I got my masters degree at the institution where John Martin worked (Moss Landing Marine Lab), and a lot of my coursework focused on the iron limitation hypothesis, as current faculty while I was there had been students and colleagues of his. I'm not personally a biological oceanographer, so it's not exactly my core area of expertise, but I am quite familiar with it, and am very much in support of continued studies. However you are overselling it quite a bit. Even the review article you link states that, while iron supplementation has been shown to very effectively increase phytoplankton growth, it has _not_ in the majority of experiments, been shown to increase carbon sequestration.
It is possible that with the right method, this could change, but this article is written as if it's all settled science and all we have to do is just _do_ it and we can solve climate change, and that is not at all true. _IF_ it ends up working at scale at all, it will require a lot more work to figure out how to do that, and it is a distinct possibility that the portion of the hypothesis that posits large scale settling and sequestration below the mixing layer is simply incorrect.
Hi Quico, I have been following the OIF debate for many years. Extensive field tests were conducted in the Southern Ocean in the 2000s, but then the greenies realized OIF could be a better way than fighting capitalism to reverse climate change, and saw they had to stop it as it risked undermining their class war agenda. So they colluded in the UN, through the London Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity, to define addition of iron fertilizer to ocean waters as "dumping of waste", as pollution. They generated a moratorium, successfully intimidating supporters and preventing investment. They latched on to the successful OIF test run by the Haida Community in Canada in 2012 through a despicable media campaign run by The Guardian and Greenpeace to impugn OIF as 'rogue geoengineering'. As a result they have successfully stymied any progress in this immensely valuable technology, preventing its great benefits for biodiversity, heat removal and ocean health.
An even better OIF chemical may prove to be ferric chloride released into the atmosphere. As an aerosol, ferric chloride has numerous co-benefits, including wide dispersal, cloud brightening and methane removal. But the UN fatwa against any OIF testing except under very restrictive conditions makes it impossible to find out how these essential technologies can best be deployed. The political debate on this topic needs rapid change.
The clear conclusion should be to do exactly the opposite of the policies advocated by the “environmentalists”, starting with nuclear power and geoengineering and OIF research.
Wow, very interesting technology. Lets get moving on this stuff before we hit tipping points. Couldn’t agree more, but keep it away from coastlines til more is known about longer term impacts.
Not sure if I’m reading it right, but seeing a paper estimate total ocean biomass today at under 7 gigatons carbon. So it may not be feasible to pull 50 with this tech alone. But no doubt enormously promising
I think the ‘carbon capture tech’ that is most promising is to help shellfish thrive via seeding and/or to mimic their shell production to take carbonic acid and transform it into durable calcium carbonate in the ocean. This chemistry actually removes carbon from the respiratory cycle and locks the carbon up in a way that wholly sinks it to the bottom of the ocean (in limestone deposits and shells/sand.)
Here’s the most telling non-sequitur: climate change is an existential threat to humanity and the planet, but geo engineering and nuclear power are both unacceptably risky.
If the planet is, in fact, doomed, surely our responses should be wider than scolding the proletariat and installing solar panels. Why are we squeamish about some solutions when climate change will make our children suffer and die on a scorched planet?
It sure is suspicious when whatever the problem, the proposed solutions are the same. And whenever progress has been made, a new set of imminent catastrophes are discovered.
It would be counterproductive to completely ignore or ban the green left: their perspective is actually of value. But acceding to their view of the world for the last two decades has at the very least been a waste of time and resources.
Nice. This should all be seen as part of a technological stack- low cost repair like this would probably work really well for a big part of the historical problem remediation, and brightening would add as well as a shorter lived “control valve” as needed.
Solutions like nuclear powered DAC for synfuels is going to be an important part of the tech stack to fix the last 5-10% of the problem (Jet A, Diesel), but it will take decades to sort out and scale economically.
The tech stack doesn’t all have to be built in a day!
In the distant future our AI progeny will be able to show off their marble bench tops and say “Well those poor dumb humans got one thing right. This is real 2050 iron-precipitated crisis marble.”
I agree with you. I'm even more convinced that ocean iron fertilization is a no brainer. Atmospheric spraying seems a little more problematic because the implications at the local level are more uncertain. If the models were strong enough though we will undoubtedly need to do that as well.
I got my masters degree at the institution where John Martin worked (Moss Landing Marine Lab), and a lot of my coursework focused on the iron limitation hypothesis, as current faculty while I was there had been students and colleagues of his. I'm not personally a biological oceanographer, so it's not exactly my core area of expertise, but I am quite familiar with it, and am very much in support of continued studies. However you are overselling it quite a bit. Even the review article you link states that, while iron supplementation has been shown to very effectively increase phytoplankton growth, it has _not_ in the majority of experiments, been shown to increase carbon sequestration.
