Dear Ron
----- Original Message -----
From: Ronald Hongsermeier
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2013 10:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Stoves] more on ocean acidification
Dear Kevin,
isn't a billion 10^9 ? and billion billion therefore 10^18?
# You are correct. I was out by a factor of a million. I hate it when I make
errors that big. :-( However, the good news there is 1,000,000 times as much
water to absorb the Anthropogenic CO2, and it could take 1,000,000 times as
long for the average Ocean pH to be changed, at the current rates of emission.
the factors include water's ability to chemically shunt organic and inorganic
contained and bottom materials within the pH system, which means we'd have to
be able to at least model the composition of an average ocean bottom re.
minerals, overall ocean avg. temp, surface to bottom migration, etc.
# The issues are indeed complex.
I am an ecologically sympathetic person, but see more danger presently from
legal, semi-legal and illegal fishing practice to the overall health of the
oceans.
# In addition to these issues, there is also the issue of "micro plastics"
dispersed through the water column.
I am also sympathetic with the concerns of Cecil Cook re. poisons, but think
it somewhat confusing to put CO2 in the same class as CCl4. Depending on the
amount of time between the cleaning process and the dipped sleeve there could
well have been quite a significant amount of Carbon Tet in the water,
especially in view of the proportions of scale-- I well remember being able to
tell when I walked through the door of our house if my mother had brought
things home from the cleaners and the odor was remarkable for some time after
removing the plastic or paper wrappers of the day. And no, we don't know
everything, which should make us more cautious not only in our actions, but
also in concretizing our fears.
# Agreed! The World Environment has a lot of real and imagined problems, and
we need science, Truth, and Fact to determine which are the most serious
problems, and which should be acted upon first.
Best wishes,
Kevin
regards,
Ron von Bayernmittelwochenwochenende
On 08.08.2013 13:41, Kevin wrote:
Dear Paul
Crispin indicates that the mass of the ocean is about 1.33 billion billion
tons, i.e., 1.33 x 10^12 tons. That is a lot of water.
The oceans are now alkaline. Some CO2 additions will lower the pH of the
ocean, but the oceans will still be alkaline.
How much CO2 would be required to actually make the oceans acidic?
At current rates of anthropogenic CO2 production, how long would it take
for the Oceans to actually become acidic?
Thanks!
Kevin
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Olivier
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2013 7:08 AM
Subject: Re: [Stoves] more on ocean acidification
Crispin,
The term that the scientific community uses is "ocean acidification," and
this is a very real environmental problem that most people in the scientific
community do not deny.
Many thanks.
Paul Olivier
On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott
<[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Friends
I have been catching up on less important correspondence after being in
Asia for a while. There is one thing that still needs to be put down like a
broken-legged horse and that of course is the idea that CO2 ‘acidifies’ the
ocean.
Because this is a high school chemistry level topic and I know some of
us took other things – or as the drummer in my brothers class said, “I don’t
remember Chemistry, I was stoned that year.”
So for those of you who were also stoned that year or can’t remember
back that far, here is a simple review of pH with special reference to the
oceans, CO2 and the false, badly mis-named idea that CO2 ‘increases the acidity
of the oceans’.
The term pH refers to one of three distinct chemical conditions which
bear no relationship to each other. One is called acidity, another is called
alkalinity and third is ‘neutral’. Acidity and alkalinity are so different that
if equal in ‘strength’ they cancel each other completely leaving a neutral
condition. Different pH numbers refer to different conditions.
Acid solutions (it has to be a solution with water in it) have a
chemistry that has Hydrogen atoms stripped of their single electron. They are
thus positively changed and seeking an electron. This they will happily strip
out of anything passing by if they can find it, tearing the molecules to bits
in the process which is why acids ‘eat’ things.
Alkaline solutions (again, involving water) have molecules that have an
extra electron available (but not Hydrogen) and are thus negatively charged.
They will give away an electron happily, often wrecking the object that
receives it which is why they eat things too but by a completely different
process.
Both acidic and alkaline solutions can corrode things like metals and
rocks. One takes electrons and one gives them. Quote opposite. The two
conditions are so incompatible they cannot be present at the same time in a
mixed solution. It is one, the other or ‘neutral’ if neither condition is
present.
If you have an alkaline solution like the ocean (pH 7.8 - 8.4 depending
on where you are, the time of day and a host of other things) and you want to
neutralise it so that all its spare electrons are taken up by various things,
you would have to add something acidic. Adding CO2 by bubbling it through the
seawater will convert some of the CO2 (about 1%) to carbonic acid which has a
deficiency of electrons and that acid will merge with whichever passing
opportunity presents itself. The corresponding alkaline molecule will be
neutralised as its spare electron will be passed to the carbonic acid molecule
(which has an H- in it) and afterwards neither will have any charge. Both will
be neutralised if the charges are balanced.
