Industrial GHG Reduction, Sustainable Growth and the IMBECS Protocol by Marine BECCS

We found this proposal genuinely ambitious in scope and could have large impacts if implemented. It could be a game changer. However, we found the proposal hard to follow and missing how key challenges will be addressed. For example, a pilot with 10 km2 will probably require international cooperation. It is not clear from the current description on how to achieve the author's vision, specifically, the technical and (long-term) environmental feasibility. We're intrigued by this idea, however to advance to the next round, the author will need to revise their proposal so that it is more straight-forward and includes how it will be achieved given real-world constraints. The feasibility of this proposal is unclear to the Judges -- please include a path to realizing the concept in a plausible way. Good luck!

Marine BECCS proposes a whole new industry with many of the same advantages and issues as Ocean Forestry (See Global Plan – Reversing Climate Change with Ocean-healing Seaweed Ecosystems). Thoughts on Judges’ comments: 1. International cooperation hurdle – The fact that international cooperation is a challenge is a good indication this proposal has the scale needed to address Climate Change. Only proposals with small impacts won’t require international cooperation. This concern is also ironic because Climate CoLab’s mission is to change Industry away from Business as Usual. Business as Usual proceeds more as international competition than international cooperation. Note all the countries competing to claim Arctic Ocean oil and gas resources as the ice melts. Note the Canada telling the United States that tar sands oil will be burned with or without the Keystone Pipeline. More important, the first few million km2 operations will likely be within one country’s Exclusive Economic Zone: Fiji’s bays, Pacific Island lagoons, the Gulf of California, the Salton Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, (if we implement the Comments 3 & 4 version of Adaptation – Stop Groundwater Plan – Save $8 Billion), etc. 2. Environmental Feasibility at scale – The fact that long-term environmental feasibility is a concern is a good indication this proposal has the scale needed to address Climate Change. Even small-scale Industries like wind energy have long-term environmental issues at the necessary scale. At the necessary scale, wind energy changes global wind patterns, ocean wind energy changes the movement of nutrients in coastal waters, etc. Everything humans do at the necessary scale comes with questions on long-term environmental sustainability. At least the Marine BECCS has a scientific basis suggesting its long-term environmental sustainability is possible. Compare Marine BECCS to Business as Usual with associated ocean acidification and all the short- and long-term concerns which Climate CoLab seeks to address. Climate CoLab as an opportunity here to demonstrate how to apply precautionary principles in a manner which does not favor Business as Usual. 3. Technical Feasibility at scale – Marine BECCS is several whole new Industries to completely replace fossil fuels and even reduce CO2 concentrations. While Climate CoLab’s general theme is in the “box” of reduce emissions. Marine BECCS is in a larger “box” of “reduce concentrations” which encompasses the smaller “box” of “reduce emissions.” As a suggestion of several whole new Industries in the larger “box”, one should anticipate the need to “learn by doing” on many of the sub-industries (component processes). When the fossil oil industry began, oil beneath the oceans was not even considered as “reserves” because the technology was not available. Oil and gas in shale plays only recently entered the “reserves” because hydraulic fracturing became economic. Similarly for tar sands oil. Like most industries the fossil fuel industry started with the low-hanging fruit and worked its way up the tree. Climate CoLab seeks to inspire more “thinking ahead” than typical when starting new industries. In addition, the urgency of Climate Change issues suggests humanity should “leap right into the deep water”. We should work out the technical details of both Marine BECCS and Ocean Forestry as if our survival depended on it. 400 ppm of CO2 already dooms us to 10-20 meters of sea level rise over a few centuries (and similarly large disasters from other effects of humanity’s geologically sudden emission of greenhouse gases). Thinking ahead, humanity does not have the luxury of growing the capabilities of Marine BECCS over a century. As you review Marine BECCS, please consider all the information available for Ocean Forestry. The proposals are both ocean-based and offer full-scale concentrations reductions. The Ocean Forests are designed such that the economics should favor an ocean-healing ecosystem. Marine BECCS is more of a minimal impact tank-farming of microalgae. Both proposals require substantial research, which should not prevent “learn by doing.” The following is a discussion of the kinds of science anticipated for Ocean Forests. The “Industry” judges should review the following, the Global Plan – Reversing Climate Change with Ocean-healing Seaweed Ecosystems, and the links within both proposals. Ocean Research Infrastructure in 2030 with Ocean Forestry The National Research Council’s Critical Infrastructure for Ocean Research and Societal Needs in 2030 (Report) recommends funding future