If all had gone according to plan, the $5 million Carbon Dioxide Ocean Sequestration Field Experiment would be history by now – or at least on its way there. Instead, the researchers proposing it have been sent back to the drawing board. And if the experiment ever does get off the ground and into the water, it won’t be at Keahole Point, the site off the western coast of the Big Island where the experiment was planned to occur.
For opponents, driving the project out of Keahole waters was a moral victory as well as an environmental one. Proponents see it as a setback in their efforts to understand the behavior of liquid carbon dioxide in deep seawater. They still hope that the experiment, wherever it is done, will shed light on how large-scale carbon sequestration might – or might not – work. Pumping massive amounts of CO2 into the ocean is an idea that some have embraced as a means of mitigating global warming, caused in large part by the burning of fossil fuels that release CO2 into the atmosphere. On the surface, the experiment’s goal – helping to identify ways to relieve global warming — sounds laudable. Yet opponents say the experiment was designed without concern for environmental effects, particularly on marine life. They also voiced fear that the test was the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent and that what was described as research into the feasibility of CO2 sequestration would lead inevitably to large-scale commercial ocean sequestration projects, almost certainly with harmful results. Some opponents further claim the experiment is part of a sinister plot whose ultimate aim is construction of a commercial sequestration plant in Hawai`i. Are the protestors over-reacting? Or are the project’s advocates glossing over the risks?
“My wife has a saying, ‘Don’t go there.’ If we think for some reason that the oceans should be kept as healthy as they can be, then we just shouldn’t go there.” – Elliott Norse, Marine Conservation Biology Institute
Background
The experiment has its origins at the historic United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997. The United States has so far declined to sign the Kyoto Protocol, although it did agree to collaborate with Norway and Japan on a three-stage ocean sequestration experiment (the experiment proposed for Keahole Point would be the first of these).
Canada and Australia have also signed on to the experiment, along with the Swiss-based energy conglomerate ABB, and the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, a research institute for the electric utilities of Japan. In the United States, funding comes from the U.S. Department of Energy. The Hawai`i-based Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR), an independent research center, is general contractor for the project.
The experimental design originally called for the release of 40 to 60 tons of liquid carbon dioxide at a depth of 800 meters (roughly 2,600 feet). Under a permit granted in 1999 by the board of directors of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i Authority, a pipeline was to transport CO2 from the shore fronting the laboratory to the release site. In March 2000, to alleviate community concerns that a pipeline would damage shoreline habitat and nearshore reefs, the plan was modified to use a pipeline deployed from a research vessel – a change that, as it turned out, would have dramatic consequences for the project.
The experimental plan called for tracking the movement of liquid CO2 droplets in ocean currents as well as changes in ocean chemistry around the release site. The only biological studies planned in connection with the experiment were bacterial analyses, collection of samples from the ocean floor (or benthos), and measurement of underwater noise.
The Public Reacts
Initially, opposition focused on possible impacts to fish. “The area where they want to inject the CO2 has been shown to produce tremendous amounts of large blue marlin and yellowfin tuna,” notes Isaac Harp, a Native Hawaiian resident of Lahaina. Harp, once a fisherman, says he gave up fishing over concern for depleted stocks; he is now the Ocean Program director for KaHEA, the Hawaiian Environmental Alliance. “It’s one of the most productive pelagic fishing areas in Hawai`i accessible to a small boat fleet,” Harp says of the area off Keahole Point. To address this concern, the project was rescheduled to take place after the Hawai`i International Billfish Tournament, held in July and August each year. The project was also rescheduled from summer 2000 to summer 2001 to allow more time for public comment, according to PICHTR’s Gerard Nihous, the project director.
“If CO2 were released, the ocean would be polluted and ocean life would die. All the bottom feeders in that area, and anything that comes in contact with the CO2 column, would die of asphyxiation.” – Jack Kelly, Coalition Against CO2 Dumping
A draft environmental assessment (EA) was released by the Department of Energy in early August 2000. Back then, the experiment team expected that the final EA would be released by the end of January 2001, and that the experiment would proceed in the summer of 2001. Since the project is under the auspices of the federal government, it must meet review requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. Those require the DOE to solicit and respond fully to comments before giving any of its projects the necessary approvals.
