Fertilizing the Oceans With RUST - This Surprised Me

pouring rust into the oceans as fertilizer could be the answer reaching carbon neutrality on a global scale that's right I know that sounds crazy but there is a plan to suck out excess carbon from the atmosphere by growing phytoplankton using rust as a fertilizer now this idea has been around for as long as 30 years but it has always been marred in controversy with the danger of even worse carbon emissions from the formation of dead zones in the ocean but could this plan actually work and if so would the benefits outweigh any possible unintended consequences so there's some pretty amazing parts to the story that you're not going to want to miss so stay tuned till the end and let's find out I'm Ricky and this is two big adventure this video is brought to you by delete me see the last idea syncing algae is a form of carbon capture was all about taking a reactive approach that would help manage and take advantage of massive algae blooms like the Great Atlantic sargassum belt aka the giant seaweed blob but some researchers and business people are now proposing to take more proactive approaches to hit on the same goals by intentionally triggering photosynthetic phytoplankton blooms the idea is to use iron rust as fertilizer to feed phytoplankton and help it grow absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and then sequestering it as the dead phytoplankton cells and high carbon animal exertions from the animals that eat it at the bottom of the ocean this would have the added benefit providing a rich source of food and nutrients for the rest of the ocean's food chain bringing life and fishing back to where we've been depleting it by overfishing and polluting it for years such a simple and elegant solution right well this actually has many scientists and ecologists in an uproar painting this idea as a form of geoengineering a term that seems innocuous but is kind of at the root of all evil for some people a crazy experiment that could go horribly wrong and end up doing much more harm than good affecting everyone on the planet if it succeeds though it could be the single most important carbon capture solution at global scale one that would cost as little as two dollars per ton of captured carbon making it the cheapest option available in history but the problem is that it would also end up triggering even worse greenhouse gas emissions than it captures and even create oxygen depleted dead zones in the wide structures of the ocean instead of blooming life back to the water in spite of these dangers and despite the lack of consent among climate scientists and oceanographers about this Effectiveness one American businessman called George Russ aka the Pacific Ocean hacker made it his mission to fertilize the ocean with rust this solopreneur and self-proclaimed ocean pasture specialist was viciously attacked by governments and scientists the world over even Green Peace left Japanese Wells alone for the first time to chase him down across the seas as if he was the devil incarnate International laws were passed governments were mobilized green priests threatened to literally sink his ship yet they couldn't stop him he managed to do a large-scale ocean pasture restoration experiment back in 2012 and the results were staggering we'll get back to that in a few moments but first let's take a look at how this whole idea started give me half a tanker of iron and I'll give you the next ice age that's the most famous quote from the late oceanographer John Martin of Moss Landing Marine observatories in California he said that in 1988 when he first proposed his iron hypothesis about a revolutionary new way of capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the seabed the original paper was published in 1990 and presented a hypothesis that explains the link between iron Supply phytoplankton production and the sequestration of carbon in depth which was responsible for the low carbon dioxide levels that led to the last ice age in fact I don't know if you realize this but it's actually this form of phytoplankton carbon sequestration that later turned into the fossil fuels like gasoline and oil that we're burning today not dinosaur remains like they've been teaching Us in school it's all based on something called the ocean's biological carbon pump here's a simplified step-by-step explanation of how it works before I get into that have you ever Googled yourself to see how much private information is public online I have and it's seriously shocking and why I signed up for delete me it's crazy to me that collecting people's personal information and selling it online is a legit business but here we are delete me is a hands-free subscription service that will remove your personal information that's being sold online they remove you from Google and 100 plus data Brokers all year long get a privacy report in as little as seven days remove all your personal information like phone number and address monitor your sites and repeat removal as needed and users can even request custom removals I've been a member now for almost nine months and I'm about to receive my third quarterly report and it's not just about you how about your family members for me I worry about my mom and dad and delete me makes it really easy to protect everyone that you love have you ever heard of the expression if something is free you're the product being sold well take pack your privacy online get that extra peace of mind having experts on your side and save 20 on all plans but delete me and discount code Ricky links in the description huge thanks to delete me and you for supporting the show in the sunlit upper layer of the ocean tiny plant-like organisms called phytoplankton grow by using sunlight carbon dioxide and nutrients they convert CO2 into organic matter through photosynthesis the same as plants do here on land then small animals call zooplankton eat the phytoplankton transferring the organic carbon stored in phytoplankton into their bodies the zooplankton are then eaten by larger marine life such as fish which in turn may be consumed by even larger predators and so on transferring carbon up the food chain with zooplankton and other marine organisms excrete waste or die they release carbon-rich particles these particles