power a small city) could be extracted without draining the vortex of its power.

Michaud is currently working on a 4 megawatt prototype, but so far had no investors. He estimates that the 200 megawatt facility would cost 60 million to build.

Before I get to this post, I will be out of town until late Tuesday. I will have someone else post the comments. On Monday and early Tuesday, feel free to discuss what ever is on your mind when it comes to the subject of climate change, basically an open forum for a day. Please keep your comments on the topic at hand....climate change and let's be nice! If it goes well, there will be more open forum days in the future.

I saw this article in the Seattle Times. It basically talks about a new book by Eric Sorensen which is titled..."Seven Wonders for a Cool Planet: Everyday Things to Help Solve Global Warming". Eric Sorensen used to write for the Seattle Times and now works with the Sightline Institute, which is a Seattle based environmental think tank. Here is a breakdown of his seven items.......

1. Bicycle (0 CO2 emissions)
2. Condom (reduces population growth) Let's keep the comments in line with regards to this one please.
3. Ceiling Fan (Thermostat can be lowered).
4. Library book (reused books, less need for newly manufactured goods).
5. Microchip
6. The clothesline
7. Tomatoes (They are indeed easy to grow with many uses)

What are your thoughts about this list? Which item, if any, do you think would have the biggest impact on climate change if used by a high percentage of the population?

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Remember, Monday and early Tuesday is open global warming forum in the comment section. For those of you who just read the posts, you might find some interesting and insightful comments from both sides of the issue. Check it out!

We have been talking more and more about alternative energy recently in this blog and so here is another post on an exciting solar energy development from researchers at MIT.

The Comcast Center in Philadelphia could be a good candidate.

The technique involves coating glass panes with transparent dyes that redirect light to solar cells in the frame. The technique would be applied to the sides of tall buildings as the window panes would make the buildings large energy plants.

How does this actually work?

The light comes in and hits the dye which absorbs it and re-emits the light. Since the light is now inside the glass it bounces along until it reaches the edge so you only have to mount the solar cells on the edge of the pane.

This technology was actually developed in the 70s, according to the BBC article, but was abandoned since the light lost much of its energy along the route to the cell. Now with the dyes, there is just a little bit of energy loss.

According to the MIT researchers......

--This technology will improve existing panels by 50%.
--They are simple to manufacture.
--They are about 3 years away from being able to mass produce.

In a speech yesterday, former Vice President Gore offered a challenge to the American people.....Produce 100% of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

Gore noted the following climate-change related issues in his speech.........

1. Some scientists say that there is a 75% chance within 5 years that the entire northern ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months.

2. Military intel. experts warn of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.

3. The recent strange weather and large number of lightning triggered fires across the country.
That is still up for debate in my opinion. Too short a time period to draw any conclusions.

Gore stresses that our over-reliance on carbon based fuels is the core of our economic, environmental and national security problems.

Renewable Energy

--Fuels that are not expensive don't cause pollution and are available right here at home.

--According to scientists, enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100% of the entire world's energy needs for a full year.

--Enough wind blows through the Midwest to meet 100% of the U.S. electricity demand.

--Geothermal energy.

Gore notes that there have been sharp cost reductions in solar, wind and geothermal energy production, while oil and coal have seen sharp increases. Exploding demand in China is the main reason for high gas prices, as it is overwhelming new oil and coal discoveries, said Gore.

Tax what we burn, not what we earn.

Gore supports a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. This is the most important policy change.

Gore stresses that the technology is available to accomplish this challenge. Jobs will be gained at home and not lost abroad like they are now.

Here is the link to his speech. I recommend reading his full speech before you comment on it. For the most part, I thought the speech was well done. It set some lofty goals no doubt, but I think that is the direction we need to move much more agressively toward in this rapidly growing world. What do you think?

For more information and a video of the speech, you can check out the WE campaign at wecansolveit.org.

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UPDATE

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens stated Friday that if Barack Obama is elected President, he would support Al Gore for energy czar. You can read the story from UPI right here.

By the way, I will be on vacation this coming week. I will have someone help me out with the comments during the days. I will try to have a new blog ready for each day next week. We will also have an open forum day on Wednesday or Thursday. Stay cool! Brett.

Global Albedo. Image courtesy of NASA.

A study from the Berkeley National Laboratory proposes switching to highly reflective material on the roof and pavement of 100 major cities. Doing this would offset 44 metric gigatons of greenhouse gases and offset more than 10 years of emissions growth without cutting industrial pollution.

The Heat Island Group, led by Hashem Akbari, estimate that there could be 50 billion a year savings by using cool roofs, cool pavements and shade trees to save energy.

There is also a short article on this from the Los Angeles Times.

Some possible geo-engineering solutions.

With many countries now concerned about economic recession, the so-called cheaper fixes for global warming through the use of geo-engineering are getting another look.

A recent article from Reuters talks about the pros and cons of geo-engineering, but I was more interested in the different geo-engineering proposals that were listed in the article. Here they are....

--This one is familiar, adding iron dust to the southern ocean to spur growth of algae. The algae grow by absorbing heat-trapping CO2 from the air. When the algae dies, it descends to the bottom of the ocean with the carbon.

With fears of recession and amid the deepest financial crisis since the 1930s, some governments may find cheap geo-engineering attractive compared with reducing carbon emissions. "It would be short-sighted," said Terry Barker, head of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research. The seas are already suffering enough from a "chemical soup" of pollution from humans, he said. "There's no need to add to the mess."

--Spraying smoke of tiny particles of pollutants into the sky to dim sunlight.

--Putting sulphur particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect some sunlight back to space.

--Spew more sea spray into the atmosphere, making low-level clouds more whiter (higher albedo).

