Think Twice

As I'm sure many of you know, Planktos has been all over the press recently. Not surprisingly, a surplus of good press is often followed with debate.

The convincing arguments in these debates (some of the arguments are non-factual) raise three main questions:

1) Are carbon credits an excuse for companies to pollute?
2) Is the ocean a sacred realm that we should leave to mother nature?
3) Should a for-profit company be allowed to contribute towards scientific research?

To be honest, the libertarian side of me wants to squash the protesters with a big anvil, but really, I know that public image matters to me. So here's my two cents -- overall, i think we are not in much disagreement at all. Planktos actually shares many of these concerns. (Feel free to hit the comment button if you want to debate anything.)

To address question 1, it is important to know that there is no source of carbon-free energy that is both feasible and immediate on a large scale, aside from nuclear energy. Trust me -- I spent a year in college getting my engineering specialization in energy technology, and I learned countless depressing lessons about our energy future. A silicon solar panel takes 40% of its lifespan to produce the same amount of energy that was used to make the cell. Ethanol uses even more energy in production, and also requires vast amounts of land and water. Hydro power, wind energy, bio diesel, and hydrogen fuel all suffer from insurmountable limitations. In the end, nuclear energy is our only viable option, but the idea of all that nuclear waste is a little hard to stomach.

Because of this limitation in technology, the debate about carbon credits has more to do with motivation than with carbon. It's true that a moderate amount of research money could be allocated to alternative energy research if it weren't being used for sequestration technology. There is also a fear that companies will purchase carbon credits instead of improving energy efficiency to meet greenhouse gas emission standards, thereby avoiding the problem instead of addressing it. (Fortunately, laws are being written that will prevent this.) Personally, I believe that big polluters need to be held accountable for their actions, and this is one way to redistribute their capital into costly ecosystem restoration projects.

Carbon credits can be implemented right away whereas feasible zero-emission technologies are decades down the road. Planktos does not think that carbon credits are the solution to global warming, nor do we think that they are better than emissions reductions. It seems obvious to me that reducing emissions AND researching new technologies would be the best path, so let's do both!


To address question number two: YES, I am in absolute positive agreement.

But only in principle.

Irreversible changes have already begun to occur in the oceans. Increased atmospheric CO2 has caused an increase in ocean acidity, and critters are literally going to dissolve as the rising acidity of their surroundings burns them away. Overfishing has vastly affected the oceanic food web. Coral reefs are constantly dying (actually, dissolving) and entire habitats are going extinct. In an ideal world, we would have stayed clear of ocean ecosystems a long time ago, but even if we leave the oceans completely, the changes we have made to the land surface will continue to affect marine ecosystems.

Wind-blown dust is a major provider of vitamins and minerals for plants growing in the middle of the ocean, and entire habitats die when the dust doesn't arrive. The satellite photograph on the right shows a dust storm blowing off the coast of Africa. This particular source delivers iron to thousands of square miles of Pacific and sends phosphates as far as the Amazon rain forest. These habitats depend on the dust to deliver these vital nutrients, and anthropogenic changes in land use have irreversibly altered the amount of dust that gets picked up by the wind. In the ocean, the supply of iron is constantly declining, and the marine environment suffers as a result.

Mother Nature may not have intended for people to sprinkle dust into the water, but a fair amount of scientific evidence suggests that it will be helpful. The patch of ocean that Planktos plans to fertilize is hundreds of times smaller than a natural, wind-born patch (the dust storm shown above is the size of Spain) thereby providing a large enough area for optimal research conditions, while still respecting the sanctity of the oceans. Data gathered from this plankton bloom will be used to verify (or deny) the influence of plankton on global warming, and will expand the literature about iron fertilization as described in IPCC 2007 and other documents. We are confident that our project will be successful, however it should be known that future blooms will not occur if initial tests show any risky or unnatural effects. We want the ocean to thrive!

Which brings us to question 3.

We are a research company. We are fully engaged in generating scientific results and comprehensive data, and our techniques mimic those used by iron fretilization experiments conducted by acedemic institutions in the past. The only thing that separates us is the way we fund these projects. Previous experiments conducted by academics were funded by government grants; Planktos uses self-generated funds that come from investors and buyers in the carbon market. Just because we depend on sales to fund our projects, we are not in any way profit-motivated or unconcerned with the environment -- why would we choose such a environmental project if this were true?

Of course, I understand that this is not the only conflict for scientists; the transition from research to application is challenging in every field of science. If I were studying the effectiveness of a new fertilizer, and a company began to commercialize the product during my experiment, I would feel robbed of the applicability of my research. As a company, this is a problem that is out of our control. But I assure you that Planktos conducts only the utmost quality of research, and that we are open to new ideas. If you're an ocean scientist and you are interested in the Planktos project, let us know. We are always eager to hear about new research, and willing to listen to individual points of view.