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Non-Tech : Alternative energy
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To: Sam who wrote (5727)1/2/2009 2:16:04 AM
From: A.J. Mullen1 Recommendation   of 16955
 
Sam,

I think we went through this last time Gary advocated fertilizing the oceans. Nutrients do stimulate growth. If you dump agricultural levels of nutrients into a body of water you'll have an enormous spike in the growth of plants. There will not be sufficient herbivores to consume the plants. Most plant cells will simply die and rot. The rot will involve the oxidation of those cells. It will consume O2 and liberate Co2.

But the photosynthesis that generated the growth of the plants liberated O2 and consumed CO2. Why doesn't it all balance? It does eventually if the system is closed, but immediately the Co2 is liberated it starts to diffuse away. When the plants die, there's not enough O2 that's immediately available in the locality.

Here's what you might find confusing. Gary started this off as a suggestion for removing Co2. This only occurs if the rotting process is stopped by putting the dead plant (or animal) material somewhere oxygen can't get to it. There are oxygen free areas on the ocean bed. These are stinking masses of mud full of dead organic material that you wouldn't want close to your house or on the bottom of your shoe.

In fact the nutrients in the open ocean are much lower than those involved in die-offs that are reported in newspapers. Even the relatively highly enriched waters in the deep water are orders of magnitude (10s, 100s, 1,000s of times)lower than those found in agricultural run-off. If we were able to overturn the ocean, an idea I'm sceptical of, then it could boost the biological productivity of an area. I expect most of the increased growth would be consumed by herbivores and go up through the foodweb.

Deep ocean water comes to the surface naturally off the coast of Southern California and off the West coast of Southern Africa. These are lovely areas with rich fisheries.

Ashley
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