My last two cents on this topic: agreed on the need for money and research, also agreed on that politicians want "visible" solutions, to which they can point and hang their name tag on, not just some gigatons of grey-green sand under water, where no one sees it. As for your last three sentences, and that's my main point: we/you don't know that ! Acting like we do, will not make it so...

Francesc

On 26-01-15 20:55, Oliver Tickell wrote:
We can certainly agree that more research is desperately needed - and needs to be funded. Govts way prefer highly engineered 'solutions' like nuclear power and 'classic' CCS, which are also far more expensive. I don't get it, but then I'm not a politician.

Well done with your own research on the lugworms BTW. In a way it does not matter, though it's clearly interesting, what the precise mechanism is - the important thing is that the biotic weathering enhancement does indeed take place.

Two things are needed: 1) some very well thought out and effective experimental designs, and 2) the money to carry those experiments out.

Re the permits, one thing we do know is that the experiments are not in any sense 'dangerous'. This stuff is naturally occurring and widespread in the environment anyway. The 'worst case' is really just that it does very little at all!

Oliver.

On 26/01/2015 17:42, Francesc Montserrat wrote:
Dear Oliver, dear list

First off: I never had the intention to be rude about either Olaf or his work. I recognise his work for what it is, but we have to be fair here: He did his shaking experiments in freshwater, which naturally then rises to be pH 9 and beyond. The farmland experiment fizzled a bit, because the initial groundwater conditions were not measured and as for the biotic acceleration by lugworms, that's my own work. Yes, they increase the dissolution of olivine. But as of yet, I cannot say whether that is by intestinal action, or simply by the fact that they also exhale CO2 and thus increase olivine dissolution. Also I have performed some 10 different shaking/agitation experiments in SEAwater, which is a strongly buffered and complex system so that the theoretical 1:4 relationship does not hold. In fact, from our results it seems that the Mg in the seawater is interfering in the expected alkalinity increase. From all those agitation experiments, the main message is: alkalinity up (but not 1:4), DIC up, Silicate up, Nickel up...but ONLY when olivine is added in high enough amount. The story that Nickel is not an olivine constituent is thus not true. I have a molar Ni:Mg ratio of ca. 1:150 in the olivine I use which comes from the well-known dunite mine in Aheim, Norway.

If we "know" those model results (of Hangx and Spiers) to be off by orders of magnitude, this implies that someone has some solid observations, right ? Where are those published ? Same goes for all the other claims that you stake about the diatom blooms. From your words it seems it is already known what the downstream ecological effects will be. If so...if this is already known and in the white literature, please accept my apologies and let us bundle all this knowledge and step up to some of the larger dredging companies here in The Netherlands or to a govermental body. If there actually already IS a fool-proof method, then we should definitely jump on it !

Please, get me straight: I am NOT trying to discredit Olaf, because I do think that the principle of his idea will work. What I do want to advocate is to go about this a bit more scientific than just coming up with grand plans that no governing body will ever issue permits for because the boundary conditions are not known. If I would get my way, I'd be doing the same as Olaf: trying out these fantastic plans, preferably on larger scales. But the reality is that you need hard bloody numbers to convince those who issue the permits. Again, if that knowledge is already there: I humbly bow my head and ask for apologies. Until then, let's not pretend that we don't know what we don't know, and get our bloody arses working on it !

Francesc



On 26-01-15 17:30, Oliver Tickell wrote:

It's actually very rude to dismiss Olaf's work on this as 'just so' stories. He has done laboratory tests of olivine dissolution rates in water under conditions of agitation, field tests of olivine particle evolution in farmland in the Netherlands, and is in touch with other who have, eg, measured biotic acceleration of olivine dissolution by lugworms on coastal mudflats.

That's not to say that there is not much more work to be done. But field experimentation is expensive and few funders are coming forward to pay for this kind of work. Some promise, for sure, but are very short on delivery.

Your idea that it's somehow 'scientific' to stick with 'results' that we know to be false by several orders of magnitude is to my mind somewhat paradoxical.

