JRHS Writing BLOG

Fertilizing the Sea

An Australian-based company, the Ocean Nourishment Corporation has seemingly come up with the answer to the decreasing fish population. They have plans to “fertilize” the sea, hoping to bring 5,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide down to the ocean floor every year. The OCN states that if this endeavor is successful, the increased population will turn into 50 grams of protein for a certain number of people every day.

A few other companies are planning to do some ocean fertilizing as well. The idea, ocean fertilization, starts with phytoplankton absorbing the carbon from the ocean. This will also absorb the gas from the atmosphere. Since phytoplankton are the bottom of the food-chain, if they are well-fed, other fish will be well-fed, thus increasing the population.

While this is a noble thing to try to do, I’m not sure if it will be successful, and its obviously a very difficult thing to do. Logically, it makes sense, since the phytoplankton plants feed on CO2. But we’ll see what goes down.

World Magazine, December 1

http://www.worldmag.com

Sounds scifi to me. To put enough carbon into the system to nudge it seems an enormous undertaking. Exactly how do they plan to accomplish this? The article is almost void of details. Nor does it address the issue of unintended consequences. When you attempt to move a system as huge as ‘the ocean’ all kinds of things can go haywire that you had not accounted for in your plans. Nor do they explain how sequestering carbon will turn into “more fish.”

You are right be be skeptical, both about the feasibility of it, and whether it’s even a good idea.

I disagree with Denis’s skepticism to a point.  First of all, it sounds like a great potential to decrease the CO2 in the atmosphere.  Isn’t that what contributes most to Global Warming? 

Second of all, this article is basically telling us about another article, which likely did not reveal the details Denis is looking for.

This blog is intended to spur commentators to discussion, and I challenge Denis to post the answers to his questions.

No Julie, the article in World Mag provides very few additional details. Here is the entire text of that article.

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The Ocean Nourishment Corporation wants to fertilize the sea. If it sounds ambitious, it is: The Australia-based company not only hopes to sequester 5 million tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, to the ocean floor each year, it claims it can simultaneously produce 50 grams of protein a day for 38 million people in the form of increased fish populations. And that’s only from one of its proposed fertilization plants.

The ONC is one of a handful of companies hoping to jump-start the practice of ocean fertilization. The fertilization process works by adding certain nutrients that spur the growth and reproduction of phytoplankton, microscopic plants that form the bottom of the marine food chain. Because phytoplankton absorb CO2 from ocean water—which in turn absorbs the gas from the atmosphere—fertilizing the water would capitalize on a natural cycle to eventually send carbon to the ocean floor. In the process, millions of hungry fish would eat hearty. So goes the theory.
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Note that I agreed with both Udipak and World Magazine that this sounds rather like a pipe dream. I’m not arguing with either of them. I am arguing with Ocean Nourishment. And I agree that it might be great IF IT WORKS. Not likely.

It might also be bad if it works. It’s call unintended consequences.

Unintended consequences raises a really good point.  I am in the Agriculture business, and years ago, the American farmers got the great idea to till the soil and add Phosphorus, Nitrogen, and Potassium, Now the thinking is that adding those 3 nutrients doesn’t help the overall health of the soil.  And tilling the soil heavily only breaks it down. 

So the economic ramification of these CO2 infusions should be seriously looked at, and there is a good chance that they may produce negative side effects, even though the ocean is huge and can easily absorb the CO2.  I still think it’s a viable option to do at the small level that is being proposed, and it could be part of the answer to unload the huge imbalance of atmospheric CO2.