Ocean Nourishment Corporation plans imminent urea dumping experiment in Southeast Asian seas

Civil Society groups call on London Convention to halt marine dumping geoengineering experiments

Prepared by ETC Group (Canada), SEARICE (Philippines), Third World Network (Malaysia), Corporate Watch (UK)

Overview:
International civil society organizations today revealed that a private geoengineering company recently received an official “go signal” to dump 500 tonnes of urea into the Sulu Sea near the Philippines for a large scale “carbon sequestration” experiment without an Environmental Impact Assessment. The experimental urea dumping may happen this year (2007). According to press reports a further 1000-tonne urea dump is planned for Malaysian waters in 2008 and the company is also considering additional ocean sites close to the United Arab Emirates, Chile and possibly Morocco.

Regional and international civil society groups are concerned that these for-profit activities may threaten fisherfolk livelihoods and pose unacceptable ecological risks. They are requesting that the 29th Consultative Meeting of the London Convention and 2nd Meeting of Contracting Parties to the London Protocol (5-9 November 2007) consider the threat of large-scale nitrogen addition projects as part of the Convention’s scheduled discussions on iron dumping projects.

Based on the paucity of scientific knowledge to date and the lack of intergovernmental oversight, the coalition of civil society groups recommends a moratorium on large-scale or commercial geoengineering experiments. Geoengineering refers to intentional large-scale manipulation of land, sea or stratosphere by humans to bring about environmental change.

Who:
Ocean Nourishment Corporation (ONC) is a privately held company spun out of the University of Sydney's Ocean Technology Group.[1] The company intends to win carbon credits and also fish production revenue by licensing its technology to provoke plankton blooms in large patches of pelagic ocean. This technology involves dumping granulated urea in kilo-tonne quantities into the seas. The CEO of Ocean Nourishment Corporation is ocean technologist Ian Jones from the University of Sydney. He also heads the Sulu Nourishment Corporation (SNC) and the Ocean Nourishment Foundation. Both ONC and SNC hold patents on their “ocean nourishment” geo-engineering technique.


The Technnology and Claims:
ONC proposes to pump nitrogen rich water into ocean patches to stimulate algal blooms. The key ingredient is granulated dissolvable urea produced from either fixed or floating production plants. The urea is produced from ammonia (NH3) and carbon dioxide (CO2), both of which can be obtained from natural gas. The urea would then be dissolved into sea water, pumped through a pipe along the sea bed and released into “barren” areas of the ocean on the edge of the continental shelf. The urea solution would be released at 50m below the ocean surface into the sunlit layer where the resulting raised nitrogen levels would stimulate the growth of phytoplankton.[2] ONC claims that this would have two results:

1. Since phytoplankton are the basis of the aquatic food chain, an increase in plankton might lead to increased fish stocks. ONC claims that every tonne of urea they add to the ocean will result in 1 tonne of extra fish. They compare this model of adding nitrogen to the sea to the impact of agricultural fertilizers on farmland. “We transform the land to provide food for people. This is like practicing agriculture at sea.”[3] (Ian Jones, CEO of Ocean Nourishment Corporation). Ian Jones claims to have proprietary rights (presumably through his patents) on any ocean protein generated by this method.[4]

2. Phytoplankton absorb CO2 from the sea water by photosynthesis. CO2 remains in the tissue of both the plankton and fish. When they die, some fall to the bottom of the ocean, potentially drawing the CO2 out of the atmosphere. “We argue if you create organic carbon, all of that carbon is eventually exported to the deep ocean.”[5] (Ian Jones, CEO of Ocean Nourishment Corporation.) ONC intends to use their technology as a carbon sink and have told the press that they hope to take part in carbon trading in 2008 by applying to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for Certified Emission Reduction’s (CER’s) under the Kyoto Protocol. The company claims that 1 tonne of nitrogen (urea) could sequester 12 tonnes of CO2. They claim each of their urea-release plants could maintain an area of 20km of plankton at densities of about 200 micrograms per litre and would sequester 8 million tonnes of CO2 per year at a cost of $10-$15 per tonne.[6]

When and Where?
ONC has previously approached governments in Chile and United Arab Emirates as a potential testing ground for their technology.[7] ONC told New Scientist that later this year (2007) it plans to conduct its first large-scale field trial, “releasing 500 tonnes of dissolved urea off the coast of the Philippines. This will be followed by a trial involving 1000 tonnes of dissolved urea off Malaysia.”[8]

Civil society groups understand that a Philippine government agency, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has received an application by a state university to do a “carbon sequestration project” in Philippine waters, in partnership with an “Australian university” later this year. BFAR received the permit application sometime in September and have reportedly already given a ‘go’ signal to the project. It appears that an environmental impact assessment has not been conducted. Nor has there been wider consultation with fisherfolk, coastal communities or civil society in the Philippines or beyond.

We understand that the “Australian university” is in fact Ocean Nourishment Corporation (via the University of Sydney) and that the University of San Carlos[9] (a private university based in Cebu City, central Philippines, which has a long track record of marine bioprospecting activities with foreign entities in central Philippine waters) and the University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV, a premier state university specializing on marine research) are involved as local counterparts. We also understand that ONC probably intends to release urea into the Sulu Sea in order to test their patented technology. In December 2007 ONC’s Ian Jones will attend the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco where he will present initial findings of urea’s affects on bottled water samples taken from the Sulu Sea, Tasman Sea and also off the coast of Morocco.[10]

Concerns:
Civil society concerns related to urea dumping are similar to concerns raised about iron fertilization of the ocean, although the quantities of urea proposed are higher. Urea and nitrogen fertilizer pollution caused by agricultural run-off has been linked to the creation of toxic algal blooms in the scientific literature, and raises the possibility of dead zones from oxygen depletion. In June 2007 scientific advisors to the London Convention raised broader concerns about the potential impacts of large-scale artificial algal blooms on marine ecosystems. (The concerns were raised in response to plans by commercial firms such as Planktos, Inc. and Climos, Inc. to fertilise oceans with iron for carbon credits.) We believe the same concerns apply to ONC’s urea fertilization plans.

ONC acknowledges the ecological risks associated with urea-addition. However, they claim that their technology is controllable. The company contends that by using satellite imagery plankton concentrations could be monitored and levels of urea adjusted to prevent dangerous algal blooms from occurring. We are highly skeptical of those claims.