ocean research infrastructure primarily based on the anticipated societal benefit of the research. The Report diagrams the links between ocean infrastructure, scientific research, relevant societal objectives, and benefits with achieving these objectives. We (all 7 billion of us) have the opportunity to go beyond “research providing benefits” by envisioning a new ocean ecosystem. Like most natural ecosystems it would harness sunlight and photosynthesis and work with the conditions available in our oceans. Most oceans are nutrient deserts, not because there is no nutrient input, but because the nutrients sink below the photosynthesis zone too quickly. If our research enables us to capture and recycle nutrients quickly, our new ecosystem could sustain biodiversity and primary productivity in what are now nutrient deserts. If our research enables us to extract the carbon while recycling the nutrients, our new ecosystem could provide renewable energy and sequestration ready carbon indefinitely. If our new ecosystem is designed with research infrastructure, research and ecosystem improve synergistically. Our new ecosystem will represent a quantum jump in how humans care for and research oceans. For the past million years, humans have taken from ocean resources as hunter-gatherers or miners. Within the last few decades we have been trying single species feed-lots with the same issues as terrestrial feed lots. Our ocean research infrastructure has developed from our hunter-gatherer perspective. In this new ecosystem, research is not an afterthought. Research generates our energy and food producing ecosystem. Our energy and food producing ecosystem funds more research. It should be possible to arrange our new research-food-energy-biodiversity-ecosystem like a managed forest. In an ocean forest, primary productivity and biodiversity develop naturally while we extract a small portion of the sun’s energy as a gas or liquid fuel. The ecosystem will have human components, connections, transport systems and the like which are ideal platforms for research sensors. As the ecosystem expands, income from the sustainable products funds instrumenting huge volumes of the ocean. Ocean Forestry Research Opportunities Ocean Foresters, December 2012 None of the research opportunities mentioned below are their own islands. Everything is relative to everything else. The questions apply to the whole ecosystem. For example, the nutrient recycling has to grow an ocean forest that can be harvested and processed in order to return nutrients for more forest growth. Ocean Forestry is explained by Dr. Antoine N’Yeurt in “Negative Carbon via Ocean Afforestation” available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957582012001206. Ecosystem research opportunities What are the interconnections and interrelationships of all the questions below? Can we map all the possible large-scale OCEAN FORESTRY locations with overlays of complementary and competing interests for the marine resources (transportation, hunting-gathering, oil mining, etc) Legal and Global Policy research opportunities The OCEAN FORESTRY ecosystem can be an active marine sanctuary where solar energy powers the recycling of seaweed growing nutrients. The growing seaweed counteracts ocean acidification by pulling CO2 out of the ocean rapidly. The tiny shell creatures in passive marine sanctuaries are already dissolving and are doomed to extinction. Their death means the slow death (this century) of passive marine sanctuaries without some form of intervention. (We could confirm the locally lower pH by studying the Sargasso Sea.) Might OCEAN FORESTRY ecosystems be protected as active marine sanctuaries where the agencies operating the active sanctuary manage the fishing, farming, and forestry rights? How else to manage food production from the OCEAN FORESTRY ecosystem for millennia? Is this best done with transferrable quotas? Do OCEAN FORESTRY ecosystems in the active marine sanctuary role need liability insurance or protection from thieves? Suppose thousands of tons of seaweed and trapped fish wash up on an island beach. Should the OCEAN FORESTRY operator compensate the island tourism industry? Or does the island beneficially salvage the “escaped” OCEAN FORESTRY products with or without compensating the OCEAN FORESTRY? Microbial research opportunities related to anaerobic digestion How do the rate and completeness of ocean anaerobic bacterial digestion on seaweed at ocean conditions differ from the terrestrial situation? Are the Migliore results for digesting seaweed in higher-salinity-than-ocean water universal? (Migliore G., Alisi C., Sprocati A.R., Massi E., Ciccoli R., Lenzi M., Wang A., Cremisini C., (2012) "Anaerobic digestion of macroalgal biomass and sediments sourced from the Orbetello Lagoon, Italy", Biomass and Bioenergy 42 69-77) Are there “ideal” temperatures for ocean anaerobic digestion just as there are ideal temperatures for terrestrial anaerobic digestion? Are ocean bacteria applying different principles of molecule movement than freshwater 1-atm bacteria for anaerobic digestion? Existing research at 1-atm with freshwater suggests that higher concentrations of dissolved gas products reduce the rate of gas production. Perhaps a higher dissolved gas concentration leaves the gas molecules lingering on the cell wall longer? That is, the final rate-limiting step is the conversion of dissolved gas to gas. Vigorous agitation and lower pressure (a partial