
To Save the Climate, Look to the Oceans - LinuxBender
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/to-save-the-climate-look-to-the-oceans/
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jakozaur
It omits one of the very promising, but somewhat controversial methods of CO2
sequestration:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization)

Even in the most optimistic CO2 reduction scenarios, we still need negative
emissions that will offset existing CO2 or use-case where eliminating fossil
fuels is not practical (e.g. airplanes).

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Valgrim
Whales play a crucial part in natural iron fertilization of oceans, because
they go deep underwater to eat a large amount of krill, which are iron-rich,
and deject near the surface, because they need to breathe. Their dejections
fertilize the phytoplankton which lives near the surface. Because they need to
move between deep and shallow water, and because they travel over large
distances, whales act as nutrient pumps for the ecosystem.

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pyronik19
Are you sure we don't just need them to talk to a giant probe ionizing our
atmosphere?

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gonzo41
Better to keep em around, just in case.

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austincheney
The article mentions power by wave energy. I could not tell from the article
if this is real or hypothetical. It sounds like a good idea but I have not
heard anything about this. That is a constant source of naturally occurring
kinetic energy. I did find the following on Wikipedia:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power)

As a Texan I heard a lot about potentially tapping wind energy from floating
turbines off the Galveston coast but have not heard about this in practice
while the wind farms in west Texas are exploding in volume.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Texas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Texas)

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pjc50
Wave power has been a pipedream since the 1970s; the problem is that water is
_too_ powerful and tends to destroy structures over time. As well as being
corrosive and full of living things that cause "fouling". It's also not been
very well funded.

Offshore wind turbines on the other hand are practically a mature technology,
while getting larger and larger over time (improves efficiency). There's loads
around the UK, although mostly fixed rather than floating. Floating is a less
mature technology.

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JoeAltmaier
Perhaps it would work better in estuaries, with clean(er) river/fresh water.
The ecological impact may be prohibitive, but as an engineering task it seems
easier.

~~~
pjc50
Extracting tidal power from estuaries is another similar pipe dream - people
have been discussing building one in the Severn estuary for as long as I have
been alive.

Tide power is intermittent but extremely predictable and not tied to the
diurnal cycle, which would be advantages.

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notahacker
They've been successfully extracting power from the Rance estuary for over
half a century.

The trouble with estuaries is that in addition to the ecosystem damage and
change to flood dynamics associated with hydro power in general, they also
tend to be used for ships to navigate, so getting a scheme which suits
everyone is a major challenge.

