In terms of carbon burying biomass in sediment is a much more efficient use of biomass than combustion, as Metzger and Benford developed in 2001. It helps to think about it as global recycling. Put the excess carbon back in the sediments.
Note that the Danube empties into the Black Sea from a large and agriculturally productive drainage basin. Lots of crop residue available on a yearly basis. The Black Sea is meromictic, the upper layer does not mix with the lower, so the escape of any CO2 produced would be impeded, but I am not sure for how long. The deep water of the Black Sea is an interesting and well studied microbial environment. The depth of the abyssal plain of the Black sea is 1000-2000 m, so I doubt that methane bubbles would form, especially at the low rate that wood is fermented. Thus methane would diffuse into the deep water, and there would be opportunity for its bio-oxidation in the aerobic upper waters. Importantly the Black Sea is a unique environment that has been under considerable environmental stress and is only recently recovering. It is unlikely that burial of wood in the sediments would stimulate algae blooms such as occurred due to fertilizer pollution in the nineties, but experimental confirmation would be essential, if funding could be found somehow. = Stuart = Stuart E. Strand 167 Wilcox Hall, Box 352700, Univ. Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 voice 206-543-5350, fax 206-685-3836 skype: stuartestrand http://faculty.washington.edu/sstrand/ Using only muscle power, who is the fastest person in the world? Flying start, 200 m 82.3 mph! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Whittingham Hour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour_record 55 miles, upside down, backwards, and head first! From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Greg Rau Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 3:31 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: [geo] Re: Black Pickle concept and the "Great Restoration" Thanks. Interesting idea of sinking logs into the Black Sea. One problem - most logs don't sink, at least not right away. Suggest ballasting with limestone to neutralize any CO2 given off during decomposition. But in the anoxic deep water of this sea, CH4 production rather than CO2 would likely dominate as the decomp end product. Maybe we should save this for countering the next ice age. Anyway, would like to know more details if available. Greg Jesse Ausubel discusses the "Black Pickle" concept for sequestering carbon in the sea at the tail end of this updated post: http:// tinyurl.com/dotUrbanJungle -- Andrew C. Revkin The New York Times / Environment 620 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10018 Tel: 212-556-7326 Mob: 914-441-5556 Fax: 509-357-0965 http:// www. nytimes.com/revkin --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