It is possible that with the right method, this could change, but this article is written as if it's all settled science and all we have to do is just _do_ it and we can solve climate change, and that is not at all true. _IF_ it ends up working at scale at all, it will require a lot more work to figure out how to do that, and it is a distinct possibility that the portion of the hypothesis that posits large scale settling and sequestration below the mixing layer is simply incorrect.
Oh! Interesting. Mind doing an interview about this stuff?
I’d be really keen to hear more. Maybe sad, but keen.
Hi Quico, I have been following the OIF debate for many years. Extensive field tests were conducted in the Southern Ocean in the 2000s, but then the greenies realized OIF could be a better way than fighting capitalism to reverse climate change, and saw they had to stop it as it risked undermining their class war agenda. So they colluded in the UN, through the London Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity, to define addition of iron fertilizer to ocean waters as "dumping of waste", as pollution. They generated a moratorium, successfully intimidating supporters and preventing investment. They latched on to the successful OIF test run by the Haida Community in Canada in 2012 through a despicable media campaign run by The Guardian and Greenpeace to impugn OIF as 'rogue geoengineering'. As a result they have successfully stymied any progress in this immensely valuable technology, preventing its great benefits for biodiversity, heat removal and ocean health.
An even better OIF chemical may prove to be ferric chloride released into the atmosphere. As an aerosol, ferric chloride has numerous co-benefits, including wide dispersal, cloud brightening and methane removal. But the UN fatwa against any OIF testing except under very restrictive conditions makes it impossible to find out how these essential technologies can best be deployed. The political debate on this topic needs rapid change.
The clear conclusion should be to do exactly the opposite of the policies advocated by the “environmentalists”, starting with nuclear power and geoengineering and OIF research.
Hi! I work in energy policy and really enjoyed this. Will be bringing it up in conversation more this year for sure! Thanks for writing :)
Wow, very interesting technology. Lets get moving on this stuff before we hit tipping points. Couldn’t agree more, but keep it away from coastlines til more is known about longer term impacts.
Not sure if I’m reading it right, but seeing a paper estimate total ocean biomass today at under 7 gigatons carbon. So it may not be feasible to pull 50 with this tech alone. But no doubt enormously promising
I think the ‘carbon capture tech’ that is most promising is to help shellfish thrive via seeding and/or to mimic their shell production to take carbonic acid and transform it into durable calcium carbonate in the ocean. This chemistry actually removes carbon from the respiratory cycle and locks the carbon up in a way that wholly sinks it to the bottom of the ocean (in limestone deposits and shells/sand.)
Here’s the most telling non-sequitur: climate change is an existential threat to humanity and the planet, but geo engineering and nuclear power are both unacceptably risky.
If the planet is, in fact, doomed, surely our responses should be wider than scolding the proletariat and installing solar panels. Why are we squeamish about some solutions when climate change will make our children suffer and die on a scorched planet?
https://www.onepercentbrighter.com/p/pollution-is-sin-geoengineering-is
Yeah
Hard agree, and well written.
It sure is suspicious when whatever the problem, the proposed solutions are the same. And whenever progress has been made, a new set of imminent catastrophes are discovered.
It would be counterproductive to completely ignore or ban the green left: their perspective is actually of value. But acceding to their view of the world for the last two decades has at the very least been a waste of time and resources.
Luckily we’re rich and there’s no real rush.
Nice. This should all be seen as part of a technological stack- low cost repair like this would probably work really well for a big part of the historical problem remediation, and brightening would add as well as a shorter lived “control valve” as needed.
Solutions like nuclear powered DAC for synfuels is going to be an important part of the tech stack to fix the last 5-10% of the problem (Jet A, Diesel), but it will take decades to sort out and scale economically.
The tech stack doesn’t all have to be built in a day!
I remember seeing a quote from someone a few years ago along the lines of:
"Give me a thousand tons of iron powder and a ship, and I will give you the next ice age."
Snowpiercer, here we come.
In the distant future our AI progeny will be able to show off their marble bench tops and say “Well those poor dumb humans got one thing right. This is real 2050 iron-precipitated crisis marble.”
Buenísimo!
I agree with you. I'm even more convinced that ocean iron fertilization is a no brainer. Atmospheric spraying seems a little more problematic because the implications at the local level are more uncertain. If the models were strong enough though we will undoubtedly need to do that as well.