We know about the silicate, and indeed in many marine areas - those polluted by agricultural and sewage runoff - the bloom of diatoms at the expense of other algae would be a considerable benefit, replacing carpets of chocking algae with healthy populations of fish. Diatoms also do not expel CO2 from marine bicarbonate as part of the shell building process, and are good at sequestering carbon to deep water. The silicic acid will only cause 'massive diatom blooms' where all the other nutrients are already present to cause massive algal blooms in any case, so the effect will only be to replace one algal bloom with another.

The main metals liberated by the dissolution of olivine are Mg (already abundant) and Fe which is in many places a limiting nutrient. Nickel is not normally considered an olivine constituent, though olivine is often found with nickel bearing ores.

Oliver.

On 26/01/2015 11:22, Francesc Montserrat wrote:
As for now, Suzanne Hangx and Chris Spiers provided a working model, resulting in a set of (dissolution rate) values. Until the time that someone comes up with a better model and/or more accurate values, I think that the scientific method dictates we stick with the previous one. You know I agree with you in principle, Olaf, but mentioning "just-so" anecdotes/facts/observations is not enough to discredit a model...fortunately. Most, if not all, models start with being a very strong abstraction of reality, only to be tuned as mechanistic knowledge of the process under investigation increases. Slowly, such models become the minimal adequate models (MAM) we normally use to explain and/or predict those processes.

Let's be scientific about it and come up with a better tuned model for olivine dissolution and relevant consequences in terms of carbonate system, carbon sequestration and downstream ecological impacts in natural waters, including seawater.

As for Andrew's questions on location of the mines etc., I think that Nils Moosdorf, Phil Renforth and Jens Hartmann have done a good job in their paper answering the primary questions (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es4052022). As for coastal defense win-win: have a look at this (http://www.dezandmotor.nl/en-GB/), and then imagine one (partially) made up of olivine...but be careful to also imagine that the olivine in such a semi-natural structure releases concomitant amounts of silicate (conceivably causing massive diatom blooms, especially in the later months of the year when silicate is depleted in seawater) and considerable amounts of Nickel (of which we simply don't know what it does to the foodweb).

Cheers,
Francesc


On 26-01-15 10:33, Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) wrote:

Well, you better forget the model of Hangx and Spiers, as it has no relation to reality. They forget that grains roll on the beach and collide and scour each other knocking off micron sized slivers, they use weathering rates obtained in clean laboratories under exclusion of biotic factors, and they assumed that waters of the sea do not move. I attach a rebuttal of it (Schuiling, R. (2014) Climate Change and CO2 Removal from the Atmosphere. Natural Science, 6, 659-663. doi: 10.4236/ns.2014.69065 <http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ns.2014.69065>). A nice walk along the beach would have saved them a lot of wasted time.

*From:*[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Christoph Voelker
*Sent:* zondag 25 januari 2015 17:15
*To:* [email protected]; [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [geo] Energy Planning and Decarbonization Technology | The Energy Collective

Well, firstly there has been the study of Hangx and Spiers (2009),

Hangx, S. J. T., & Spiers, C. J. (2009). Coastal spreading of olivine to control atmospheric CO2 concentrations: A critical analysis of viability. /International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control/, /3/(6), 757–767. doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.07.001

who arrive at the conclusion

"The feasibility of the concept depends on the rate of olivine dissolution, the sequestration capacity of the dominant reaction, and its CO2 footprint. Kinetics calculations show that offsetting 30% of worldwide 1990 CO2 emissions by beach weathering means distributing of 5.0 Gt of olivine per year. For mean seawater temperatures of 15–25 8C, olivine sand (300 mm grain size) takes 700–2100 years to reach the necessary steady state sequestration rate and is therefore of little practical value. To obtain useful, steady state CO2 uptake rates within 15–20 years requires grain sizes <10 mm. However, the preparation and movement of the required material poses major economic, infrastructural and public health questions. We conclude that coastal spreading of olivine is not a viable method of CO2 sequestration on the scale needed."