along with the remains of phytoplankton and other organic matter snow down toward the ocean floor the Marine snow slow slowly sinks through the water column moving carbon from the surface of the ocean to the deep ocean something called carbon export as the Marine snow sinks it's broken down by bacteria and other decomposers some of the carbon is released back into the water as dissolved carbon dioxide and ultimately end up back at the atmosphere but some of it is incorporated into the bodies of deep sea organisms or buried in the sediment at the ocean floor this traps the carbon away from the atmosphere for decades to Millennia overall the ocean's biological pump is one of the most important natural carbon sinks in the world it's estimated to suck up 5 to 12 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere each and every year to put this in perspective according to the UN the total Global annual carbon emissions mounted to 37 gigatons per year in 2021. so the ocean sucks up a significant portion of our carbon emissions with land-based carbon sinks trees sucking up even more but there's still an obvious Act access in production which is why we're here talking about carbon capture it's estimated that we'd still need to either capture or reduce our annual carbon emissions by at least one gigaton every year to reach carbon neutrality and the global climate goals of the Paris agreement so if we could boost biological pumps to soak up one extra gigaton of carbon from the air it would be smooth sailing from here on out or at least that's what the ocean fertilizer Advocates tell us the question is could we really and also would we want to to answer the first question we need to understand why the plan is to fertilize the ocean with rust I mean rust isn't your typical fertilizer right does the ocean have anemia or something the explanation is actually very simple phytoplankton blooms work just like a big Factory in the ocean it needs a steady supply of nutrients just like a factory needs a steady supply chain like all plants the main nutrients phytoplankton need to grow are carbon nitrogen and phosphorus scientists used to believe that the limb limiting factor was always phosphorous since that's the hardest element to come by in the open ocean there's a ton of carbon and nitrogen in our atmosphere that dissolves freely in the ocean but it turns out that phytoplankton can't use the nitrogen as it is in the air they did a special enzyme to fix the nitrogen and that enzyme needs iron to work so it turns out to be iron and not phosphorus or any other nutrient which limits phytoplankton growth in the Open Seas the good thing is that you need very little iron to make phytoplankton grow since it's only a micronutrient making it literally dirt cheap but how much carbon could we capture even if we did fertilize the oceans with iron that's where the debate starts heating up the truth is no one really knows even if we boost phytoplankton and absorb more carbon from the air that doesn't guarantee that the carbon will end up sequestered in the sea floor in the biological pump phytoplankton enters the food chain so most of the carbon ends up dissolved back in the oceans as CO2 and back into the atmosphere because sea creatures like all animals breathe oxygen and use it to turn their food into energy water and CO2 so in the end only a small fraction of the phytoplankton biomass actually makes it to the deep ocean you know that carbon export we were talking about a minute ago and no one has been able to accurately measure exactly how much that is or even if the phytoplankton blooms after iron fertilization increase that carbon export it's all still very theoretical but still the worst estimates based on the extent of iron deficient Waters around the globe imply that this technique may be capable at Best of sequestering one gigaton of carbon dioxide per year which is precisely what we need to reach carbon neutrality so it's the hold up the concept of geoengineering the ocean through iron fertilization has been met with both excitement and concern while the potential benefits of increased phytoplankton growth and carbon sequestration are evident there are several dangers associated with the process besides phytoplankton introducing iron to the ocean can encourage the growth of harmful algal blooms which can release neurotoxins and harm marine life as well as negatively impact human health and Coastal economies all-terrain nutrient balances in the ocean can disrupt delicate marine ecosystems potentially leading to cascading effects of various species and habitats none of which we're fully aware of and fully understand just yet the long-term impacts of iron fertilization on the ocean and Global Climate are still not well understood either unintended consequences and side effects could emerge as the processes scaled up making it difficult to predict and manage some scientists believe the effect could even be worse than the problem of methane producing bacteria eating dead Plankton since methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 one important unintended consequence and a strong reason for pushback against this type of geoengineering is that even though phytoplankton produces oxygen through photosynthesis phytoplankton blooms can actually produce oxygen depleted dead zones in the ocean when they're eaten by oxygen Hungary zooplankton or other Aquatic Life forms some studies such as the ones conducted by researchers at MIT suggest to iron fertilization may not have a significant overall effect on carbon export making an ineffective method for carbon capture finally there are many reasons why the real cost of carbon sequestration using carbon fertilization may be much higher than originally thought between offsets from unintended methane and nitrous oxide production to lower than expected carbon export the actual cost could be as high as 457 dollars per ton of CO2 putting it among the most expensive Solutions on the market today as you can see the ocean is a complex system and there's literally no way to know for certain what something like a global scale iron fertilization project would do to the world but it seems some people just don't care about risks and uncertainty and that's the case with Russ George an American businessman who dedicated