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Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

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Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#21

Post by fhdkweig »

program_whiz wrote: post #2

This article shows that we can reliably cause phytoplankton blooms, but doesn't link it with actual "carbon removal". I suppose CO2 is temporarily removed in the form of the bloom, but I believe historically these blooms have a low efficiency for "permanent capture" because the plankton decay or are consumed. The only way to effectively capture would be to somehow create the bloom, then sink the phytoplankton en mass…

I am curious of what happens to all the other nutrients in the bloom. There is more than just carbon-oxygen-hydrogen in those corpses that are then tied up when they are removed from the carbon cycle. Does anyone here know how that works?

Sequestering algae is how petroleum is produced. Does petroleum contain only hydrogen and carbon?

Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#22

Post by wizzwizz4 »

yorwba wrote: post #15
card_zero wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I'm sure they tried at some point and got beaten into equilibrium by other slimy things that were also trying to proliferate.

Not without first filling the oceans and atmosphere with toxic amounts of oxygen, driving all slimy things that couldn't adapt fast enough into extinction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event On the plus side, since we descend from slimy things that survived the carnage, we have fairly good oxygen tolerance and completely removing all CO₂ might not even hurt all that much.

Provided that the things that used up all the CO₂ were close enough to eat, anyway. Otherwise we'd be left without any agriculture, which would be bad.

Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#23

Post by smackeyacky »

DennisP wrote: post #14
arijun wrote: post #4

> [People think we] couldn’t possibly know what the consequences would be. > It’s not true, though. We have quite a precise understanding of what happens Ah, man, the hubris to see a long history of human interventions with unexpected knock on consequences, and think, “but this time we know.” It’s comical, even. We’re talking about an intervention large enough to reverse decades of climate change, of course there wil…

Yep at this point we just have to do whatever seems least risky. It's not like we have a pristine planet. We have to balance the unknown consequences of phytoplankton (and other mitigations) against the known and unknown consequences of a >50% higher CO2 level and >1.4C higher global temperature.

There are other solutions that require mass coordination and possible violence that would be a lot easier than gambling on phytoplankton

Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#24

Post by ColdStream »

card_zero wrote: post #10
_alternator_ wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of capture technologies that literally pump organic matter down far enough that it sinks to the seabed (high enough pressure collapses air bubbles and results negative buoyancy). The problem is that your pumps need to operate using less carbon than you capture (easy with solar?) and that they need to be durable enough to pump billions of gallons of seawater with low maintenance (much harder, salt is terrib…

Why can't we make pumps that withstand salt, dammit. It seems pathetic. How about like a medical pump? Have a flexible polyurethane tube that's squidged by cams to pump the seawater through it. The cams stay in the dry.

Just because we wants something doesn't mean we can have it, or at least not at a price we will accept.

Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#25

Post by gonzo41 »

program_whiz wrote: post #2

This article shows that we can reliably cause phytoplankton blooms, but doesn't link it with actual "carbon removal". I suppose CO2 is temporarily removed in the form of the bloom, but I believe historically these blooms have a low efficiency for "permanent capture" because the plankton decay or are consumed. The only way to effectively capture would be to somehow create the bloom, then sink the phytoplankton en mass…

So how it works is, you grow the bloom in a massive pond. Wait for it to fully fill up, skim half the pond, add more nutrients and then agitate. With the algae you skimmed off you dry it out then compress it into a brick and burry it. In a 100K years we can the burn it for coal power again. And then repeat that until you've grown enough biomass to match the amount of Carbon put in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.

Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#26

Post by andrewflnr »

fhdkweig wrote: post #21
program_whiz wrote: post #2

This article shows that we can reliably cause phytoplankton blooms, but doesn't link it with actual "carbon removal". I suppose CO2 is temporarily removed in the form of the bloom, but I believe historically these blooms have a low efficiency for "permanent capture" because the plankton decay or are consumed. The only way to effectively capture would be to somehow create the bloom, then sink the phytoplankton en mass…

I am curious of what happens to all the other nutrients in the bloom. There is more than just carbon-oxygen-hydrogen in those corpses that are then tied up when they are removed from the carbon cycle. Does anyone here know how that works? Sequestering algae is how petroleum is produced. Does petroleum contain only hydrogen and carbon?

Hydrocarbons straight from the ground definitely contain a bunch of other crap, somewhat famously sulfur. I don't know what happens to the N and O, though.

Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#27

Post by wbl »

program_whiz wrote: post #2

This article shows that we can reliably cause phytoplankton blooms, but doesn't link it with actual "carbon removal". I suppose CO2 is temporarily removed in the form of the bloom, but I believe historically these blooms have a low efficiency for "permanent capture" because the plankton decay or are consumed. The only way to effectively capture would be to somehow create the bloom, then sink the phytoplankton en mass…

Diatoms sink when dead and we have decent ideas about the rate at which this happens.

Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#28

Post by emmelaich »

program_whiz wrote: post #2

This article shows that we can reliably cause phytoplankton blooms, but doesn't link it with actual "carbon removal". I suppose CO2 is temporarily removed in the form of the bloom, but I believe historically these blooms have a low efficiency for "permanent capture" because the plankton decay or are consumed. The only way to effectively capture would be to somehow create the bloom, then sink the phytoplankton en mass…

https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2022/august/sinkin...

"phytoplankton are estimated to capture 10-20 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year."

also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_pump

Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#29

Post by emmelaich »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #11

I had a nightmare where we bred some super plankton to capture CO2 and it quickly colonized and killed the entire ocean and we doomed the world. On the bright side, if this were possible, plankton would have already done it right?

Phytoplankton produce about half the oxygen produced on the planet.

So, unlikely.

Re: Natural experiments prove phytoplankton carbon removal works

#30

Post by program_whiz »

gonzo41 wrote: post #25
program_whiz wrote: post #2

This article shows that we can reliably cause phytoplankton blooms, but doesn't link it with actual "carbon removal". I suppose CO2 is temporarily removed in the form of the bloom, but I believe historically these blooms have a low efficiency for "permanent capture" because the plankton decay or are consumed. The only way to effectively capture would be to somehow create the bloom, then sink the phytoplankton en mass…

So how it works is, you grow the bloom in a massive pond. Wait for it to fully fill up, skim half the pond, add more nutrients and then agitate. With the algae you skimmed off you dry it out then compress it into a brick and burry it. In a 100K years we can the burn it for coal power again. And then repeat that until you've grown enough biomass to match the amount of Carbon put in the atmosphere since the industrial…

Does this expend less carbon than you captured? Skimming, gathering, transport, drying, compression, burying. I assume to reach "gigatons captured per year" this would require heavy machinery and industrial buildout. Not that its impossible, I'm just not sure its a net-negative in CO2.
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