In “Will desperate climates call for desperate geoegineering measures?“, Physics Today surveys the rationale for researching geoengineering, and discusses the prominent areas of research. Noteworthy is the opinion of Dr. Ralph Cicerone, President of the US National Academy of Sciences, who favors research before widespread implementation and highlights “the need for a qualified agency to oversee the design, implementation, and monitoring of experiments.”

Categories: Geoengineering, Ocean Fertilization
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The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has two new entries in the Geoengineering Roundtable. This brings a total of ten articles by preeminent scientists in the geoengineering debate.

Read:

Designing a geoengineering research agenda should be a group effort
Dan Whaley and Margaret Leinen of Climos.

We should plan for the worst-case climate scenario
Ken Caldeira of Stanford University.

Categories: Ocean Fertilization
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Dan Whaley, CEO of Climos, is interviewed by Peter Day of the BBC. This is a follow-up to an interview published in May 2008, and highlights several emerging clean technology solutions to climate change including OIF.

Download the July 22nd, 2008 interview

Download the original May 29th, 2008 interview

Categories: Ocean Fertilization
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Shell Oil has funded a proposal by Cquestrate to investigate atmospheric carbon removal by adding lime to sea water. This process is heavily energy intensive, but could still be cost-effective near oil fields that have un-utilized natural gas resources. Instead of flaring the gas, it could be harnessed to create lime from limestone. Notably, the company developing this proccess plans to use an “Open Source” development process so that anyone can use the technology.

Read a Wired article on the process.

Read about the open source methodology, and visit the company’s website.

Categories: Geoengineering
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A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academies shows that nutrient-rich discharge greatly enhances the biological pump mechanism of carbon sequestration. The sequestration happens as the discharge plume enters deep water off the continental shelf, where excess iron, phosphorous, and silica stimulate diatoms and nitrogen-fixing diazotrophs. The measured carbon sequestration rates are very high in the area of the discharge plume.

Read the paper in PNAS (free download).

Read an article from the National Science Foundation.

Categories: New Science, Ocean Fertilization
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A new paper in Nature Geoscience highlights the importance of iron fertilization from dust storms blowing off the Sahara coast.  The dust “sustains life” in the tropical North Atlantic ocean by enhancing the growth of nitrogen-fixing phytoplankton that require iron.

Read the press release in Science Daily.

Read the abstract in Nature Geoscience.

Categories: New Science, Ocean Fertilization
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The Christian Science Monitor published this article, “Can we engineer a cooler Earth?“, which discusses the need for geoengineering as a stop-gap approach until the world can implement meaningful CO2 emissions cuts. Also mentioned is the need to begin researching how geoengineering could be conducted responsibly.

Categories: Geoengineering
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Katie Fehrenbacher at Earth2Tech covers the relaunch of Planktos under “Planktos-Science.com”.

She notes:  “If Planktos Science wants to be a serious company, they should get some serious PR help.”

 Read it here

Categories: Ocean Fertilization
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The July 3rd edition of Time Magazine has a story on OIF and other technologies to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The story goes into significant detail on the reasons why CO2 sequestration is important, and on how OIF would accomplish this. Climos is covered, including a quote by Dr. Margaret Leinen.

Time: “Picking Up A Mop“

Categories: Ocean Fertilization
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Popular Science provides a nice post-mortem on Planktos, which ceased operations last February. The story of Planktos is a good example of the need for effective regulation of OIF activities under the London Convention.

The last page of the article has some nice coverage of Climos and the way forward with OIF. There are quotes by Dr. Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and by Dan Whaley and Margaret Leinen of Climos.

Popular Science: “Carbon Discredit“

Categories: New Science, Ocean Fertilization
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