Basically all you need do to fertilize the nutrient poor upper areas of the ocean is to move nutrient rich deep seawater to the surface. This seawater must come from a depth of at least 100 feet.(The deeper the better) You are not actually using all that much energy to achieve this, because in essence, what you're doing is moving liquid around in a liquid environment. Once it's brought to the surface most of the energy or fuel involved would be used to disperse it. The best way to move the water from 100 feet below would be to use a tube, or flexible hose, that goes down to at least that depth. As you remove water from the top of the tube, or hose, the deep water naturally flows up. Depending on the power source, you would then disperse this cooler sea water on the surface, in as large a pattern as practical. You couldn't just dump the nutrient rich deep water over the side, because the colder sea water, resists mixing with the warmer surface seawater, and most of it would fall back to the depths without providing much benefit.
Mixing Boats
One of the more labor-intensive and highly effective methods of fertilizing the surface of the ocean would be the use of mixing boats. Almost any old, ocean capable, 30 or 40 foot boat would do. In the beginning, small decommissioned fishing boats would work just fine. You would merely fit these boats with diesel driven pumps that would spray the water as far as possible to the sides and back of the boat. Slightly modified fireboats would work really well too. All you would have to do is adjust the fireboat's water intakes so they would suck water from a least 100 feet below. In the future I would expect that specially designed boats with lower operating costs would be built.
Each of these boats would be expected to cover an area of 50 miles by 1 mile each day, they would finish their 40X45 mile area in 32 working days, and then start over. To meet the requirements of the Virgin earth challenge only seven of these boats would be needed. They would need to operate for one year. The total cost of operating the Seven mixing boats for one year would be approximately 4.2 million dollars. Six of the boats would be in scheduled operation. The seventh would be maintained as a backup vessel for routine maintenance, and in case one of the others suffered a mechanical failure. The total area covered by the six boats would be 10,800 Square miles. This would mean that each 32 day cycle would remove 60,000,000 tons of carbon. In ten, 32 day cycles, you would remove 600,000,000 tons of carbon from the ecosystem. That would exceed the Virgin earth challenge goal because the weight of the carbon in the carbon dioxide molecule is less than half of the total molecular weight. So in essence, removing 600,000,000 tons of carbon would mean you would actually be removing about 2,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. At the same time, you would be releasing about a billion tons of oxygen into the biosphere. You must remember that what the plankton are actually doing, is converting the carbon dioxide molecules into stable carbon, and free oxygen. This would be an extremely profitable endeavor. It would not only win the Virgin earth challenge, but it would produce about $60,000,000,000 worth of carbon credits.
Going Medieval on carbon dioxide
We could if we wished, lower carbon dioxide levels back to what they were in the late 19th century. We could accomplish that by putting many more mixing boats into service.
Eight hundred, 30' or 40' mixing boats, could cover an area equal to the aforementioned 1,294,437 square miles of the world's oceans. Each boat would be responsible for mixing the water in the same 40 mile x 45 mile area. If each boat covered an area of 50 miles by 1 mile each day, they would finish their 40X45 mile area in 32 working days, and then start over. This would be done year-round in equatorial areas, but only for four to six months in more northern and southern latitudes. It wouldn't be necessary to have them all based at the same place, they could be scattered all over the world.
I'm nearly certain that when carbon credit accounting becomes mandatory, and worldwide, carbon credit units final value will be quite a bit more than my cost estimate of less than 1 cent per ton. At the time of this writing, carbon credits are trading for between $50 and $80 per unit. (One carbon credit unit equals 1 ton of carbon). Even if my calculations are off by a factor of 10, that would still only be a cost of 7 cents per ton.
Estimating an average $600,000 operating cost, per boat, per year. (A bit More in developed countries a bit less in underdeveloped countries) This would be a total operating expenditure, for all 800 boats, of $480 million per year. Each boat would be removing approximately 90,000,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year. The entire fleet would be capable of removing 71,500,000,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere per year. This would be a total of approximately 140,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere every year. It must also be remembered that as well as consuming carbon dioxide, and in most cases falling to the bottom of the sea, the plankton would provide incredible amounts of food for the ocean's ecosystem. In five years, we would increase the available fish stocks on the planet by at least 50%. This would be on the order of 50,000,000 tons of additional seafood each year. This would amount to an additional harvest of 10 to 15 pounds for every single person on the planet.