Members of the public commented on the draft EA with some 200 emails and letters. Most simply stated their objection to the project, without providing details. Those who did explain their views expressed concern about how the experiment might harm ocean life and questioned the validity of any research into CO2 ocean sequestration. One common argument was that even if this one small experiment turned out to be harmless, future CO2 releases on the scale needed to sequester the output from many power plants would almost certainly cause serious harm to ocean life. CO2 sequestration was also seen as a trick to justify the continued burning of fossil fuels – something that would divert attention and funds from research on more environmentally responsible solutions such as technologies that use fossil fuels more efficiently or which avoid them altogether.
A loosely organized group called the Coalition Against CO2 Dumping was organized in January 2001, with Harp as its president. The group claims more than 40 affiliates, including local and national environmental organizations such as Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club, local civic organizations, national and international fishing clubs, tour dive operators, and the Hawai`i Green party. Coalition representatives have said the combined membership of these groups may be as high as 400,000 individuals.
According to political consultant and coalition spokesperson Jay Scharf, some time in early February 2001, David Holzman, a sociologist and the coalition’s executive director, met with NELHA executive director Jeff Smith to express the group’s opposition to the project. Describing the meeting, Scharf says, “The coalition presented its case to the NELHA board, basically saying, ‘This is crazy, you don’t want to do this’.”
On February 18, a Sunday, the coalition sponsored a rally at the Hawai`i Big Game Fishing Clubhouse at Honokohau Harbor. “I thought maybe 20 people would show up,” says Harp. “You know, a sunny Sunday, everyone wants to be with their family.” According to newspaper accounts, between 250 and 300 people attended the rally.
Two days later, with the momentum of opponents still going strong, the NELHA board voted to rescind the authorization it had issued two years earlier for PICTHR to conduct the experiment using NELHA facilities.
A Flurry in the State Legislature
In March, the Legislature began weighing resolutions regarding the sequestration experiment. Most condemned the experiment, although one – introduced by Big Island senators David Matsuura and Russell Kokubun, was in support.
In the end, the only resolution adopted was House Concurrent Resolution 64.But the final version, approved April 25, differed markedly from the original. While the original purported to describe NELHA’s reasons for rejecting the experiment, this language was removed after Donald Thomas, a geochemist at the University of Hawai`i, chair of NELHA’s Research Advisory Committee, and NELHA board member, testified on behalf of that agency before House committees on Energy and Environmental Protection and Land and Water Use.
“We did not have concerns regarding the scientific merits” of the experiment, Thomas said, “nor did we have significant concerns regarding its potential to impact the deep ocean environment. It was our view that the quantities of carbon dioxide involved were trivial in comparison to naturally occurring sources of this compound in the ocean around Hawai`i, and that the injection of the stated quantities would have a minimal and entirely transitory impact on ocean water chemistry.”
With regard to objections from the tenants’ association, Thomas announced that the association had distanced itself from the earlier position. “In our board meeting of March 20, the representative of KPTA clarified their concerns and stated that they were not opposed to the execution of this experiment.” Thomas also expressed concern that prohibiting this experiment would give Hawai`i a reputation as a difficult place for scientists to conduct research, which could mean the state would lose millions of dollars in research grants and private investment.
Thomas’ testimony contradicted NELHA director Smith’s earlier statement to West Hawai`i Today about the reasons for the board’s denial of the permit to the experiment. When Environment Hawai`i asked Nihous, director of the experiment, if he could explain this, he said that PICHTR had asked NELHA to give the Legislature the truth. “Smith did later confirm in public that the decision was based on a contractual issue,” Nihous said, adding, “NELHA was not saying the project was detrimental to the environment.”
That “contractual issue” was the change in experimental design a year earlier that moved the source of CO2 from shore to ship. Because of this, the project was deemed to be sufficiently different from the one initially approved to warrant rejection.
