So I heard this on NPR's Science Friday the other day.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14799203

Quote :

"James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis, talks about his idea to spur the oceans to capture large amounts of CO2. Under the plan, large vertical tubes would bring nutrient-rich water from the ocean depths closer to the surface, feeding algal blooms that would absorb excess carbon dioxide."

It's a pretty interesting idea that wouldn't require additional energy input after the pipes are installed because, if I understand correctly, they would use a one way valve that would allow wave action to bring the deep nutrient-rich water to the surface.

10/9/2007 5:09:56 PM

maintenance

money for the work

departments

geography

logistics of it actually working, they have not tried it on a huge(global) scale yet


its the same ol thing, you do something for the now and arent sure how it may affect the future
see Kudzoo

10/9/2007 5:12:08 PM

Oh wow, you're so cool! You can find the potential flaws in someone else's idea without even listening to it! Awesome! Well, if you had listened to it, you might have heard that all he's proposing is a feasibility study to see how it might work. But since you're so on top of things, I look forward to hearing your solution on the radio.

10/9/2007 5:26:12 PM

what happens to the algae when it dies? they decompose, releasing the CO2, right?

10/9/2007 5:28:40 PM

smath has it

and im not reading it
much like you dont do with my threads in sports talk before you lock them

10/9/2007 5:31:48 PM

^^The theory is that much of it will remain as organic matter in one form or another, and ultimately sink back into the abyss.

^Oh, so that's what this is about.

10/9/2007 5:36:32 PM

I simple look at the energy required to do a task like this will show you that's it's not feasible. You're talking energy expenditure on the scale of terawatts to have any kind of global impact. The ocean, by and large, has stable vertical density gradients and the perturbations from wind driven wave action don't extend below the Ekman depth which would be required to enact any force upon deep ocean waters and drive them towards the surface. Hell, loss of energy due to friction along the walls of the pipe would probably balance out any wave energy they could harness.

It's an interesting idea, but the scales of energy involved just aren't feasible to generate. This is why large scale weather modification will most likely never happen.

10/9/2007 6:10:06 PM

Quote :

"what happens to the algae when it dies? they decompose, releasing the CO2, right?"

A question

Quote :

"^^The theory is that much of it will remain as organic matter in one form or another, and ultimately sink back into the abyss."

The OP's response.

Reality: Recent research has shown that oceanic flora do not act as long term carbon sinks. They do, in fact, release stored carbon upon death via one chemical process or another. That article was in Science recently. I'll have to see if I can find it.

10/9/2007 6:13:09 PM

We have no chance to survive. Make your time.

10/10/2007 10:50:56 PM

Perhaps we could capture the algal bloom and take it back to land and burn it for fuel!

10/10/2007 11:02:17 PM

The crill will eat the algae blooms and the whales will eat the crill. When the whales poop, it will sink to the bottom of the ocean before being recirculated up through the pipes to create more algae blooms


Then again, maybe we shouldn't start fucking with the climate until we know wtf is going on... after all, back in the 60s there was a scientific consensus on Global COOLING and all kinds of wonderful strategies proposed for warming the earth:

Quote :

"Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality"

10/11/2007 1:30:28 PM