his life to helping rid the world of excess carbon emissions first by planting trees then by fertilizing the ocean with rust all while making some money on the side while selling carbon credits you gotta love the enterprising businessman he's also probably the reason why this idea was satanized from the start you see Russ decided to make Martin's iron hypothesis and turn it into a cheap carbon credit Gold Mine his idea was to sell companies carbon credits for fertilizing the ocean with rust assuring them that the technique would successfully capture carbon while boosting the ocean's food chain and bringing about more fish to the ocean but the problem is that this is an unproven technology and a dangerous one at that when Greenpeace caught on that the guy who sold the Vatican an imaginary forest was about to dump thousands of tons of rust in the Galapagos one of the most important natural reserves in the world they put in all their guns at George Russ and to whoever they thought would be pursuing the idea they even lobbied to get International laws passed against that type of intervention and threatened to literally sink George's vessel if he insisted Russ paid no mind he convinced an impoverished community of salmon fishermen the Haida people in a village of old Masset in British Columbia to fund and execute the plan in the northeastern Pacific Ocean in the hopes that it would become a source of income in the form of carbon credits and that would bring back their beloved salmon Russ is nothing if not a great salesman and he got the entire Community involved putting up 2.5 million dollars in July 2012 he set sail with the Heda and dumped 100 to 120 tons of iron sulfate apparently violating several International laws to the outrage of scientists policy makers and oncologists the world over George Russ was called a rogue geoengineer and a scandal really made a dent in the ocean fertilization as a carbon capture technology idea so here's an open question for you is it better to ask for permission or forgiveness do the ends justify the means you could say that depends on the consequences regardless of the Scandal results suggests that they hate a salmon restoration project object as it was called was a resounding success satellite images proved that there are indeed a phytoplankton Bloom shortly after iron fertilization but most importantly the year after the experiment was the second largest salmon Harvest on record in Alaska with almost 300 million salmon harvested that year worth 691 million dollars according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game this was a hundred million more fish most of them pink salmon than the previous year in 2011. even better none of the feared negative side effects were ever seen no dead zones no unwanted toxic algal blooms or red tides and no extra carbon emission in the form of methane just a ton more fish you'd think this would have been enough to convince many and to Harold George Ross as a hero but that didn't happen the Canadian government turned its back on the project saying they didn't have a clue what they were up to even though they gave them equipment to monitor the results of the experiment and they weren't allowed to do it again the only thing that Russ hasn't been able to prove yet is if the experiment did in fact increase carbon sequestration he says he's got all the data and thousands upon thousands of water samples and that they need to go through them all and figure out if it worked that said it's been over a decade since and nothing so what do you guys think was it all just a big bunch of Hokum it's hard to tell either way there have been reports of this technique working before at least on a small scale a German researcher named Victorious matesic and his team of oceanographers conducted the European iron fertilization experiment in February to March 2004 and concluded that iron fertilization did induce a bloom of a special type of phytoplankton called diatoms and at least half of the total biomass of the diatom Bloom sank below the 1000 meter Mark sequestering all the carbon with it but this was a very small scale project and there's no way to ensure it would work in a full scale setup so the question Still Remains should we push on are these results enough for us to give the green light and frankly I'm divided on this one it seems like a promising and simple solution to greenhouse gas emissions yet there's so much uncertainty that it's possible Russ and the hated people and the rest of the world for that matter just got really lucky what I don't believe in is villainizing such a promising technology just because one man in a small village of poor fishermen decided to act on his own accord disregarding the Judgment of other experts and the International Community at large the fact remains that we need to use all possible means to lower carbon in the atmosphere that we can get our hands on because what we're doing currently just is not enough but we also have to remember that capturing carbon is only half of the equation we also need to keep working on ways to reduce our carbon emissions otherwise no effort in carbon capture will ever be enough to reach carbon neutrality so that's a look at fertilizing the ocean with rust I can't wait to see what you guys think about this I mean it just feels like there's so many potential unintended consequences it's a little bit like Pandora's box and it kind of just shows a little bit of hubris on the part of humanity to think that we know better than the oceans but there have been some promising results and I think I don't know I'm torn what do you guys think let me know in the comments below all right I'm Ricky Da Vinci see you next time

Channel: Two Bit da Vinci

Views: 166,612

Keywords: two bit da vinci, Scientists Think RUST Can Save Our Oceans - Here's Why, ocean rust, rust ocean farming, rust ocean farm base, ocean metal rust, rust ocean guide, saving our oceans, fertilizing the ocean, ocean farming, future ocean farming, the key to saving our oceans, restoring fish, restoring fishing, ocean revival, reviving the oceans, ocean rust fertilization, fertilizing the ocean with rust, ocean conservation, Fertilizing the Oceans With RUST - This Surprised Me

Id: 3UJPMCKY9W8

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 05 2023