Following the testimony of both project opponents and proponents, including not just Thomas but also representatives of the University of Hawai`i’s Environmental Center, set up by law to review environmental impacts of projects proposed for Hawai`i, the resolution was revised. The approved version does not raise concerns about the science behind the experiment or urge that it be banned but instead asks Congress to adopt stronger energy policies “in order to reduce energy consumption, improve energy efficiency, and encourage the use of renewable fuels.” The resolution further states that proponents of the sequestration experiment “must address and disclose, through the public hearing process, all concerns, potential impacts, and mitigating measures in environmental documents required under all applicable environmental laws and regulations” – the very things they must by law do anyway.
In early April, the Department of Energy released the final environmental assessment for the experiment. NELHA’s banishment of the experiment from its ocean corridor is noted in the document, but, the DOE goes on to say, the action “does not affect the validity of the analyses of the potential consequences from conducting the proposed experiment at any of the alternative sites;” therefore, “no additional changes are needed for DOE-decision-making.”
A month later, the Department of Energy released its go-ahead for the project in the form of a Finding of No Significant Impact – with conditions. The experiment should be relocated away from prime fishing areas and redesigned to reduce any adverse effects. Further, a team of scientists and technical experts not connected with the project is to be assembled to provide advice and to observe the experiment. In particular, the researchers were required to add a chief biologist to their team, who would observe the experiment while it was underway and have ultimate authority to halt the project if it appeared that marine life was being harmed.
What’s Wrong With This Experiment?
The debate over the experiment first focused on the effects of the experiment itself, particularly possible harm to fish in a popular fishing area. Asked to specify his greatest concern, coalition member Jack Kelly, a writer whose work appears often in the fortnightly Hawai`i Island Journal, said, “If CO2 were released, the ocean would be polluted and ocean life would die. All the bottom feeders in that area, and anything that comes in contact with the CO2 column, would die of asphyxiation.” When specifically asked whether he was concerned that the experiment itself would post a problem for fish in the area, Harp said, “I’m sure it would kill any marine life in that vicinity.” Harp charges that scientists who disagree are apologists for polluting industries who “are simply protecting their personal interests [in research dollars] by supporting this potentially destructive practice, while carelessly jeopardizing Hawai`i’s pristine ocean waters and, in fact, the oceans of the world.” When coalition spokesman Scharf was told that the researchers say they are participating in the experiment mainly to gather hard data on potential risks, he echoed Harp’s view: “If I needed UH research money to do what I need to do, then for publicity purposes, when a reporter calls me, I’m going to say things” favorable to the experiment.
Would the half-ton marlin that draw anglers to an international tournament really be harmed if the experiment proceeded? Systematic studies of the effects of lowered pH on the many fish and other marine species just don’t exist. The environmental assessment cites articles from the scientific literature to conclude that sportfish (marlin, for the most part) don’t dive to the depth at which the CO2 plume would form; that the CO2 plume would not rise into shallow waters because the CO2-enriched seawater, denser than pure seawater, would sink; and that when adult fish detect lowered pH they generally swim away from the area. Scientific studies on the effects of increased acidity of seawater on fish larvae presented conflicting results; one study reported significant mortality, while another did not.
Craig Smith of the University of Hawai`i at Manoa, a benthic ecologist who helped review scientific literature for the environmental assessment, says, “If animals were trapped in the plume for six hours, which is pretty unlikely, there is a possibility that some animals would be killed; (however) I think it’s unlikely that significant environmental harm will result.” Smith points to a “natural experiment” that’s already underway off the coast of Hawai`i: the undersea volcano Lo`ihi, which for years has been releasing CO2 into the deep ocean at or above the concentrations proposed by the experiment. “That ecosystem hasn’t collapsed,” Smith asserts, adding “My opinion, from looking at the data, and from what I know about deep-sea biology, is that the impacts of this experiment are likely to be so small as to be unmeasureable. A major challenge for us biologists will be to see any effects whatsoever.”
