Under the Iron Sea: YES, tech and science could SAVE the planet

C'mon, hippies ... at least LOOK at this sensible energy option

It could work, but more science is needed here

One guy did a private experiment on this and claims great results. He dumped some iron-y stuff off British Columbia, Canada, and claims that next season's salmon run was massive as a result. While I like his style, it's not really scientific proof. Not enough measurement was done and none at all of the tonnage of those critters that went down to become rock.

Which brings us to real scientific research done on this very subject. Off our intrepid boffins go, gaily shifting ferrous sulphate over the gunwhales. The advantage of this particular form of iron is that it promotes that diatom growth very well; also, it's better than free. It's a byproduct of several processes (Du Pont alone produces a million tonnes of more a year in its titanium extraction process and a million tonnes is at least two, or possibly three, orders of magnitude greater than the amount we'd actually need to do this every year). Also, it is landfill. They'll thus pay you to take it away. And guess what? It works. Critters grow, fish gorge and a sufficiently large amount of that carbon gets locked up into the sea bed to become rock.

One problem: this isn't a complete solution. There's not enough ocean requiring iron to get rid of all the emissions. The general consensus is that it can deal with 1Gtonne a year. Or, if you prefer, two Britain's worth of emissions. But while it's not a complete solution, it is amazingly cheap. You're not (except for monitoring, of course) using any sophisticated equipment. It would work with a couple of minimum-wage labourers shovelling that ferrous sulphate over the side now and again. Or have a ship steaming through these areas and a little drip feed of a few kilograms now and again into the scuppers. Wave and wind action will do the rest. We really are talking about wanting to dump a few thousands to a few tens of thousands over the side each year.

Costing

I have tried to get those researchers to give me an accurate cost number per tonne CO₂ sequestered and they've all been very cagey. They do confirm, absolutely, that it works. But pricing....well, let's say they didn't demur when I said $1 a tonne CO₂ maybe, and started sucking their teeth when I said perhaps as much as $10?

Works, cheap, effective: and there's even a rather more controversial claim that that famous cooling of the planet (1940 to 1970 or so) came from this effect. We've had the coal fired steamship for a century and a half of course but we really only got the oceans criss crossed with them after WWI. And what does a coal fired turbine stick up the chimney?

Fly ash. What might we call fly ash when it's at home? Quite possibly a ferrous aluminosilicate actually. That is, dumping both iron and (after interaction with seawater) that silicic acid that some areas need. Agreed that this is not proven, but it is at least interesting. We really did spend some decades dumping iron into the oceans and we stopped in the '50s or so as the fleets switched to oil. Add a little delay to the system and it fits nicely, even if not in such a way as can be construed as proof.

If I were a young bull I'd be shouting that we've got to start ironing the oceans immediately! (As the young bull said to the older, "Those cows over there, what say we run over and have one or two?") Being a greybeard of course I am not arguing this (The old bull says, "We should walk over there and have all them cows"), but we do have enough at least that we should be researching this process. We should be working out what the real costs are: how effective it really is.

And, other than that operation off Alaska, which may have been in violation of international law, what is actually happening? Bupkiss, entirely nada, that is what is happening. In fact, there's serious talk of prosecuting those behind that operation.

Red tape

Our real boffin researchers have said publicly that they're simply not going to do any more research. And in conversation they point out that it's the bureaucratic hoops that you've got to jump through to be able to dump anything over the side that make it so. In fact it's worse than that even. We've got laws against doing this. That ferrous sulphate, because it's a waste product, cannot be used in such a process because that's dumping waste at sea.

Yep, the same sort of people, the enviros, who tell us that climate change is an existential crisis, one that threatens the very survival of our species, also tell us that we can't even experiment on a partial solution to that existential crisis. Because, well, you know.

At which point I rather retreat into full tin hat paranoia mode. Having read a lot of the stuff about climate change (the bits that I would understand at least, the economics of it, Stern Review etc) I don't subscribe to the idea that it's all a plot nor a conspiracy. I'm perfectly happy to agree that it looks like a problem, one that we want to do something about. It's only when we come to the discussion of what that “something“ might be that paranoia kicks in. We can't have nuclear because, well, nuclear, eh? We can't test iron fertilisation of the oceans because, well, ewww!

The only allowable solutions seem to be those that won't allow industrialised civilisation to continue (I exaggerate, but not much). And those are the ones being pushed by those who tell us that they don't think industrial civilisation should continue anyway. It's very difficult to shake off the feeling that at that point there really is something going on.

As with the old bull: I'm not insisting that we start ladling the stuff into the oceans just yet, only that we spend a few tens of millions in checking it all out. And our current best scientific knowledge does say it works – and works cheaply too. So, really, why isn't it being done? ®