Pouring urea into the ocean to absorb CO2
Could urea be a savior when it comes to reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide? By now we all know about injecting urea into diesel engine exhaust to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides. An Australian company has now received permission from the government of the Philippines to dump urea into the Sulu Sea of that country's coast. However, this isn't just a scheme to dump waste offshore. This is actually being done in an attempt to mitigate global warming. The idea is pour the urea into the water to promote plankton growth, because plankton absorb a lot of atmospheric carbon dioxide as they grow. In theory this should be a good thing. In practice, however, little is understood about the possible side-effects of the plankton growth. But of course those sorts of side-effects never happen in the real world. Do they? This seems like a prime candidate for the law of unintended consequences.
More on plankton:
[Source: Wired]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 3:41PM (11/09/2007)
If we just closed all those sewage treatment plants and let it just run out into the sea, we'd have less Co2 in the atmosphere. We’d have lots of disease, but slower “global warming”.
Wacky environmentalists, “Man made Global Warming” is really about transferring money and power to giant corporations and the global Elite!
Global Warming, the debate is NOT over
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7wh0hV5tk
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kballs 4:17PM (11/09/2007)
And doing nothing about global warming is just to keep money and power in the hands of giant corporations and the global elite! Either way rich people will get richer, so stop kidding yourself.
Pouring urea into the ocean would grow algae blooms, and while absorbing CO2, the blooms would also de-oxygenate the water, killing millions of fish. This is just a stupid idea, right up there with the idea to bring all kinds of species into Australia and Hawaii to "get rid of species X" when it just replaced one problem with another.
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Tim 4:35PM (11/09/2007)
kballs- I could not agree more! As long as we don't kill jobs, increase taxes, produce poverty or FORCE anyone to believe the way we do in our campaign against "man made global warming."
Whether or not “global warming” is man made, I believe that each of us should all be a good steward of our closed environment. Be efficient and don’t take more than you need. Don’t poop where anyone eats and please clean up after yourself. It’s the only planet we have so we can’t afford to screw it up.
You know, do on to others…
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Joseph 1:17AM (11/10/2007)
The dam on the Nile river brought drastic changes, and that's just simply controlling the flow of a river.
Change the chemical composition of the water, and the activity of organisms of an entire ocean may be much, much worse.
Messing around with nature is just begging for catastrophe. Nature is all about balance; far too complicated for man to controll. IF you change one thing, you'll have to change everything else to keep things in check.
Are they honestly going to waste their time doing this? The money and effort would be much better spent on building a wind farm or something like that.
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Snark 5:34PM (11/09/2007)
No matter how many technological deus ex machinae we bullshit into existence, it always dismays me afresh when we do it again.
This idea is retarded. Yeah, let's throw a big goddamned monkey wrench into the pelagic ecosystem, that couldn't possibly go wrong! We don't even know how the system works or what its thresholds are, let alone what dumping massive quantities of nitrogen into the system will really do.
We're going to have to start sequestering and cutting back on our carbon emissions. Looking for the technological quick fix is a fool's errand, and it cannot end any way but badly. Let's stop fucking around and get serious about changing how our economies work, instead of looking for quick ways to monkey with the works.
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Domenick 7:20PM (11/09/2007)
Why dump it by the Phillipines? I'm pretty sure Australia has a coastline. At least, I'm pretty sure they have a coastline....
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Chris M 2:25AM (11/10/2007)
Actually, the algae would actually oxygenate the water - until they died, at which point the bacteria and zooplankton feeding on them would deoxygenate the water.
From other studies, I've heard that the limiting factor in ocean algae growth is not nitrogen compounds like urea, it is water soluble iron. Fertilizing with iron would have a more dramatic effect, with a much smaller amount of fertilizer.
Either way, the best approach is to start with several small scale trials to test how well it could work, and check for any potential problems. We would only do bigger "ocean fertilizing" tests if the small trials work well and are safe.
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Tim 9:49AM (11/10/2007)
I read somewhere that the giant "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by fertilizer runoff from farms into the Mississippi river which of course dumps into the gulf. It seems to me that every time man tries to "help" he gives the planet another kidney punch. Ron Paul and the CIA would call it “Blow-Back”.
Example: Islamic Fundamentalism would never have flourished and 911 would never have happened had we NOT spent the last 75 years meddling in the middle-east’s internal affairs including regime changes, bombings and occupying the region with our military bases other nonsense. We put in the Shaw of Iran, We armed the Taliban, We put Sadam in Power and our military occupies Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc. all in the name of Exxon etc.
If China had military bases in Iowa and put a communist governor in power there in order to promote communism in the United States, we’d be pretty pissed-off too. Both US parties have done this in the name of OIL.
The world would not be so angry at us if we didn’t have our military in almost every country trying to force (I mean “help”) them find freedom & democracy.
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson
"The principles of Jefferson are the axioms of a free society." ~ Abraham Lincoln
We are so lost…
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Tim 9:56AM (11/10/2007)
Sorry, correction to my last post. I said “both US parties”, when in reality they are but 2 wings of the Republicrat bird. The head of which is greed, corruption and a relenting thirst for power. I guess Benjamin Franklin finally got his wish in that the National Bird is now just a turkey and the Oligarchs are flipping us one for thanksgiving.
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