I am sure that Olaf Schuiling has a different viewpoint, especially on the kinetics, but what remains independent of the kinetics is that the total amount of olivine needed to get a sizeable reduction in pCO2 growth rate is on the order of a few Gt per year..

An estimate of how much silicate minerals are mined today (to get that into perspective) is available from

Phil Renforth et al. (2011) Silicate Production and Availability for Mineral Carbonation. Environ. Sci. Technol., 45, 2035–2041

And Moosdorf et al. have estimated the carbon dioxide efficiency, taking into account transportation etc:

Moosdorf, Renforth and Hartmann (2014) Carbon Dioxide Efficiency of Terrestrial Enhanced Weathering, Env Sci Technol. 48, 4809−4816

So there s already a lot around..

Cheers, Christoph


On 1/25/15 2:47 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:

    Someone needs to do a proper infrastructure study of olivine
    to more comprehensively rebut the "contraptionist" arguments
    of some in the CDR community.

    Where are the mines?
    How many railcars?
    At what scale are the crushing machines?
    Will we distribute to beaches with lorries, or shallow seas
    with ships (and let longshore drift do the work)?
    What environmental monitoring spend is needed?
    Can this be used for a coastal defence win win?
    Etc.

    A

    On 25 Jan 2015 13:23, "Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)"
    <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

    Of course I support Andrew in this view, although chucking it
    into the sea is maybe a too simplistic view. My preference is
    to spread (coarse-grained, so little crushing energy spent)
    olivine on beaches, where the surf will crush them by grain
    collisions and by scraping them against each other. In a short
    while (in our experiments it took 10 days to see already a
    large effect, the water became opaque milky white from all the
    micron-sized slivers that were knocked off). A mixture of
    coarser and finer grit is more effective than a single grain
    size, as in society, the big ones crush the smaller ones.
    */The surf is the biggest ballmill on earth, and it is free of
    charge! /*An extension of this method is to discharge them in
    shallow seas with strong bottom currents. There are many sea
    bottoms covered with pebbles, and there the same effects of
    crushing can be seen. To avoid misunderstanding, the sea will
not become opaque white, slivers that form are washed away by the next wave. Within those ten day experiments, we observed
    that many slivers had already been transformed to brucite,
    (Mg(OH)2, known to carbonate very fast, and the pH of the
    water had already been raised considerably. And yes, of
    course, it will take a lot of olivine, which is fortunately
    the most abundant mineral on earth, Olaf Schuiling

    *From:*[email protected]
    <mailto:[email protected]>
    [mailto:[email protected]
    <mailto:[email protected]>] *On Behalf Of
    *Andrew Lockley
    *Sent:* zaterdag 24 januari 2015 15:56
    *To:* geoengineering
    *Subject:* [geo] Energy Planning and Decarbonization
    Technology | The Energy Collective

    Poster's note : none of this explains why there's any need for
    integration. Chucking olivine in the sea seems easier and
    cheaper than all.

    
http://theenergycollective.com/noahdeich/2183871/3-ways-carbon-removal-can-help-unlock-promise-all-above-energy-strategy

    3 Ways Carbon Removal can Help Unlock the Promise of an
    All-of-the-Above Energy Strategy

    January 24, 2015

    “We can’t have an energy strategy for the last century that
    traps us in the past. We need an energy strategy for the
    future – an all-of-the-above strategy for the 21st century
    that develops every source of American-made
    energy.”– President Barack Obama, March 15, 2012

    An all-of-the-above energy strategy holds great potential
    to make our energy system more secure, inexpensive, and
    environmentally-friendly. Today’s approach to
    all-of-the-above, however, is missing a key piece: carbon
    dioxide removal (“CDR”). Here’s three reasons why CDR is
    critical for the success of an all-of-the-above energy strategy:

