1) The least possible cost is negative; carbon
removal that is profitable independent of the carbon removed.
2) The least disruptive carbon removal methods may
already escape notice.
3) The least uncertain technologies already exist
and work now.
4) The least wasteful methods waste nothing while reducing earlier existing waste.
Hence let’s consider existing, profitable, efficiency-enhancing yet
unnoticed carbon removal methods.
Reducing atmospheric carbon inevitably takes
energy. Indeed, in storing energy, life reduced carbon, and in
getting some of that energy back, we humans are oxidizing carbon.
The least disruptive energy source may well be
existing sunlight already hitting earth, yet not inducing
photosynthesizing much.
Two large regions now catching sunlight that
don’t photosynthesize much are deserts and
High-Nutrient-Low-Chlorophyll (HNLC) ocean regions.
Supply of limiting nutrients can allow greater
productivity, where and when other nutrients supplied can not.
Provision of limiting nutrients to plants and/or
plankton may be the greatest photo-productivity increase opportunity
worldwide.
Deserts are dry due to climate. HNLC regions are unproductive due to oddities of water chemistry in oxygen-rich
environs.
Deserts cover 10% of earth’s dry land, while
HNLC waters stretch across 1/5th of the oceans, Dry land covers
nearly 30% of earth, while water covers about 70%.
10% of 30% is 3%; 20% of 70% is 14%, 4.8-fold
more, hence, opportunities for engaging sunlight energy in carbon
reduction in HNLC waters may exceed those in deserts.
Are there existing unnoticed profitable activities
that increase photosynthesis in HNLC waters?
Phytoplankton in HNLC waters typically
photosynthesize so little because low iron levels limit their
conversion of sunlight in three ways:
1) Low iron directly constrains photosynthesis,
since iron irreplaceably catalyzes photosynthesis in multiple ways.
2) Ongoing iron additions to HNLC waters are tiny.
3) Iron rapidly precipitates out of oxygen-rich
waters, due to surprising oddities of chemistry.
What existing profitable activity brings iron to
HNLC waters without notice?
1) On the Georges Bank, a once-rich fishing
region, fully 4% of these water’s iron content came to Georges Bank
every year as trace iron in fishing fleet engine fuel, according to
2) Energy output is the driving objective of fuel
consumption.
3) Iron in fuel additives catalyzes more complete
oxidation of fuel carbon, reducing soot while increasing energy
output, in matching counterpoint to iron's catalysis of carbon
reduction in photosynthesis.
4) Some iron picrate fuel additives have proven
profitable by increasing energy output of marine engines.
5) FPC is a prominent iron picrate fuel additive
company worldwide.
6) The world’s shipping fleet burns about 300
million tons of fuel oil each year.
7) FPC’s current fuel additive treatment levels,
of 50 ppb Fe, optimize individual ship owner profitability.
8) The Redfield ratio describes marine life’s
ratio of use of sea nutrients, and predicts which nutrient’s low
levels will limit sea life growth. It addresses carbon, nitrogen and
phosphorus. Sea life uses C:N:P in the ratio of 106:16:1. The
original Redfield ratio has been extended to describe another
limiting nutrient, namely iron, after the discovery of iron’s
importance in limiting sea life. The extended Redfield ratio is still
under exploration, and is estimated to be C:N:P:Fe = 106:16:1:~0.001.
9) If 300 millions tons of marine fuel oil were
treated with 50 ppb iron, and a fifth of this iron fell on HNLC
waters, catalyzing photo-productivity, (at an extended Redfield ratio
of C:N:P:Fe = 106:16:1:0.001), this iron would induce 1.5 million
tons of carbon removal from air via HNLC waters’ increased
photosynthesis.
Perhaps marine fuel can be treated with higher levels of iron,
to optimize, not ship owner profitability, but global carbon removal.
1) The upper acceptable limit on treated fuel’s
iron content may be maintaining existing fuel ash levels in tests at
about 0.01%, or 100 ppm,.
2) Increasing fuel iron content via treatment to
50 ppm, instead of 50 ppb, might increase carbon removal in HNLC
waters 1,000-fold, while perhaps negligibly affecting fuel ash
content.
3) Expanding fuel treatment at these higher levels
to the entire worldwide shipping fleet’s fuel usage of ~300 million
tons fuel oil per year might increase carbon dioxide removal in HNLC
waters to 5,500 million tons; carbon removal there to 1,500
million tons, to ~4% of annual human carbon release, and to more
than the current carbon release of the entire worldwide shipping
fleet’s fuel usage.
1) Mapped here are shipping densities worldwide.
2) “HNLC conditions occur in remote, offshore
areas of the
subarctic north Pacific, subtropical equatorial
Pacific, and Southern Ocean...” EldridgeML 2004: 19
3) Much shipping crosses to and from Asia and
North America via‘Great Circle’ routes, between Asian
manufacturing and USA consumers. Perhaps this shipping traverses the
subarctic North Pacific.
4) Perhaps FPC targeting those ships traversing
subarctic North Pacific waters for fuel treatment at the higher 50
ppm level would restore much carbon fixation/reduction while using
existing infrastructure in profitable ways.
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