I was one of those anti-offset crusaders. Hell yea.

Good riddance. This was a miserable idea. The last thing we need is a vested interest for dumping iron into the ocean.

Most likely the reason this ventured failed to secure funds was the risk of low profits for investors. Greed is the primary motive for most capitalist investors and they have little concern about environmental issues.

Not surprising, a serious governmental french lab have demonstrated that spraying iron on the ocean doesn't trigger plancton growth contrary to common belief. The problem is much more complex. This type of enginering is extremly dangerous

Treehugger... here is a list (from Wikipedia, where the references can be found) of various international experiments in iron seeding, all of which produced plankton growth...

# Ironex II , 1995[5]
# SOIREE (Southern Ocean Iron Release Experiment), 1999[6]
# EisenEx (Iron Experiment), 2000[7]
# SEEDS (Subarctic Pacific Iron Experiment for Ecosystem Dynamics Study), 2001[8]
# SOFeX (Southern Ocean Iron Experiments - North & South), 2002[9][10]
# SERIES (Subarctic Ecosystem Response to Iron Enrichment Study), 2002[11]
# SEEDS-II, 2004[12]
# EIFEX (European Iron Fertilization Experiment), 2004[13]

I challenge you to back up anything you've said. Of all the ocean iron experiments that have been done, please show me ONE report that shows some ecological damage. What you have stated is pure and simple non-scientific fear mongering.

Certainly there is no general belief that the process has been developed to the point that it should be included in carbon cap credit schemes. The amount of carbon sequestered, if any, is still to be determined. Likewise, some scientists have concern about the idea of commercial companies being the primary drivers of research into something for which they have a vested financial interests.

I never understood the cap and trade carbon credits idea. I understand the mechanism and it seems a bit like a feebate, but at first glance it seems to allow people to pollute and buy their way out of it.

I would favor a partnership. If we can get coal power plant people to build IGCC, the government can work with them on the sequester side of it. This is not something that is profitable and still needs to be developed.

Maybe we would have to build pipelines to transport the CO2 to old NG wells, but the combined cycle efficiencies should be enough of a reward for coal power plant people to want to build them.

"here is a list (from Wikipedia, where the references can be found) of various international experiments in iron seeding, all of which produced plankton growth..."

IIRC the issue is not whether it boosts plankton biomass, but rather whether any of the extra carbon sequestered in this method reaches the deep sea bottom. ISTR a recent study (can't remember if it was on this site or another I frequent) found that most of the plankton biomass was consumed by micro-organisms just below the photic layer, ie it didn't reach the sea bottom. so the carbon is only shallow cycled rather than sequestered.

I have indeed seen one study recently that did not confirm that carbon reached the deep layers... it also in no way proved that the carbon went back into the atmosphere. It simply proved nothing one way or the other. It was one study about one possible mechanism and time frame for carbon sinking that produced a non positive result.

The hype of that one study, if not the study itself, seems a bit of a straw man. I don't believe anyone proposing ocean iron seeding is claiming that the only, or even the primary, means of carbon reaching the deep waters would be for the plankton itself to die and drift down... it's probably not heavy enough to breach the thermal layering of the water column. If other organisms eat the plankton and then later die and drift down that too would be a means of getting the carbon to the bottom. It also would be a reason why the carbon sequestration might not exactly correspond in time with the bloom itself. Here is an article covering research (not in any way funded by the iron seeding companies) that speculates about another possible mechanism for carbon sinking that involves the daily habits of krill... eating at the surface and then descending to great depths where they leave significant quantities of "waste" rich in carbon. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060206230630.htm

The things we know include the fact that a great deal of carbon has been sequestered on the ocean floor from the plants and animals that have lived in the oceans over the millennia... this is proven by looking at seabed cores. We also know that a vast majority of that life is part of a food web that starts with plankton. So the conclusion that plankton does not contribute to carbon sequestration would be laughably wrong... not that I think any serious scientists has suggested such.

The cycling of carbon within the food chain says nothing about where it ends up. A study that doesn't find carbon sinking but also doesn't show the carbon ending up back in the atmosphere is simply a non conclusive study that leaves the question still open as to how, when and how much.

The real, non fear mongering, questions about ocean iron seeding concern the ability to figure out exactly how much of the carbon in a bloom environment does eventually get sequestered verse how much is released back into the atmosphere and what are the limitations for iron seeding quantity before side effects or diminished returns set in.

A historical aside.
A geophysical concept going back 20 + years described the adding of iron oxide to surface waters to 'sink ' a stalled current if that should eventuate. The North Atlantic Drift was part of the system modelled.

The dumping of iron into the oceans is also a NATURAL process.

Routinely, volcanic eruptions deliver kilotons of iron-rich particles to the ocean surface. The resulting algal blooms can be seen from space and a recent event actually lowered (despite the trend!) global atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Not bad going for one natural iron bloom!

The problem is not the science - the problem is cap and trade schemes to begin with. They are the product of the elite Wall Street/EU commodities trader-types who try to create a 500 billion $$ a year canard to replace lost oil revenues. The idea behind cap and trade is not to improve environment - but to fill the hole left by the demise of huge petroleum cartels. Greed has proven to fail in this case.

RapsodyIn Glue

Here is the link, but unfortunately it is in french

http://www2.cnrs.fr/presse/communique/1086.htm

in clear they say that puting artificially iron has much less effect than when the iron come naturally from the depth water, and they don't understand why at this point. The biochemistry of the ocean is very complex, and the idea of fertilazing it might be appealing but so far it is too simplistic and doesn't work. I fully trust the people from the CNRS they are pretty serious and really at the top of the art

a bloom may lower co2 while the algae is alive but the act of decomposition lowers the oxygen levels in water causeing hypoxia and anoxia creating massive fish kills and other sea life. oh and by the way that process of decomposition also releases methane which is 23-25 time more of a greenhouse gas than co2.

so good riddance to such ideas with absolutely zero foresight

i'm not against saving the climate, i should add, this is just not a good solution.

all of you in the forum who are for this just think about it (i'm not trying to be a jerk here) when has the addition of ANYTHING on an industrial scale been a good thing for the environment.

if you bloom the algae and then harvest it, that is a better way to go, but then you still have a few other issues to deal with