Diatom Ventures LLC

A Venture Capital firm named Diatom Ventures

http://www.diatomventures.com/

Our Purpose at Diatom Ventures is to help great entrepreneurs build profitable and enduring businesses that benefit the world. We partner with emerging, high-growth companies that have developed innovative products or services with the potential to remake their industries in socially responsible ways, in balance with nature and all company stakeholders. We believe that, working together, we can both make a difference and earn superior financial returns.

Diatoms are tiny creatures that have huge impacts. They are beautiful microscopic plankton that drift on or near the surface of the sea, multiply quickly when conditions are favorable, and form the foundation of the food chain in the world's oceans. They convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and nutrients into carbohydrates on which nearly all life in the ocean depends. They fuel all of the Earth's living systems, and by their sheer number may cycle as much carbon on Earth as all rainforests combined.

Wadi Hanifa Bioremediation Project, Riyadh.

http://www.mtplanners.com/M&T%20Wadi%20Hanifah%20Restoration%20Project%20Booklet%20-%202010-03-S.pdf

Bio-remediation Facility

Objectives

The Bio-remediation Facility is designed as habitat and natural structures to support the

biology that will do the work of cleaning the water.

The three main goals of bio-remediation are:

1. Reduction of fecal and total Coliform bacteria to safe levels;

2. Elimination of bad odours; and

3. Prevent cumulative negative impacts of nutrient load through the Wadi.

the bio-remediation Facility is the integral part of the Wadi hanifah restoration project. the main treatment process of the water comprises 3 main functions that will take place in this area:

1. Aeration to kill the coloform bacteria in the water;

2. Development of a food chain to bio-accumulate excessive nutrients derived from urban sewage and wastewater; and

3. De-nitrifying (to metabolize nitrogenous compounds) to reduce odours emanating from the wastewater.

The four components of the Bioremediation Facility are designed to enhance the natural treatment process are:

1. biocells – These are the basic units of the Bio-remediation Facility which are responsible for the bulk of nutrient assimilation. The whole facility consists of 3 biocell groups as follows: Group 2 (20 biocells), Group 3 (34 biocells) and Group 4 (80 biocells);

2. aeration system – This provides sufficient levels of dissolved oxygen (DO) to the system killing coliform bacteria and creating favorable conditions to microbes, fish & other aquatic

organisms;

3. artificial periphtyon benthic substrates – Provide substrates for biofilm / periphyton which is essential for bio-accumulating nutrients through the food chain; and

4. Fish (tilapia) – Serving as the top of the food chain and controlling the growth of filamentous algae.

The Bioremediation Sampling Monitoring Program is designed to allow for water sample collection at strategic locations. The data collected is used to determine the treatment efficiency of individual biocells, groups of cells and of the entire facility. There are twenty two (22) water quality parameters being analyzed in each location and grouped under four principal categories: General Variables; Organics; Nutrients; and Microbiology.

The long term purpose in collecting and analyzing data is to compare system performance to the Master Plan design objectives, in addition to developing long term bio-remediation operation and maintenance protocols.

A summary of water quality analyses is presented in the Nelson Environmental

“Bioremediation and Surface Water Monitoring Report” dated February, 2010.

Bio-remediation Facility performance

Based upon early testing and analyses – only five (5) months of data sets from August 2009

to February, 2010 – Nelson Environmental reported conclusive data in several key areas:

• Suspended solid removal rates are high (clear water).

• Ammonia removal rates are high.

• Fecal and total coliform removal rates are significant.

• System is functioning without odours from the water.

• Aquatic higher life forms (fish) are thriving in the Bio-remediation Facility.

• Emergance of a new level of preditors - birds.

• In summary, the Bio-remediation Facility is performing beyond expectations.

Cancun Conference - Global Warming

http://www.montrealgazette.com/story_print.html?id=3901160&sponsor

Space mirrors and algae to cut global warming

BY LOUISE GRAY, THE DAILY TELEGRAPHNOVEMBER 29, 2010

Activists of The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Organization hold signs urging people to turn vegetarian as they believe it will save the planet, in Cancun November 29, 2010.

Photograph by: Gerardo Garcia, Reuters

CANCUN — UN scientists are to consider putting mirrors in space and sprinkling iron filings in the sea in an attempt to cut global warming, the climate change summit in Cancun has heard.

Speaking at the summit, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the Panel's next report on global warming would not only look at the threat of rising temperatures but also consider "geo-engineering" options that could reverse warming.

The announcement implied that scientists were losing faith in a global deal to stop temperature rise by limiting emissions.

There are already low expectations for the summit, being held at this beach resort on Mexico's east coast.