In a recent interview with Environment Hawai`i, Robert Wilder, at the time the conservation director for the Pacific Whale Foundation and chair of the coalition’s scientific advisory committee, didn’t challenge that conclusion. “From a public perception standpoint, it was probably not a good idea to do the experiment in a popular fishing area,” he said, “but I’ve never raised that (harm to sportfish) as a concern of my own. I don’t have any comment.”
The Larger Issues
Not so easily dealt with are concerns over the long-term effects of carbon dioxide sequestration on a large scale. Elliott Norse, president of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Redmond, Washington, acknowledges the amount of CO2 that might be added to the ocean by commercial sequestration projects is a tiny fraction of the ocean’s overall CO2 content, but counters, “Even if it’s an inconsequential addition to the world oceans on a global basis, that doesn’t mean there won’t be local effects. I think large areas would suffer significant harm.”
Sequestration opponents also say research dollars shouldn’t be spent to develop technology that will just allow nations to continue using fossil fuels; funding would more appropriately be spent, they argue, on energy conservation technologies and alternative energy development. “The experiment is bankrolled by fossil fuel industries that don’t want to lose two hundred years of fossil fuel reserves,” says Wilder. “They want to keep burning coal and oil.”
Yet another concern is that this project will open the door to even more of them in Hawai`i. “We doubt this experiment would open the door to large-scale sequestration projects in Hawai`i — Hawai`i doesn’t have the volume of CO2 to make it cost-effective,” says Holzman, “but we do believe that larger scale feasibility projects will be conducted here.” The evidence he summons to support this view is Hawai`i Energy Strategy 2000, a document produced by the Hawai`i Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT). The report mentions the proposed sequestration experiment, noting that “ocean sequestration is potentially well suited for fossil-fueled power stations in Hawai`iÉ A pilot facility planned by the three-nation consortium for development in the 2005-2010 time frame could well be sited in Hawai`i, possibly next to the Hawaiian Electric Company’s Kahe station on O`ahu.” Whether this statement represents an actual plan or a hopeful wish remains to be seen.
The bottom line is that deep-ocean ecosystems have been very little studied and are poorly understood. More information about how liquid CO2 behaves in deep water and more biological information might help to clarify the debate, says Howard Herzog, a research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is involved with the Hawai`i project. “There’s been a lot of modeling done on CO2 plumes,” he says, “but É the ocean is really the only laboratory if you want to know what might happen if you do this on a large scale.” The position of the Union of Concerned Scientists is that research on deep ocean sequestration should include a central focus on potential impacts to deep ocean ecosystems, and just such an element has been added to the Hawai`i project – something for which the Coalition Against CO2 Dumping takes credit. In testimony supporting the legislative resolution, Alex Leonard, a marine biologist who works in the aquaculture industry, stressed the need for detailed baseline studies before any open-ocean tests. Wilder underscored the point: Initially, PICHTR “had only engineers on their team; we pointed that out, and they added biologistsÉ I would say we’ve improved their experiment.”
In sum, one view is that opposition to sequestration will only be more effective if those who object have hard-science arrows in their quiver. “The impacts of large-scale sequestration are hard to predict,” says Smith, “because we don’t know enough about the behavior of CO2 and its effects on deep sea ecosystems to be able to make any kind of reasonable prediction. I think it’s irresponsible not to try to predict the effects of CO2 sequestration. I think a good analogy is nuclear winter: by studying the possible impacts, scientists made the likelihood of nuclear war much more remote.”
Norse of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute has a different take. “When good, smart people conduct experiments on something like this, they are legitimizing the activity in the eyes of the proponents,” he says. “My wife has a saying, ‘Don’t go there.’ If we think for some reason that the oceans should be kept as healthy as they can be, then we just shouldn’t go there.”
What’s Next?
It’s unclear whether the sequestration experiment will take place in Hawai`i-or indeed, whether it will take place at all. As of July 2001, the experiment’s 18-member technical committee was in the process of reviewing four alternate sites, chosen for appropriate depth, proximity to shore, and prospects for reliable weather. Three sites under consideration are near Hawai`i but in federal (not state) waters; a fourth site is in the Gulf of Mexico. As of early July, however, the committee had not selected a site. “And that list of four sites could change,” says Nihous.