    1. CDR helps unite renewable energy and fossil fuel proponents
    to advance carbon capture and storage (“CCS”) projects. Many
    renewable energy advocates view CCS as an expensive excuse to
    enable business-as-usual fossil fuel emissions. But biomass
    energy with CCS (bio-CCS) projects are essentially “renewable
    CCS” (previously viewed as an oxymoron), and could be critical
    for drawing down atmospheric carbon levels in the future. As a
    result, fossil CCS projects could provide a pathway to
    “renewable CCS” projects in the future. Because of the
    similarities in the carbon capture technology for fossil and
    bioenergy power plants, installing capture technology on
    fossil power plants today could help reduce technology and
    regulatory risk for bio-CCS projects in the future. What’s
    more, bio-CCS projects can share the infrastructure for
    transporting and storing CO2 with fossil CCS installations.
    Creating such a pathway to bio-CCS should be feasible through
    regulations that increase carbon prices and/or biomass
    co-firing mandates slowly over time, and could help unite
    renewable energy and CCS proponents to develop policies that
    enable the development of cost-effective CCS technology.

    2. CDR bolsters the environmental case for nuclear power by
    enabling it to be carbon “negative”: Many environmental
    advocates say that low-carbon benefits of nuclear power are
    outweighed by the other environmental and safety concerns of
    nuclear projects. The development of advanced nuclear
    projects paired with direct air capture (“DAC”) devices,
    however, could tip the scales in nuclear’s favor. DAC systems
    that utilize the heat produced from nuclear power plants can
    benefit from this “free” source of energy to potentially
    sequester CO2 directly from the atmosphere cost-effectively.
    The ability for nuclear + DAC to provide competitively-priced,
    carbon-negative energy could help convince nuclear power’s
    skeptics to support further investigation into developing safe
    and environmentally-friendly advanced nuclear systems.

    3. CDR helps enable a cost-effective transition to a
    decarbonized economy: Today, environmental advocates claim
    that prolonged use of fossil fuels is mutually exclusive with
    preventing climate change, and fossil fuel advocates bash
    renewables as not ready for “prime time” — i.e. unable to
    deliver the economic/development benefits of inexpensive
    fossil energy. To resolve this logjam, indirect methods of
    decarbonization — such as a portfolio of low-cost CDR
    solutions — could enable fossil companies both to meet steep
    emission reduction targets and provide low-cost fossil energy
    until direct decarbonization through renewable energy systems
    become more cost-competitive (especially in difficult to
    decarbonize areas such as long-haul trucking and aviation).

    Of course, discussion about the potential for CDR to enable an
    all-of-the-above energy strategy is moot unless we invest in
    developing a portfolio of CDR approaches. But if we do make
    this investment in CDR, an all-of-the-above energy strategy
    that delivers a diversified, low-cost, and low-carbon energy
    system stands a greater chance of becoming a reality.

    Noah Deich

    Noah Deich is a professional in the carbon removal field with
    six years of clean energy and sustainability consulting
    experience. Noah currently works part-time as a consultant for
    the Virgin Earth Challenge, is pursuing his MBA from the Haas
    School of Business at UC Berkeley, and writes a blog dedicated
    to carbon removal (carbonremoval.wordpress.com
    <http://carbonremoval.wordpress.com>)

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--
Christoph Voelker
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research
Am Handelshafen 12
27570 Bremerhaven, Germany
e:[email protected]  <mailto:[email protected]>
t: +49 471 4831 1848

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vriendelijke groeten / kind regards,

Dr. Francesc Montserrat

Department of Ecosystem Studies
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ)

Korringaweg 7
4401 NT Yerseke
The Netherlands

Office:   +31 (0)113 577 462
Mobile:  +31 (0)6 2481 5595

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- no title specified

vriendelijke groeten / kind regards,

Dr. Francesc Montserrat

Department of Ecosystem Studies
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ)

Korringaweg 7
4401 NT Yerseke
The Netherlands

Office:   +31 (0)113 577 462
Mobile:  +31 (0)6 2481 5595

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- no title specified

vriendelijke groeten / kind regards,

Dr. Francesc Montserrat

Department of Ecosystem Studies
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ)

Korringaweg 7
4401 NT Yerseke
The Netherlands

Office:   +31 (0)113 577 462
Mobile:  +31 (0)6 2481 5595

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