Representatives from more than 190 countries are meeting at the heavily guarded Moon Palace Hotel to try to find a way to limit emissions so that temperature rises stay below 3.6F (2C).

The IPCC is responsible for setting out the scientific basis on which the talks are based.

Addressing the opening conference, Dr Pachauri said if mankind continued to produce greenhouse gases at the current rate the world could experience catastrophic warming within 50 years.

He said the threat was so great that the fifth assessment report (AR5), due to be presented to the UN in 2014, would look at "geo-engineering options". "The AR5 has been expanded and will in future focus on subjects like clouds and aerosols, geo-engineering and sustainability issues," he said.

Later this year IPCC "expert groups" will meet in Peru to discuss geo-engineering.

Options include putting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or covering Greenland in a massive "blanket" so it does not melt.

Sprinkling iron filings in the ocean "fertilises" algae, which absorbs CO2 and "seeding clouds" means that sunlight is blocked. Other options include artificial "trees" that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, painting roofs white to reflect sunlight, and man-made volcanoes that spray sulphate particles high in the atmosphere to scatter the sun's rays back into space.

Critics have argued that the process could make climate change worse through unintended consequences.

Earlier this year the IPCC was forced to undergo a review after it was disclosed that the last report to the UN, the AR4, included the mistaken claim that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. Critics called for the chairman to resign.

But Dr Pachauri insisted that the review made the panel stronger than ever.

"We are confident that the IPCC will emerge stronger as a result of this exercise and live up to the expectations of the global community," he said. The prospect of a treaty being agreed in Cancun is remote, as the world's two biggest emitters, China and the U.S., will not agree to legally binding targets.

Chris Huhne, Britain's Climate Change Secretary, has already admitted that a global agreement is unlikely this time, although he said it was possible to make progress in other areas.

Opening the talks, Felipe Calderon, Mexico's president, insisted a deal was still possible. "During the next two weeks, the whole world will be looking at you. It would be a tragedy not to overcome the hurdle of national interests."

© Copyright (c) The Daily Telegraph

US Forests

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-forests-soak-up-carbon-dioxide

U.S. Forests Soak Up Carbon Dioxide, but for How Long?

Forests play a key role in offsetting U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, but that ability may shrink as the climate changes

By Douglas Fischer and The Daily Climate October 18, 2010

The findings, released last week, estimate the nation's expanding forests sequester an additional 192 million metric tons of carbon annually due to increases in both the total area of forest land and the amount of carbon stored per acre.

That's the equivalent of removing about half the cars on the roads nationwide, or almost 135 million vehicles.

Ocean Biological Carbon Pump

The Biological Carbon Pump

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange1/06_2.shtml

How important is the biological pump overall? It turns out, it is very important. For instance, if the biological pump were turned off, atmospheric CO₂ would rise to about 550 ppm (compared to the current 360 ppm). If the pump were operating at maximum capacity (that is, if all the ocean’s nutrients were used up) atmospheric CO₂ would drop to a low of 140 ppm.

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Interesting estimate by the University of California, San Diego.

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange1/06_3.shtml

The Marine Carbon Cycle

Altering this ratio of carbon atoms can be done, for example, by changing the amount of silicate (SiO₄) in seawater. If there is plenty of silicate, marine organisms called “diatoms” will grow more happily. They fix carbon into organic matter, and they take much of it down to deep waters because many diatoms, at the end of their life cycle, tend to settle out of the water where they grew. If there is very little silicate available, organisms called “coccolithophores” grow more readily than diatoms.

...

Let us remember at least one element concerning the carbonate cycle: Unusually intense blooms of carbonate-fixing plankton, like coccolithophores, would have the effect of bringing carbon dioxide from surface waters to the air above it – that is, increasing the atmospheric CO₂ concentration. The same is true for coral and shell growth in shallow waters. We would like to know, then, what precisely causes the blooms of coccolithophores that can be seen on satellite surveys, and whether their intensity is increasing or decreasing as the planet warms. Unfortunately, this is not known at present.

...

During the overall cooling of the planet, in the last 40 million years, more and more silicate has been removed from ocean in the upwelling regions around the continents (due to stronger mixing from stronger winds). We know this because radiolarians (plankton organisms using silicate to make their skeletons) have been getting thinner and more delicate through time. In the last 3 million years this process of silicate extraction has enormously accelerated, as the Antarctic Ocean started to deposit vast amounts of diatom shells.

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Diatoms sequester carbon but Coccoliths do not.

