Dumping iron in the ocean: Planktos Inc.

Fishy science on global warming? Carbonate? In diatoms?

PLANKTOS, Inc., at its web page states...

"Plankton and trees both capture CO2 through photosynthesis and store the
carbon in their tissues. This sequestration of carbon helps reduce global
warming, one of the greatest crises facing humanity and Mother Nature
today."

AND...

"The increasing CO2-driven acidity of the surface oceans is not simply
attacking coral; much worse for the biosphere, it is lethally thinning the
carbonate bodies of diatoms. Paraphrasing Whitman's "all beef is grass"
insight, oceanographer Henry Bigelow declared, "All fish is diatoms"
(diatoms being half the tiny plankton plants that feed all swimming life and
exhale 30% of the global oxygen supply as well)." (Russ George, 4/17/2006)

However, it is totally inaccurate to say that DIATOMS have "carbonate
bodies". Diatoms are all made of silica (SiO2), NOT calcium carbonate (CaCO3).
It is the carbonate (CO3) that sequesters carbon dioxide (CO2). Silica does
absolutely nothing in this respect.

PLANKTOS, Inc., at its web page, also states...

Marine Snow, a Step in the Carbon Cycle
TURNING CO2 TO SUBMARINE SNOW
Where Planktos Ocean Carbon Goes to Retire

BUT then it notes, parenthetically but accurately...

"...marine snow is not only a vehicle for vertical flux of organic matter;
the aggregates are also hotspots of microbial respiration which cause a fast
and efficient respiratory turnover of particulate organic carbon in the
sea."

SO...

Unless the primary productivity of the iron-stimulated "marine snow" is made
up mostly of the calcium carbonate skeletons of coccoliths (such as are found in the chalky Cretaceous sediments at the White Cliffs of Dover) and not the more commonly found silica containing diatoms, most of the CO2 sequestered will be rapidly recycled back into the oceans and into the atmosphere by oxygen-driven microbial and animal respiration. Not exactly the formula for removing the carbon dioxide we have added, year-by-year to the global atmosphere. Thinking of investing in Planktos, Inc? CAVEAT EMPTOR.