That post was impressive, Sam. I have an 18 acre mountain lake in the North Cascades and watch each year how it goes though an analogy of what the Huttunen paper described. The lake has a bog at one end and is rather shallow throughout. So, it constantly produces methane. The lake has produced a brown bog-born algae bloom and I cured it with half a bag of yard lime spread evenly around the 18 acres. The O2 levels drop significantly in the summer and so I have been studying the best ways to oxygenate. And so, this issue is not "academic" for me, it exists right out my back door and I have studied it extensively.
Mixer or bubbles? We will need both and possibly a third option. If I ever go into surgery, I hope the doctor bring more than one scalpel....whether he needs it or not! I will outline an advanced third option concept in a later post. Testing, yes, is important and I don't think any option should be blown out of the water without testing.....testing is cheap for this concept! I could test any method here at my lake, but, using a world class aquarium would be better. Or, best, we can use a well studied ocean site such as the Hydrate Ridge (HR) in the Cascadia convergent margin. This proposed field test can be a short wave test which would have no significant environmental impact beyond the rest. The HR also provides a wide range of different types of vent conditions. "On the one hand, adding oxygen bubbles seems beneficial, given the need for oxidation of methane in the water. Also - as John Nissen said elsewhere - bubbles could form an insulating layer in between an ice-cap and warming water underneath the cap. Thirdly, bubbles could brighten the water, changing albedo and thus reflecting more sunlight back into space." Thanks for bringing up these second order aspects. Microbubble/albedo has already been put through the ringer on this forum and I believe it has a reasonable place here. The big issue was not whether it would be effective, but, how can it be deployed. A Methane powered buoy network deploying hydrosols seems like a reasonable approach...to me! Think about the possibility of having the hydrosol equivalent of ice coverage (albedo) in those hot spots pointed out in the Berkeley paper.......during the summer. Initial real world deployment highly focused upon these hot spots would be ideal. And, we already have the computer models to work with! Thank you, Berkeley. "On the other hand, though, bubbles could disturb a hydrate and accelerate release of methane. Rising bubbles could take more methane along upwards than they help oxidize. Testing could reveal what impact can be expected." The avoidance of oxygenation of the seabed is a point I pointed out in the original post. I realized both the importance of maintaining the biotic layer and not disturbing the actual deposits. If you go back to the lecture, it demonstrates how fragile is and how quickly it decomposes once disturbed. "take more methane along..than help oxidize".....I can not find the lab video from Seitz's work right now, however, I would like to reference it here as a visual aid to address this point. In that, hydrates do not act as a "normal" bubble do. They tend to have long residency time in the water column. Microbubbles, if assimilated by the larger methane bubbles, would be directly injecting O2 into the larger methane bubble. Whereas, the methane bubble, on it's own, is only being oxidized through it's surfactant outer film. I believe any test along these lines will show a significant oxidation rate do to this process of hydrosol assimilation. Using pure O2 hydrosols would enhance this Thanks again, Sam. This type of input/questioning is important. Those links are top oder information for this effort. Michael -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
