Center alters plan to release chemical at sea
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
LIHU'E, Kaua'i — A proposal to pump liquid carbon dioxide into the deep ocean has been scaled back and moved from Kona to Kaua'i.
The project generated opposition when it was proposed off Keahole Point, partly because of fear it would alter ocean chemistry and affect marine life, including fisheries.
The Pacific International Center for High Technology Research reviewed other Hawai'i sites and settled on a spot four miles off Nawiliwili, on Kaua'i's southeast side.
It has requested a research permit to conduct a two-week project at the site established for dumping materials from periodic dredgings of Nawiliwili Harbor.
The proposed total release of liquid carbon dioxide has also been reduced, from 40 tons to 20 tons — about 5,000 gallons — and the flow rate from 2.2 pounds per second to 1.3 pounds per second. It would be released at a depth of nearly 3,000 feet.
PICHTR, a contractor for a consortium of U.S. and international research agencies, is also emphasizing this time that its proposal is on a very small scale compared with natural injections of the chemical into the seas.
Gerard Nihous, climate change program manager for PICHTR, said about 7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide enter the oceans naturally each year from the atmosphere. And the proposed release is between 15 and 200 times smaller than the amount of carbon dioxide that the undersea volcano Lo'ihi released during a two-week period in 1997.
The Kaua'i project is designed to determine the precise impact on the deep ocean of the injection of liquid carbon dioxide and how it disperses.
The Environmental Protection Agency has announced it would require monitoring of the effects on marine life if it issues a permit for the test. The EPA is requesting public comments within 30 days on the project. It will not decide whether to hold a public hearing until after the comment period is closed. Copies of the study are available in the EPA's Pacific Islands Office in Honolulu, the Lihu'e Public Library and the EPA Web site (www.epa.gov /region09/water/kauai).
The larger goal of the project is to determine whether it would be feasible to divert human-generated carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, and instead pump it directly into the deep ocean. Nihous said carbon dioxide ends up in the deep ocean anyway, but at a much slower rate than that of the gas that's produced by vehicles, power plants and other sources.
The consortium backing the project includes the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Lab, 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 Switzerland's ABB Corporate Research. PICHTR's role as contractor for the experiment is paid for by Japan's Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth.