vacuum) result in a 600% increase in the reaction rate. (Finhey and Evans, Anaerobic Digestion-the Rate Limiting Process and the Nature of Inhibition, Science, 1975) Ocean pressures allow us to easily operate in a situation where the CH4 is at dissolution equilibrium, but the CO2, H2S, and perhaps others are at far higher than 1-atm concentrations while still far less than equilibrium concentrations. (Trost, US Patent 5,651,890, July 29, 1997). If the transfer of CH4 from dissolved to gas is rate limiting, will a gas stripping molecule speed the rate of CH4 production? Trost, US Patent 5,681,890, 1997, found that the introduction of liquid propane into 1-atm, freshwater anaerobic digestion in amounts of 6 to 15% by volume of the biogas increases the biogas production rate substantially. This research was limited to the 1-atm situation where the propane initially flashes to a gas and is then dissolved from the gas bubbles. Propane and other “gases” and materials may offer more insights into molecule movement across the cell wall when the material is dissolved directly from its liquid or solid state because of the higher pressure. Will relatively higher concentrations of dissolved bioCO2 cause the more dissolved bioCO2 to be converted to bioCH4? That is, will the microbes produce relatively more bioCH4 and less bioCO2 under ocean conditions? Seawater offers a substantial buffer to the lowering pH effects of increased dissolved CO2. However, ocean bacteria may have evolved conversion to CH4 as a defense against increased dissolved CO2 concentrations. How does the DNA of the ocean bacteria associated with anaerobic digestion differ from the DNA of fresh water, relatively low pressure bacteria? Fish in seawater excrete calcium carbonate pellets. Fish in fresh water do not produce calcium carbonate pellets. (Wilson et al. 2009, Contribution of Fish to the Marine Inorganic Carbon Cycle, Science) Are the bacteria in saltwater fish intestines producing dissolved CO2 and CH4? Is the dissolved bioCO2 essential to calcium carbonate production? What are the plant nutrients remaining after the gas production, after the anaerobic digestion is completed, and how might they support expanded seaweed growth? Hydrothermal processing research and development opportunities Can hydrothermal conversion be accomplished more economically with the “free” pressure of the deep ocean? (Place the equipment about 2,000 meters deep.) Macroalgae (seaweed) research opportunities How are the nutrients recycled to foster growth of macroalgae and inhibit growth of microalgae? What blend of algae makes the best ocean forest? (The best forest has the most sustainable blend of biodiversity, energy, food, and greenhouse gas reduction. It may differ depending on location, time of year, or multi-year cyclic event such as the Indian Ocean Dipole.) What algae harvesting techniques and equipment contribute to the desired ocean forest with the least energy and capital cost? (Or the best use of dissolved gas, wind, wave, solar, current, geothermal, etc. renewable energy.) Reducing the water content of the harvest may allow for smaller anaerobic digestion containers. During daylight, the water around the algae can have very high dissolved O2. The dissolved O2 is helpful for aerobic bacteria to convert the recycled ammonia to nitrate. However, dissolved O2 and nitrate must be reduced without losing significant carbon before the mass of water and algae is introduced to the anaerobic digestion container. Should the digestate be treated in a physical (or virtual) container in order to convert ammonia to nitrate before the digestate is diluted back to the ocean surface? Is any NO, N2O, or NO2 produced during the OCEAN FORESTRY nutrient recycle. If so, is there an NH4 distribution arrangement which minimizes "bad" nitrogen while quickly converting NH4 to NO3? What nutrients added to improve the anaerobic digestion process will also improve the growth of macroalgae, or the health of the fish feeding on the macroalgae, or the health of the predators on herbivores? For example we may add iron to the anaerobic digestion in order to intercept the sulfur from preferentially bonding with the hydrogen. Iron is often a lacking micronutrient for an algae forest. If the iron is capturing sulfur, will sulfur and iron concentrations increase or decrease primary productivity and biodiversity? What techniques and equipment are necessary to survive extreme weather such as tropical storms (cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes), unusual cold, or unusual hot? Is there a minimum or maximum size algal forest for optimal overall ocean health? Can we remove bioaccumulating toxics with some aquatic plant species without losing nutrients? How and why might algal forests in one ocean differ from those in another ocean? Do the different species have some of the same genes? Figure 1 – Pressure-Temperature relationship for CO2 in excess of dissolve equilibrium How do partial pressures influence the form of CO2 which is in excess of dissolution equilibrium in an anaerobic digester? Sealife and economics research opportunities Other than with Ocean Forestry, how can humanity ensure sustainable food, energy, biodiversity, while avoiding ocean acidification? Which sealife species complement the quadruple outputs? What species can be harvested while increasing biodiversity? What proportion of herbivores and predators evolves? What size should they be harvested for the best long-term