Wind Powered Mixing Buoys
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how these would work. They would be standard Marine buoys that would be fitted with the equipment to draw the deep water up to the surface and disperse it as far as possible, using one or more horizontal wind powered pumps. The updraft tube, pumps, and spray nozzles would need to be made out of a material that would discourage clogging by Marine growth, possibly Teflon or polyethylene. These buoys would be anchored using very long, mooring cables. Ideally they would move in a circle of at least a mile as the wind pushed them in different directions. These buoys could be fabricated, and maintained locally in underdeveloped countries, with the idea in mind of enhancing the local fishery.
Wind Powered Mixing Rafts or Barges
These rafts or barges would just be larger versions of the buoys. Each barge could have between 30 and 50 horizontal windmills on them spraying the water out as far as possible. Once again they could be fabricated locally with the key reason, of course, being local fisheries management. The buoys and barges wouldn't just fertilize the area directly under them. As the wind blows the surface of the ocean around, the buoys and barges would probably create a plume of plankton growth that could extend for 20 or 30 miles.
Offshore Drilling Platforms
This one is delightfully ironic. All offshore drilling rigs could be required to mix all the water within a given number of miles of the rig. Once they know the facts, the oil companies might very well do this voluntarily. They would realize that this requirement of reducing carbon and enhancing the local fisheries would make it much easier to get the okay to put these drilling platforms in. With the oil companies coming under more and more fire for the carbon dioxide problems, this would be worthwhile for them strictly on a public relations basis. Once again, this mixing would most likely create a wind driven plume that would extend far beyond the target area.
Carrying Coal to Newcastle
Another way of remineralizeing the surface of the ocean would be to carry the minerals out to sea in modified ore carrier ships. The nutrients we are discussing here are for the most part, minerals. A land-based source of these minerals would be the dried silt that's dredged from almost all the world's rivers on a regular basis. An ore carrier with the equipment to mix and spray muddy silt laden ocean water out as far as a quarter of a mile on each side. This method could be used, as a backup method, wherever the deep ocean water was found to be less nutrient rich. It could also be used to further enhance or expand areas of natural upwell. This activity might be especially worthwhile in areas of the Arctic, where the extra plankton would produce extra clouds, and probably alleviate some of the stress on the polar bear population.
Me: Why would Plankton produce clouds? Water sprayed into the air would make more snow, but probably not 1% more snow.
Bill: This link to a page on the website of the United States environmental protection agency verifies that phytoplankton is in fact, 40% carbon, also explains that phytoplankton removes other undesirable compounds from the atmosphere and ocean as well. Scroll down to 2.2
http://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/invasive/zmussels/sec2.htmlThis link to a page that verifies the passage of gases from the atmosphere to the ocean, and from the ocean to the atmosphere.
Read full page
http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/1w0.htmlThis link to a page on the NASA website verifies that phytoplankton are apparently capable of creating their own cloud cover. Scroll down six to 8 inches
http://www.nasa.gov/lb/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0702planktoncloud.htmlThis link to another page on the NASA website (Earth Observatory) verifies the fact that plankton doubles numerical population each day.. Read full page
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Phytoplankton/phytoplankton2.htmlThis link to another page on the NASA website (Earth Observatory) verifies the following facts; The natural upwell all of the nutrients in winter, plankton live for a day or two, and the ocean food chain. Read full page, but pay special attention to the bottom third.
,http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Phytoplankton/
This link is a page on the coastal Conservancy website, that gives a good explanation of upwelling, and areas of the ocean that are the most productive. This page also explains the fact that 50% of the fish harvest of the world comes from only 1% of the oceans. Read bottom half of page, and left sidebar
http://www.coastalconservancy.ca.gov/coast&ocean/summer98/a02.htmThis link is a page explaining carbon credits, and how they work. Read as much as you're interested in, it's Strictly FYI
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002864.html----June 9, 2007
After I completed this document I discovered a company near San Francisco (Planktos Corp.) that is also planning to sequester carbon by promoting the growth of plankton.
Their plan would work about as well as mine but would probably end up being 10 to 50% more expensive. Their basic plan includes merely adding iron to patches of the ocean. The problem with this is, that adding iron-only would cause a plankton bloom that would last a couple of weeks at most. After a couple of weeks the bloom would use up one or more of the other micronutrients (mostly minerals) that are necessary for continued growth. So after two weeks, or so, the plankton would die off, and couldn't be revived using iron-only for at least six to eight months. Six to eight months is how long it would take for the thermocline to break down, and allow winter upwelling to replenish the other surface nutrients. If they set out in 100 iron spewing boats and kept moving across the ocean, it would take a year plus to cover all the infertile ocean.
