Hi, Mike S. Thanks for the masterful contribution to the discussion. I kept thinking of my seaweed salad at our local sushi place, and wondering where it came from, business-wise.
Can you say more about what is happening in Nova Scotia regarding "being regulated out of existence." Regarding eutrification and your lake: has the lake shrunk due to the build-up of soil/material in it, or lowering water table, or? Cheers, Lawry On Nov 30, 2011, at 2:33 AM, Mike Spencer wrote: > > Regarding my comments on: > > The Coming Green Wave: Ocean Farming to Fight Climate Change > > by Brendan Smith > November 23, 2011 > > http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/11/the-coming-green-wave-ocean-farming-to-fight-climate-change/248750/ > > > Mike G. wrote: > >> Okay Mike so you don't think too much of what was said or the guy >> who said it... We get that but what exactly is wrong with what was >> written. > > Um, well, I though Pete went into considerable detail on exactly what > was written. > > + Confusing nitrogen with nitrate & nitrite in water > > + Confusing nitrogen with nitrogen oxides in air > > Yes, in agriculture, in the lab and perhaps elsewhere, referring to > the nitrogen (or phosphorus or potash -- aka potassium -- or other > elemental) content of fertilizer and other materials is accepted > shorthand in the same way that measuring propane in BTUs (instead of > units of mass or volume) is HVAC engineering shorthand. > > But it's not good expository science writing, sufficiently not good > that I suspect the writer of not understanding what he's writing about. > > But suppose we overlook that. Say the author means well and is > striving to pass on a Big Idea. Lets look at a couple of paragraphs: > > Seaweed farms alone have the capacity to grow massive > amounts of nutrient-rich food. Professor Ronald Osinga > at Wageningen University in the Netherlands has > calculated[6] that a global network of "sea-vegetable" > farms totaling 180,000 square kilometers - roughly the > size of Washington state - could provide enough protein > for the entire world population. > > The goal, according to chef Dan Barber[10] -- named one > of the world's most influential people by Time and a > hero of the organic food movement -- is to create a > world where "farms restore instead of deplete" and allow > "every community to feed itself." > > The second paragraph is, very roughly, about the now much maligned > "back to the land" impulse of the 60s, of which I am to some degree an > exemplar. This is intrinsically a small-scale concept, one requiring > a lot of work otherwise eliminated by the mechanization of megafood > agribusiness and promising either expensive food of the acceptance of > minimal incomes by the producer. Nice, doable with dedication but > presently being regulated out of existence here in Nova Scotia. > > The first paragraph, though, that talks about feeding the *whole > world*, is talking about Soylent Yellow, krill and seaweed protein. A > staple of a whole genre of not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper apocalyptic > science fiction. Kelp burgers, krill-mush. > > If these two paragraphs in sequence don't engender a frisson of > cognitive dissonance, you're reading too fast. > > Lets take another: > > But rather than monolithic factory fish farms, they see > the oceans as the home of small-scale farms where > complementary species are cultivated to provide food and > fuel.... > > Small scale? Fuel? How many homes can you heat, megawatts can you > generate from anything "small scale"? The notion of turning corn and > other non-byproduct food into fuel alcohol is already messing with > food prices. That project is not even slightly small scale and it > isn't coming close to supplanting other fuel sources. If it's pursued > to the point where it does, we will be in the position of feeding the > boilers with the ship's deck and planking to save on coal. There's no > mention of the energy audit -- units of energy resource invested to > produce a unit of energy product. I gather from (perhaps inadequate) > reading that the audit for fuel alcohol from corn, taking into account > the coal-generated electricity, diesel and gasoline, fertilizer > manufacture etc. to plant, raise and process it, comes so close to > breaking even that it's an even bet that it will run in the energy red > in the long term, after the "externalized diseconomies" are > recognized for what they are. And corn farming is sooo much easier and > more developed tech than seaweed. > > Another: > > Seaweed is one of the fastest growing plants in the > world; kelp, for example, grows up to 9-12 feet long in > a mere three months. This turbo-charged growth cycle > enables farmers to scale up their carbon sinks quickly. > Of course, the seaweed grown to mitigate emissions would > need to be harvested to produce carbon-neutral biofuels > to ensure that the carbon is not simply recycled back > into the air as it would be if the seaweed is eaten. > > Um, say what? If we eat the carbohydrates (and maybe a bit of > protein) in seaweed, some goes into the