ecosystem sustainability? Seeing that organisms rarely if ever stand alone, but are usually integral parts of an interwoven community, what is an appropriate target community for each oceanic region? Can we replicate or transplant already existing communities that have rich process path linking? How can we match the fish harvesting for long-term sustainability with the commercial value of each species? Is long-term biodiversity improved or harmed by occasional ecosystem “crashes?” The terrestrial analogy might be forest fires, bark beetles, or an excess of deer. In the ocean, the crash might be ocean acidification, or a pod of dolphins eat all the herbivores, or a toxic algal bloom, or a large storm sweeps the macroalgae onto a beach. Can we remove bioaccumulating toxics from the Ocean Forestry ecosystem without losing crucial quantities and types of nutrients? (Toxics: mercury from coal burning, plastic trash particles, etc.) Is there a minimum or maximum size algal forest and associated fish harvest for optimal overall ocean health? If some macro algae are diverted (outside the OCEAN FORESTRY ecosystem) to chemical and feed production, say through bio-refineries, how does this impact: biodiversity; economics; primary productivity; etc. Ocean Geophysicist research opportunities Is there more or less water evaporation from large open-ocean macroalgal forests? Higher or lower water temperatures relative to areas which remain nutrient deserts? Do large seaweed forests induce changes in ocean vertical mixing or ocean currents on either the local or the global scale? If there are changes, are those changes reinforcing or counteracting the changes induced by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases? Do large macroalgal forests induce local or global changes in atmospheric pressure and wind patterns? Are there changes in storm frequency, intensity, or waves? If so, are the changes reinforcing or counteracting the changes induced by increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases? Do algal forests induce micro climate effects, which are common with regular forests on land? And if so, what are these effects likely to be? (Note that large terrestrial rainforests such as the Amazon create their own rainy climate with rapid evaporation and precipitation for quick water cycling.) If Ocean Forestry is undertaken in open-ocean currents, are these currents spatially stable or predictable enough to enable efficient harvesting down-current? How far off track will afforested macroalgae be driven by storms, and will this allow efficient harvesting? How will increased greenhouse gas concentrations change the velocity of ocean currents? Can these changes be predicted to guide Forestry and harvesting? Ocean current monitoring via up-looking Doppler sonar has become commonplace as have autonomous transmitting floats and vehicles. To what extent should those employing the data (fishing fleets, OCEAN FORESTRY operators, navies) contribute to the installation and operation of data gathering? Undersea robotics research opportunities Remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) have seen extensive development in recent decades, thanks to funding from the offshore oil & gas industry. However they remain focused mainly on data gathering and light repairs. Can AUV’s be enhanced to perform complex heavy ocean forestry and carbon storage operations at -1,000 meter and -3,000 meter depths? How can we extend AUV power to obtain maximum deep water operating times? Improved batteries? Liquid-to-gas CO2 expansion? Fuel cells running on stored methane and oxygen or scavenging dissolved oxygen? Mini-geothermal power plants on hot seafloor vents? Microbial fuel cells generating energy from marine snow? Inertial navigation has become cheaper and more available, but it suffers from exponential Markov drift in all 3 dimensions. What navigation recalibrating systems might be deployed for in support of deep water projects? Other – Please share any issues you foresee which need to be addressed before Ocean Forestry could be scaled-up to have climatically-significant effects with the Ocean Foresters.

Ocean Foresters, Thank you for the input and pointing out "Marine BECCS is several whole new Industries". The benefits the oceans offer us is (IMMHO) truly perpetual....if we lean to take the long view in our relationship with them. The primary focus of the IMBECS Protocol is to lay down a foundation on which we can all find, through an equitable and transparent regiment, an abundance of critical commodities both now and generations from now. I gladly stand in front of the judgment of The Ocean Foresters.

Great project. I wish you the best!. As I supported your proposal I would appreciate you support my proposal in Waste Management Contest, named "REACC - Recycled Debris for Adaptation to Climate Change". Regards!

The judges said it well: "It could be a game changer." This project needs to be implemented immediately to save the planet from climate disaster. Thanks to Michael and the Ocean Foresters! On to victory! Jim Stewart, PhD, Physics (Yale Univ)

This proposal has not been advanced to the Finalists Round. While the idea is very ambitious, the judges felt it is very high level, and would need the agreement of multiple parties to get started on the proposal. The idea is very commendable, and could hold a lot of promise. However, there is a lot of inherent risk, due to the sheer number of stakeholders involved.