Today’s Oceans and a 94M-Year-Old Catastrophe | Hacker News Reader

Today’s Oceans and a 94M-Year-Old Catastrophe

theatlantic.com

39 pointsDrScump11 comments

Several years ago I wrote a piece titled, "To Save the Gulf, Send the Enterprise". At the time the Deepwater Horizon oil geyser was spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and the well's owners were trying to figure out what to do.

I suggested sending the US Navy's portable nuclear reactors (such as carried in the Enterprise and other aircraft carriers) to aerate the ocean surrounding the oil geyser. It was entirely impractical - a navy blogger responded to my email with a blog post (and a link) to say it was a terrible idea.

The Enterprise has since been retired, and is currently being disposed of. But I think the core of the idea is still valid. Aeration would help deal with all this agricultural runoff...

Maybe I'll write a new post for my neglected website: http://SendTheEnterprise.org/

Was it an official navy blogger or just a person in the navy with a blog?

It was not an official US Navy blog. Here's the link: http://blog.usni.org/2011/03/19/send-the-enterprise/

Seems entirely reasonable; using a nuclear reactor to pump vast amounts of air into the water. While you can have high volume, it is restricted to a relatively small area only. To have noticeable impact on agricultural runoff, we need similar devices in river delta's. They can probably be less powerful; simple windmills probably could have a local measurable impact already.

Would you mind explaining how your proposal could help mitigate the effects of agricultural runoff?

People put bubblers in aquariums to support more fish than could otherwise survive based solely on the surface area of the tank.

The gulfs are basically anaerobic septic tanks. Adding oxygen would allow aerobic bacteria to consume the excess nutrients.

Edit: thanks for asking, I should develop this into a full blog post.

I would appreciate a blog post or article on this topic. I asked for an explanation because I see a number of serious obstacles to implementing a solution of this kind. A more complete explanation would give you the space to lay out the proposal in a way that might answer my objections. FYI - I work in the environmental field and so I am genuinely curious about the specifics of your proposal. If you do write a more complete version, please let me know .

  haZard_OS@protonmail.com

How do you get rid of the heat in the ocean that allows for less oxygen to dissolve in the water?

I think air bubblers at depth would bring cold water to the surface. Just speculation, though.

Aren't the algae in the ocean responsible for creating most of the oxygen that we mammals breath?

If the problem is too much life of the wrong sort (algal bloom) appropriate solutions are probably biological too.

Follow the carbon and the energy.

Life tends to concentrate carbon; handy for us if it could be sequestered. So which living method of sequestration exists or could be engineered?

afaik the reason for the existence of oil and gas is not well understood. Above is a proposal to lay down a new layer of it.

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