Parejkoj, I’ve discussed this at Patent to Reverse Global Warming Here is a rough response with figures calculated again now. Please advise any errors detected. For assessment of magnitudes, assume oceanic algae could potentially produce one tonne of oil per hectare per day, fixing about one tonne of CO2, a yield above current algae methods.

I believe this and even higher yields will become possible with economies of scale and development of optimal methods for producing algae from CO2 that could otherwise be buried by carbon capture and storage. Divide this yield projection by ten for a starting baseline.

380 ppmv CO2 is about 3000 gigatonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere. We are adding 40 gigatonnes per year including CO2 equivalents, slated to increase to 70 gigatonnes in twenty years under Business As Usual, or to return to 40 GT net emissions under ambitious Copenhagen methods.

At one tonne CO2 per hectare per day, or 365 t/ha/year, fixing a gigatonne of CO2 per year requires three million hectares, or 30,000 square kilometres. Equalling the Business As Usual emission projection of 70 GT would require two million square kilometres of algae. Total ocean size is 500 million square km, so two million square km is 0.4% of the world ocean.

At present, as a NASA paper cited in my linked thread above explains, ten percent (50 million sq. km) of the ocean is classed as desert, with low surface chlorophyll. Locating algae farms in these regions would produce the equivalent of upwelling of rich cold currents, expanding fishery productivity.

Initial sites for technology development are shallow warm seas in politically stable locations, such as the US Gulf Coast and Australia’s North West Shelf. An initial step to assess the potential is to test polymer waterbag proposals, as seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TEJp6UZaDI In the Gulf of Mexico and Northern Australia, it is likely that this method could provide local ocean cooling with high protection against hurricanes and coral bleaching.

The method I have proposed is either a closed system which converts ocean nutrients into fuel or an open system which converts nutrient into algae for fish food. A closed system could fairly rapidly remove the nutrient from the dead zone near the mouth of the Mississippi River and convert it into diesel and fertilizer. […]

Also, I have been doing some compiling myself within this subject. I have found a set of data on SUV Co2 emission from Swivel.com and a friend of mine built the widget below - using this data.

http://www.youcalc.com/apps/1217583034988?application_popup=1

This Widget shows, among other things, how much CO2 a given engine size emits on the highway. That data was really surprising to me…

I am of the impression that you have similar interests as me when it comes to calculating on and visualizing data.
My friend is creating his widgets with a tool called youcalc.com. He finds it easy to use, because of three step process; add data source, crunch data and lastly visualize the data - just the way he wants it. You might want to have a look at the site?

Keep up the good work.

John

To add to it, there are still people who don’t even see it as a serious environmental threat for the future generations & another lot, who believes that there is nothing that can be done about it. The thoughts on ‘Global Warming’ (http://www.infodoro.com/fivewords/user/others/t/46: As listed here) clearly depict the divided opinions about it & the grave need to educate the masses & give it a serious treatment before its too late. US needs to wake up to the cause & accept the fact, that switching over to the nuclear energy resources wouldn’t be the only alternative - there is a need to curb the emissions as well & probably signing the Kyoto Protocol.

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JT

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JT

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=2c07121b-85c2-4799-9aaf-0c2688bf5ca1

There are many other mistakes in the programme that anyone with even a modest understanding of the issue will recognize immediately.