Posted on: Tuesday, July 2, 2002
CO2 experiment off Kaua'i nixed
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
NAWILIWILI, Kaua'i — An international consortium has dropped its planned experiment to pump liquid carbon dioxide into the waters off East Kaua'i.
The carbon sequestration experiment, which was moved to Kaua'i after failing to obtain approval off Keahole Point on the Big Island, is expected to go to a deep ocean location off Norway.
Isaac Harp, of the Coalition to Stop CO2 Dumping, said he was pleased at the number of people who stepped forward to oppose a project he saw as the first step to large-scale ocean dumping off Hawai'i.
Environmental scientist Allan Ota of the federal Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that his office had received a brief letter withdrawing permit requests for the project. He said the EPA was preparing an official announcement today.
Organizers of the experiment had grown increasingly concerned about how long it was taking to get government approvals for the experiment in Hawaiian waters, said Gerard Nihous, manager of the climate change program at the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR).
"It was always subject to the international sponsor's approval. The option now on the table is to do a field experiment in Norway," Nihous said.
Harp said organizers from Greenpeace had been in touch with him and were looking for ways to stop the project in Norway.
The sequestration experiment is seen as one of the building blocks to identifying ways to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is implicated as one of the prime causes of global warming.
The proposal was to pump about 5,000 gallons of liquefied food-grade carbon dioxide into water nearly 3,000 feet deep off Nawiliwili. Scientists would use a range of instruments to measure how the chemical dispersed in the deep ocean and what effects it had on ocean chemistry.
The project was overwhelmingly opposed by residents when it was proposed for Kona and Kaua'i.
Nihous said he remained certain there was no long-term environmental risk and very little short-term potential risk from the experiment, because it involved such a tiny fraction of the amount of carbon dioxide that enters the oceans naturally.
The consortium member agencies or organizations include the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh, Penn.; Australia's Division of Marine Research; Canada's Office of Energy Research and Development' Japan's Global Environmental Technology Department; the Research Council of Norway; and ABB Corporate Research of Switzerland.
