Connecting Carbon Capture with Oceanic Biomass Production

Abstract

The climate change believed by anthropogenic emission is not isolated but tightly coupled with other issues including biodiversity loss and ocean acidification etc., and in order to prevent the potential serious impacts, both political and technological methods are being tried for greenhouse mitigation. Dimming the income sunlight by some "geoengineering" approaches currently seem ruinously expensive and technically difficult, and would not prevent the increase of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in atmosphere and ocean acidification, so capturing carbon to reduce the environmental concentration of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and promoting renewable energy development for the reduction of using fossil fuels are very necessary. Biofuels derived from natural and agricultural biomass could be deployed for power production and existing transportation needs. The current economics are more favorable for conversion of edible biomass into biofuels, which could spend plenty of freshwater and farmlands, compete with food supply, and create a "carbon debt" with local ecosystem destruction by deforestation to expand biofuel-crop production. So it is vital to develop processes for converting non-edible feedstock such as lignocellulose and microalgae into biofuels.Compared with lignocellulose, microalgae have higher growth rates, don't need plenteous freshwater for irrigating, and can grow in the conditions that are not favorable for terrestrial biomass growth. The current limitation of microalgal biofuels is the microalgae cultivation cost, and to compensate the high cost of microalgal biofuels, three suggestions are propounded here. (i) Using ships as the platforms of cultivating microalgae, producing biofuels, and transporting feedstock and products on a large scale on subtropical oligotrophic oceans, where the ocean's least productive waters are formed with compared peaceful surface condition and poor marine communities. (ii) Operating different kinds of oceanic biomass productions for high-value products to compensate the cost of microalgal biofuels. Different kinds of microalgae and macroalgae (seaweeds) could be cultivated for biofuels, chemicals, healthy food, and feed for breeding economic marine species to satisfy the accelerating demands for seafood supply and simultaneously mitigate the fast decline of wild stocks. (iii)Constituting financial subsidies to make CO 2 as the feedstock of microalgae cultivation for -1 -Nature Precedings :

Sources of Aerosol Acidity at a Suburban Site of Nanjing and Their Associations with Chlorophyll Depletion

“…Since incidental inputs of acidic substances as water-soluble inorganic ions (e.g., NO 3 – ) via atmospheric wet deposition (e.g., rain) have led to negative effects on the terrestrial ecosystem, − large-scale monitoring networks including the Global Atmosphere Watch Programme (established in the 1950s) () and the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (established in 1978) () were launched to track the trends of atmospheric acidic deposition. ,− Data sets obtained from these large-scale monitoring networks provide significant evidence for decision-making supporting the implementation of relevant policies to prevent both wet and dry atmospheric acid deposition. ,− …”

Multiscale Analysis and Optimisation of Photosynthetic Solar Energy Systems

“…The current lack of comprehensive measures for HANPP in aquatic ecosystems is of limited consequence in discussing the potential to replace fossil fuels with fuels derived from current NPP because almost all proposals for producing the latter involve land-based production systems. However, Wang [154] gives an ambitious proposal for large-scale domestication of open ocean for bio-energy production using aquatic micro-organisms. In light of available evidence for strong pre-existing human interference in aquatic ecosystems, such a proposal suggests that comprehensive study of aquatic HANPP may be increasingly important.…”