Of the three alternate Hawai`i sites, Nihous says, “The alternate Big Island site (18 miles north of Keahole Point) was chosen because, geographically and ecologically, it’s closest to the original site. It’s on the same slope, and the same organisms are present in the benthos. We also thought that, even though we will be farther offshore, the Kohala mountains will still provide some protection from the tradewinds.”
A second site being considered is off Kalaeloa, O`ahu (Barber’s Point). “Logistically, this is the best site,” says Nihous, because the project could use University of Hawai`i research vessels based in Honolulu. He says another advantage is the site’s proximity to industrial activities. “We thought, maybe people won’t be so protective of the habitat if it’s near an oil refinery.” Nihous was careful to add that the choice of a less-than-pristine site does not mean researchers expect the experiment to harm ocean life. “I need to insist here that the point is the public perception of the project’s effects rather than the project’s actual effects,” he said. “I live here, too-I wouldn’t want to do a project that would do any harm to the environment.”
The third potential Hawai`i site, off the southeastern coast of Kaua`i, is similar to the O`ahu site in being a less-than-pristine location. “We’re looking at a site where dredged material has been dumped in the past,” says Nihous, “and for the same reason: we think the public may not object so strongly if the experiment takes place in a non-pristine environment.”
“The impacts of this experiment are likely to be so small as to be unmeasureable. A major challenge for us biologists will be to see any effects whatsoever.” – Biologist Craig Smith
Under terms of the FONSI, Smith was named lead marine biologist with authority to stop the project if he thinks the release is harming marine life in any way. Assisting him will be Eric Vetter, a marine scientist at Hawai`i Pacific University specializing in deep-ocean ecology, and Richard Coffin, a microbiologist who will conduct bacterial analyses. One thing Smith and Vetter plan to do is collect marine organisms such as amphipods, shrimp, and small fish at the experiment site, place them in cages on a remotely operated submersible equipped with pH sensors and video cameras, and “fly” them through the plume of CO2 to observe any effects. Although critics of the project say the experimental results will be kept under wraps, Vetter disputes that. Publishing their results is a priority for both Smith and him, he told Environment Hawai`i, and neither scientist would have taken on the project if that were not allowed.
“The DOE also recommended that the technical committee submit an experimental plan to a group of outside experts, and we are in the process of doing that,” says Nihous. Finally, the experiment will be redesigned so that it releases less CO2. “Instead of 40 to 60 tons released, we’re down to half that amount, 20 to 30 tons,” he says. “The maximum flow rate will be point-six kilograms per second rather than one kilogram.”
All the changes mean further delays. “Under the most optimistic scenario,” says Steve Masutani, an engineer and UH professor working on the project, “the earliest the experiment could be underway would be spring/summer of 2002. And that time frame could be pushed back even further.”
Meanwhile, says the coalition’s Harp, if the experiment proceeds in Hawaiian waters, “we are fully prepared to sue. We are already in discussion with a few attorneys. The grounds would be that the FONSI was prepared for a different area. So, to proceed at a new site they would need a new environmental assessment and EIS.”
Reflecting on the events of the past months, Masutani says, “It’s ironic: This project looks at the risks associated with ocean sequestration-does it change seawater chemistry in an acceptable or unacceptable way? In the end, we may find unacceptable risks. I think the environmentalists who opposed our project have the same end goals-to reduce the inventory of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and to reduce our nation’s dependency on fossil fuels. If people with common goals attack each other, it only benefits the people who want to do nothing.”
Biologist Smith says he is offended by opponents who charge that his research funding biases his viewpoint. “To be honest,” says Smith, “I am opposed to large-scale CO2 injection into the deep ocean. I think we’d be a lot wiser to cut down our fuel consumption and take the bus-which I do every day.”
— Cynthia A. Berger
Volume 12, Number 3 September 2001
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