--But here's the winner! Using 100 space shuttle flights over a period of 100 years to deploy a large metallic (covering 40 sq/m of space and weighing 3,000 tonnes) barrier in space (930,000 miles from earth in the direction of the sun of course) to deflect the sun's rays.

Hard to imagine that this last solution would be "cheap", but I guess if you spread the construction out over 100 years you would not notice as much.

This story caught my eye........

Researchers from the University of California and Washington propose that the only method that has a long term, efficient, practical and economic impact in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is the removal and burial of crop residues in the deep ocean and preferably off the mouths of major rivers.

Why dump at the end of major rivers?

River’s-end dump sites already receive a fair amount of vegetable matter that flows down river. So any ecological effect would likely be minimized compared with other parts of the deep ocean, according to the Christian Science Monitor Blog.

According to the abstract and full study, which is posted in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, this process is 92% efficient in sequestration of crop residue, such as corn stalks, while cellulosic ethanol production is only 32% efficient.

The research team says that this process (burial of crop residues in the deep ocean) can potentially capture 15% of the current global carbon dioxide annual increase.

Robert Carney, a biological oceanographer from LSU offers some caution with the proposal by lead researchers Stuart Strand (University of Washington) and Gregory Benford (University of California) toward the bottom of the Christian Science Monitor blog page.

Dr. Roger Angel, an astronomer from the University of Arizona has come up with a theory that he thinks will stop, and perhaps even reverse global warming. His theory involves a massive sun shield.

The shield would cover about 100,000 square miles and be made up by trillions of mirrors that would be launched (fired) into space about one million miles above earth. The shield would form a "sun shade" that would deflect the sun's rays. The article does not say how much of the sun's rays would be deflected.

How would they get the mirrors launched that far out into space?

They would use a huge (and I mean huge!!) cannon, which would pack 100 times the power of conventional weapons. The barrel of this cannon would need to be over a half mile (.6 miles) in diameter! I can't imagine the amount of noise and ground shaking this thing would produce.

The cannon would need to be fired at least a million times.

If the project can get going in the near future, it could be ready to launch in 20 or 30 years. If successful, the mirrors could last 50 years before being replaced.

Angel says that the cost of the project would be about 350 trillion dollars!

So far, Dr. Angel has secured NASA funding for a pilot project.

Researchers at the University of Victoria, Canada are currently testing the sun shield theory by using computer simulations. You can watch more about the testing of this theory on the embedded video segment by DiscoveryChannel UK, which is next to the Telegraph article.

Geologists from Columbia University and the U.S. Geological Survey have mapped several large rock formations in the U.S. that could potentially absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Outcrops of ultramafic rocks.

Ultramafic rocks in the United States could be enough to stash more than 500 years of U.S. carbon dioxide production, according to lead author Sam Krevor, who is a graduate student working through the Earth Institute's Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy.

"We're trying to show that anyone within a reasonable distance of these rock formations could use this process to sequester as much carbon dioxide as possible," said Krevor.

Most of the rock formations (see the map associated with the press release) are clustered in strips along the more populated east and west coasts.

These ultramafic rocks form in the earth's mantle, between twelve and hundreds of miles under the surface.

When the rocks are exposed to carbon dioxide they react and form common limestone and chalk.

The drawback of natural mineral carbonization is its slow pace (thousands of years), but scientists are testing out new ways to speed up the process.

A particular type of pavement coating is being promoted to help reduce the urban heat island effect........

Nations Technology Trust Ltd., which has historically specialized in structured project finance risk mitigation solutions utilizing major international bank financing backed by investment grade insurance, has agreed to represent and market a Polymer Composite Micro-Overlay (PCMO E-Krete) developed by Polycon for introduction into global markets.

What's so special about that?

The PCMO E-Krete is a pavement coating that was originally developed for resurfacing, restoring, and extending the service life of asphalt pavement and has been used in military applications for over 10 years. It is lighter in color than asphalt, and has been tested and used by the Army Corps of Engineers for roads and airports, according to the prnewswire release.

This product will be available in a palate of pre-mixed designer colors which can be added to the batch mix at the paving job site.

Why the different colors?

According to Steven Chu, Nobel prize-winning physicist and now Energy Secretary, changing the color of roofs, roads and pavements to reflect more sunlight and heat could play a big part in containing global warming. In fact, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California (of which Professor Chu was director) has calculated that changing surface colors in 100 of the world's largest cities could save the equivalent of 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide -- about as much as global carbon emissions are expected to rise over the next decade.

This type of "cool pavement" would also improve water quality through reduced toxicity and heating of runoff, and reduce noise of the city streets and freeways, which is never a bad thing.

Well known environmental commentator and skeptic Bjorn Lomborg and his Copenhagen Consensus Group has a new proposal that will help reduce global warming.

The proposal involves the construction of 1,900 ships, which will each be capable of scooping up water and producing vapor. The ensuing clouds would then reflect sunlight back into space and dampen temperatures on Earth, according to The Copenhagen Post Online article.

I converted the estimated cost (45 billion Kroner) and came up with 7.5 billion U.S. dollars.

You can read more about it here.

I ran across this small article from Earthweek.com.

I have blogged a few times over the past about changing the colors of pavement or roofs to white in order to cool urbanized areas. Now it's rocks.

Eduardo Gold, a Peruvian scientist and president of Glaciers of Peru says that painting highly reflective white paint over rock and ground that has been exposed by receding glaciers is a way to combat global warming.

According to Gold, a project like this in Peru could create 15,000 new jobs for local residents that are hired to do the landscape painting.

Gold stresses that environmentally friendly lime-based paint made without harmful chemicals would have to be used.

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I can't imagine using brushes, probably better off using several massive spray guns and helicopters.