sewer as solids and some into > the air as exhaled CO2. Right. But if we use it for fuel it just > goes, well, *away*? What? If we burn it, *all* the carbon goes back > into the air. > > The main nitrogen polluter is agricultural fertilizer > runoff. All told, the production of synthetic > fertilizers and pesticides contributes more than one > trillion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions to the > atmosphere globally each year. That's the same amount of > emissions that are generated by 88 million passenger > cars each year. > > Much of this nitrogen from fertilizers ends up in our > oceans, where nitrogen is now 50 percent above normal > levels. According to the journal Science, excess > nitrogen "depletes essential oxygen levels in the water > and has significant effects on climate, food production, > and ecosystems all over the world." > > Eutrification due to fertilizer runoff has been a problem for fresh > water lakes, especially smaller ones, for decades. There's a lake > near me where I used to swim in 1970 that is half its former size now. > But that figure about the oceans is, IMHO, meaningless. There may be > significant nitrogenous pollution in parts of the ocean but even > present agriculture hasn't made it uniform enough to make that 50% > number tell me anything. I suspect the author of having patched > together notes about the ocean and about fresh water for the sake of > rhetoric. > > Oysters to the rescue. One oyster filters 30-50 gallons > of water a day -- and in the process filters nitrogen > out of the water column. Recent work done by Roger > Newell of the University of Maryland shows that[13] a > healthy oyster habitat can reduce total added nitrogen > by up to 20 percent. A three-acre oyster farm filters > out the equivalent nitrogen load produced by 35 coastal > inhabitants[14]. > > Leaving aside, as we agreed, the misleading use of "nitrogen", 35 > coastal inhabitants don't produce that much nitrogenous effluent. > Assuming a mix of processed and un- or poorly-processed sewage, we're > talking about the amount of nitrogen, in the form mostly of fecal > bacterial proteins or ammonia, in the protein eaten by 35 people. The > massive effluent nitrogen comes from the tonnage of 10-10-10 dumped > onto 10s of thousand of acres of corn, soybean, sugarcane, wheat, > barley and all the other megacrop varieties. How many acres of oyster > bed does it take to compensate for, say, 1000 acres of cornfield? Can > they do phosphorus, too? > > Well, enough of addressing what "exactly is wrong with what was > written." In general, I think I have two thoughts: > > + Anything in the way of aquaculture that actually works will quickly > be spun up into or taken over by giant agribusiness with the sort > of unhappy results that the article quite rightly points to in > former corporate fish farming. > > + Our overfishing and (probably) our pollution have already seriously > disturbed the marine biome. No cod for dinner or swordfish gets > expensive? That's nothing beside the possible disruption of the > global marine ecosystem. AFAIK, we (collectively) have only > hopeful surmises about the dynamics of the global marine biome. > As with complex systems in general, there exists the potential for > catastrophic change when enough variables and/or the right > variables exceed limits that we have no way assessing. > > So good, lets do some small scale fish or seaweed farming farming. I > haul home something like 5 tons (wet weight) of seaweed every year. I > spread it on sod and plant potatoes under it but on top of the sod. > The potatoes come up nearly clean (a little beach sand sometimes), the > sod rots and, after using that patch for potatoes for 3 to 5 years, I > till it and plant something else there. Potatoes move to a new place. > And some seaweed, a couple of truckloads, goes to mulch cabbages and > tomatoes. The seaweed contains negligible amounts of N-P-K but > replenishes trace elements in our heavily leached soils. Either the > salt or the marine-type carbohydrates in the seaweed seems to deter > creepy-crawlie herbivore pests that live happily under hay mulch. And > the accumulated seaweed, year after year, improves the tilth of the > otherwise heavy soil. > > All small scale. It's a lot of work with a dung fork. Good for the > soil, local food production and all that. If someone tries to > commercialize this use of seaweed that I and some neighbors enjoy, it > will suppress rather than support an environment-friendly practice. > >> Okay Mike so you don't think too much of what was said or the guy >> who said it. > > I don't think anything I wrote was an ad hominem attack. Don't know > anything about him other than what he wrote. > >> So, dropping the (Sci Guy) attitude(s)... > > Gee, and I'm the guy who claimed to subscribe to Naive Realism with > Sprinkles. :-) > > > Jeez, I thought Pete's bit got me off the hook for writing this. Guess > not. > > - Mike > > -- > Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. > /V\ > [email protected] /( )\ > http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