Because this happens very quickly, you cannot actually find any
carbonic acid in the ocean. Nor any other acid. The oceans are not acidic at
all. Any ocean has quite a store of available electrons. Anything acidic you
dump into the sea is quickly neutralised and the pH drops slightly because it
is closer to a neutral condition. The oceanic capacity to hand over electrons
to any passing electron gap is very, very large. There are several processes
that would begin to offer electrons but do not because the ocean is too
alkaline to allow them to get started. The ability to do this is called the
‘buffering’ capacity. You may remember ‘Bufferin’ the pill that neutralises
stomach acid. The pill is alkaline and has a large buffering capacity so it can
hand a lot of electrons over to the acid in the stomach, thus neutralising it.
If you took a whole bottle of Bufferin pills, your stomach would not become
less and less and less acidic. It would be neutralised and then become alkaline
and remains so until the spare electrons were taken up in a neutralising
process. People are, in general, alkaline and should eat alkaline foods to
remain healthy. Excess acid is a problem.
By the same measure, reducing the availability of spare electrons in
the ocean water does not at all make the water acidic because it still has many
more available electrons. It is less alkaline, but it is not acidic at all –
zero in the ‘acidic scale’ (there isn’t one).
In order to make a convenient metric for describing these two
conditions (which can cancel each other out very predictably) the pH scale is
used. Above 7.0 the solution has available electrons and is termed alkaline.
Below 7.0 is has a deficiency of electrons and is called ‘acidic’. The reason
for the use of two different terms is they are chemically dissimilar and cannot
coexist.
Acidity of a solution is often represented by the Hydrogen equivalent
[H+]T which is the total number of Hydrogen electrons that would be needed to
neutralise it.
Alkalinity is often expressed in terms of its equivalence to Calcium
Carbonate CACO3 in mg/Litre.
Q. Can CO2 ‘acidify’ water?
A. Yes, if the water is neutral to begin with, or already
acidic, like rain water. Because rain water is acidic, when it falls into the
ocean it neutralises the drops of seawater where it touches, before becoming
diluted again by the surrounding ocean. Rainwater does not impart to the ocean
any microscopic ability to withdraw electrons. It is quickly neutralised by
some seawater. When it is finished a few seconds later, the acid has been
destroyed.
Q. If one bubbled CO2 through sea water, would it eventually
become acidic?
A. Yes. If you were to first neutralise all the available
electrons by mopping them up, after that it would start to become acidic. It
would not considered be acidic at all until the whole body of the sample had
first been neutralised. These two conditions cannot co-exist.
Q. What about ‘acid rain’.
A. All rain is acidic. It is acidic because fresh water
absorbs CO2 rapidly from the atmosphere, converting about 1% into carbonic
acid. This falls into the oceans and reacts with the available alkaline
molecules. It is easy to acidify rain. It is very difficult to neutralise the
oceans because of the rocks upon which they sit which have a huge, massive
buffering capacity. There are numerous life cycles of creatures that withdraw
CO2, CO3-2 and HCO3- when it is available. Obviously CACO3 is high on the list
for uptake by creatures that make shells.
Q. Which has a larger impact on ocean alkalinity: atmospheric
CO2 or rain containing CO2?
A. Not clear. Rain has a big effect because oceans actually
have difficulty picking up enough CO2 to drive the level much above 600 ppm
because of the limited surface area compared with the volume and the huge
buffering capacity. Rain is much higher - about 1120 ppm CO2. Global rainfall
totals about half a million cubic kilometers per year and contains about 600
billion tons of CO2 which is about 20 times human output.
Q. What is the mass of the oceans?
A. 1.332 billion billion tons.
Q. Do reputable scientific organisations refer to
‘acidifying’ the oceans even though that is not, chemically, what it happening?
A. Yes. NASA does. “As we burn fossil fuels and atmospheric
carbon dioxide levels go up, the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide to stay in
balance. But this absorption has a price: these reactions lower the water’s pH,
meaning it’s more acidic.”
Q. But it is less alkaline, not more acidic. Why do they
write that when it is untrue, in fact it is unscientific?
A. I don’t think anyone knows. Perhaps they too missed
Chemistry in high school.
+++++++
Regards
Crispin
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 3:25 PM
Subject: [Stoves] more on ocean acidification
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=noaa-scientists-embark-voyage-asses-ocean-acidification
--
Paul A. Olivier PhD
26/5 Phu Dong Thien Vuong
Dalat
Vietnam
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--
Paul A. Olivier PhD
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Dalat
Vietnam
Louisiana telephone: 1-337-447-4124 (rings Vietnam)
Mobile: 090-694-1573 (in Vietnam)
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