I'm not sure that dumping tons of iron powder in the ocean is going to stop 'climate change', but I am hopeful it can reduce atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide:
"The first commercial venture into growing vast plankton blooms big enough to suck carbon from the atmosphere starts this month.
Tons of powdered iron will be poured into the Pacific to induce the growth of blooms big enough to be seen from space. The scheme’s backers believe that the iron seeding technique could radically reduce the carbon in the atmosphere and will open up a multimillion-pound carbon-offsetting industry. Simultaneously, they hope to reverse the decline in plankton levels, which are estimated to have fallen by at least 9 per cent in the past two decades.
Iron seeding is thought to work because it provides a crucial nutrient for plankton growth that is missing or in short supply in up to 70 per cent of the world’s oceans.
As the phytoplankton multiplies it will absorb large quantities of carbon and, if the trials are a success, much of it will sink to the seabed when the microscopic plants die and sink...
Read the complete article here: http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1739124.ece .
There is a lot of science behind this.
See
http://forums.hypography.com/earth-science/8290-d-i-y-planet-cooling-2.html?highlight=iron#post131130
for a discussion of it.
We have been killing off phytoplankton for years with our pesticides. This will just go somewhere to replace what we have killed.
We really don't have a lot of options. Terra preta nova is another good one
Back again to the topic.
Not only is it extremely difficult to manipulate the eco-system, but this Planktos experiment shows us now again how weak our protection is for the high seas. It is the Wild West out there.
I checked out what Greenpeace stated on the IPCC report.
Their advice was renewables together with more energy efficiency using to cut CO2 emissions.
Re nuclear power plants. It was extremely expensive and to construct a new nuclear plant will take 10 years together, with problems as safety and weapons proliferation etc.
To use more energy efficient methods was a very cheap and clever way to cut emissions , according to Greenpeace. There seems to be a big potential for doing so....
I take your point Ian - you are right.
I accept that there is a role for solar / wind in the industrialised nations. No disrespect intended, but to a certain extent the same economics that apply to underdeveloped nations also apply to certainly the remote, and proabaly most rural areas.
thanks for the lesson
Arnost
The really curious thing about both solar and wind power is that by far the highest users of these sources are farmers. Indeed, the windmill is still a potent symbol of rural life. And those who use these sources least are the residents of inner city electorates that record green vote levels as high as 20%.
The delicious irony in this alternate power debate is that the city development plans, like the SEQ Regional Development Plan, has gone out of its way to prohibit the kind of housing development that will maximise the utilisation of solar power in particular.
Under the guise of protecting "open space" etc, the prevailing fashion amongst regional plans is to stop all further acreage lot development in favour of medium density housing, infill development of vacant land in existing suburbs, and high rise.
But it is the acreage lots that account for the majority of solar power installations and the majority of water tanks. And this is not a result of the high ideals of the lot dwellers but, rather, entirely on the economics of supply.
The extension of mains power to a new house some 200 metres from an existing power line will routinely set the home owner back by about $20,000. And that means that their real cost of electricity is much more than the price shown on their quarterly power bills.
Indeed, the annual total of the power bills may be $1000 but when the 8% interest on the $20,000 connection cost ($1,600) is included it adds another 22 cents to the 14 cent cost of a kWh.
And while some owners see this connection cost as an investment that will add to the value of the property, many others simply conclude that solar power is a more economical option.
Acreage lot owners often don't even get the option of having mains water connected so the purchase of a substantial water tank is a given.
So here we have Labor governments in every state in the country, and put there with green preferences, all spruiking their superior environmental credentials, and all wrestling with climate change and claimed associated water supply problems, and they have gone out of their way to eliminate the one form of housing development that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce demand from dwindling water supplies.
Good one Pete, Maurie, Stevo, go for it fellas, gotta save that planet now, your place in history is at stake.