Green Options

The US Department of Energy has awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.2 million contract to construct a thermal piping system to capture the ocean’s absorbed solar heat.

The energy produced could be used to generate electricity or to fuel desalination, and according to the company, the process would be relatively harmless to the ocean’s environment. While scientists began fleshing out Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion in the 70’s, no one has yet been able to manufacture a workable commercial design.

With apologies to both Stephen King and Verizon Wireless, the “real” Dead Zones we need to talk about are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas in the world’s water systems that can no longer support aquatic life. As Joshua Hill, over at Plantsave has eloquently said,

Dead zones are created, in the beginning, by nitrogen (among other things). Nitrogen is the byproduct (in this instance) of natural gas transformed in to ammonia fertilizer, which is then spread across the agricultural landscape of many western and emerging nations.

From there the runoff makes its way to streams, then rivers and finally the oceans. It is at this stage upon reaching the ocean that the real trouble begins. The increase of nitrogen in the waters fuels the increase of algae which subsequently absorbs exorbitant amounts of oxygen, making life unbearable for most creatures…

To prevent toxic runoff from flowing down storm drains and into the rivers or ocean, Washington hopes to ban washing cars in driveways throughout the state.

While residents complain that washing cars is a family pastime that they should not be required to give up, officials say that the at-home car wash is too harmful to the environment to ignore. “I understand this is something people have done for a long time,” said Bill Moore, a water specialist with the Washington State Department of Ecology, which enacted the ban. “It’s not something we should be doing any longer.”

The efforts of Bush to protect oceans would likewise be welcome, especially given his administration’s lack of regard and disdain for other environmental issues.

Due to its southern location, Australia has experienced the effects of climate change more rapidly than other parts of the world—harsh storms and severe droughts have become more and more frequent over recent years. But one side-effect has some heading towards the beach: bigger and better waves.

Collectively a group of scientists, environmental groups, and former members of Australia’s navy have urged for the creation of a gigantic reserve that would ban fishing in a pristine 400,000 square mile area known as the Coral Sea– if approved, it will be the world’s largest protected marine area.

Located off of Australia’s northeast coast, the Coral Sea is rich with biodiversity and historical significance. In addition to being home to more than 25 coral reefs, endangered species of sea turtles, and 25 species of whales and dolphins, the Coral Sea was the location of a well-known World War II battle involving aircraft carriers– hence the Navy’s involvement.

A new study focusing on the Southern Ocean by scientists from the University of New South Wales, Australia, in tandem with researchers from the University of Paderborn and the Technical University of Dresden in Germany, has found previously unknown gyres that could play a massive part in the planet’s climate.

“The water in the gyres does not mix well with the rest of the ocean, so for long periods these gyres can trap pollutants, nutrients, drifting plants and animals, and become physical barriers that divert even major ocean currents,” says Dr Gary Froyland, a UNSW mathematician.

While Bush noted that consideration would be provided for energy development, mining, and fishing, the EDF hopes that the areas will receive full protection. Without it, such activities “…could harm the seabirds, turtles, and other wildlife that lives in these areas.”

Probably you missed it, but last week there was a fascinating interview on the NPR program Talk of the Nation. The segment featured a scientist named David Goldberg, who answered questions about his research concerning the plausibility of storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide in basalt formations deep below the earth’s oceans.

In a paper that is available online and will be published in an upcoming issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Goldberg and his colleagues write about how a basalt formation off of the coast of Oregon and Washington could potentially store anywhere from 120-150 years of carbon produced by the United States in its cavities (assuming current U.S. emission rates do not increase).

While initially I was extremely skeptical of this idea (because I thought that it might cause all kinds of unintended ecological havoc), by the end of the interview, I was somewhat more optimistic.

The two guys sailing across the Pacific in a Kon Tiki-style junk made of actual junk aren’t the only ones taking to the waters this month to call attention to how humans how fouled the seas. The annual Canoe Journey of the Coast Salish Nation of Washington state and British Columbia is also getting under way with a science-based environmental mission.

This year’s journey of 100-plus canoes across the Salish Sea to Cowichan First Nation in Duncan, British Columbia, will include five canoes carrying water-quality probes and global positioning systems (GPS) for measuring various aspects of Salish waters: temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, dissolved solids, turbidity and pH. Leading the study will be Sarah Akin, a scientist with the Swinomish Tribe. Two scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey — Eric Grossman and Paul Schuster — are also advising the project at the request of the Coast Salish.

This is the first time the canoe journey has taken on a scientific flavor, but it comes not a moment too soon.

It’s one thing to be appalled by the monstrous accumulation of millions of square miles of plastic waste spinning slowly in the North Pacific gyre. It’s another thing entirely to build an ocean-going vessel out of plastic waste and set out across the sea to call attention to the environmental catastrophe.

That’s exactly what two men, one from California and one from Hawaii, are now doing. The two — Marcus Eriksen, a Ph.D., Gulf War vet and director of research and education for the Long Beach-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and Joel Paschal, a former businessman in Hawaii and a one-time employee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — are sailing across the Pacific in a homemade vessel, Kon Tiki-style, to “raise awareness about plastic fouling our oceans.”