Groundfish overfishing, diatom decline, and the marine silica cycle : lessons from Saanich Inlet, Canada, and the Baltic Sea cod crash

In this study, we link groundfish activity to the marine silica cycle and suggest that the drastic mid-1980s crash of the Baltic Sea cod (Gadus morhua) population triggered a cascade of events leading to decrease in dissolved silica (DSi) and diatom abundance in the water. We suggest that this seemingly unrelated sequence of events was caused by a marked decline in sediment resuspension associated with reduced groundfish activity resulting from the cod crash. In a study in Saanich Inlet, British Columbia, Canada, we discovered that, by resuspending bottom sediments, groundfish triple DSi fluxes from the sediments and reduce silica accumulation therein. Using these findings and the available oceanographic and environmental data from the Baltic Sea, we estimate that overfishing and recruitment failure of Baltic cod reduced by 20% the DSi supply from bottom sediments to the surface water leading to a decline in the diatom population in the Baltic Sea. The major importance of the marginal ocean in the marine silica cycle and the associated high population density of groundfish suggest that groundfish play a major role in the silica cycle. We postulate that dwindling groundfish populations caused by anthropogenic perturbations, e.g., overfishing and bottom water anoxia, may cause shifts in marine phytoplankton communities.

Authors : Katz, Timor; Yahel, Gitai; Yahel, Ruthy; Tunnicliffe, Verena; Herut, Barak; Snelgrove, Paul; Crusius, John; Lazar, Boaz

https://darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org/handle/1912/3697

Nitrogen Cycle

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=117744&org=NSF&from=news

Press Release 10-183
Too Much of a Good Thing: Human Activities Overload Ecosystems with Nitrogen

Resulting ecological damage is serious, but could be reduced by wider use of more sustainable, time-honored practices

At Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, excess nitrogen promotes algae growth, which leads to eutrophication. Credit and Larger Version

October 7, 2010

Humans are overloading ecosystems with nitrogen through the burning of fossil fuels and an increase in nitrogen-producing industrial and agricultural activities, according to a new study. While nitrogen is an element that is essential to life, it is an environmental scourge at high levels.

According to the study, excess nitrogen that is contributed by human activities pollutes fresh waters and coastal zones, and may contribute to climate change. Nevertheless, such ecological damage could be reduced by the adoption of time-honored sustainable practices.

Appearing in the October 8, 2010 edition of Science and conducted by an international team of researchers, the study was partially funded by the National Science Foundation.

The Nitrogen Cycle

The nitrogen cycle--which has existed for billions of years--transforms non-biologically useful forms of nitrogen found in the atmosphere into various biologically useful forms of nitrogen that are needed by living things to create proteins, DNA and RNA, and by plants to grow and photosynthesize. The transformation of biologically useful forms of nitrogen to useful forms of nitrogen is known as nitrogen fixation.

Mostly mediated by bacteria that live in legume plant roots and soils, nitrogen fixation and other components of the nitrogen cycle weave and wind through the atmosphere, plants, subsurface plant roots, and soils; the nitrogen cycle involves many natural feedback relationships between plants and microorganisms.

According to the Science paper, since pre-biotic times, the nitrogen cycle has gone through several major phases. The cycle was initially controlled by slow volcanic processes and lightning and then by anaerobic organisms as biological activity started. By about 2.5 billion years ago, as molecular oxygen appeared on Earth, a linked suite of microbial processes evolved to form the modern nitrogen cycle.

Human Impacts on the Nitrogen Cycle

But the start of the 20th century, human contributions to the nitrogen cycle began skyrocketing. "In fact, no phenomenon has probably impacted the nitrogen cycle more than human inputs of nitrogen into the cycle in the last 2.5 billion years," says Paul Falkowski of Rutgers University, a member of the research team.

"Altogether, human activities currently contribute twice as much terrestrial nitrogen fixation as natural sources, and provide around 45 percent of the total biological useful nitrogen produced annually on Earth," says Falkowski. Much of the human contributions of nitrogen into ecosystems come from an 800 percent increase in the use of nitrogen fertilizers from 1960 to 2000.

Another problem: Much of nitrogen fertilizer that is used worldwide is applied inefficiently. As a result, about 60 percent of the nitrogen contained in applied fertilizer is never incorporated into plants and so is free to wash out of root zones, and then pollute rivers, lakes, aquifers and coastal areas through eutrophication. (Eutrophication is a process caused by excess nutrients that depletes oxygen in water bodies and ultimately leads to the death of animal life.)

In addition, some reactions involving nitrogen release nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere. Nitrogen oxide is a greenhouse gas that has 300 times (per molecule) the warming potential of carbon dioxide. In addition, nitrogen oxide destroys stratospheric ozone, which protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation.

Methods to Reduce Nitrogen Overloading

"Natural feedbacks driven by microorganisms will likely produce a new steady-state over time scales of many decades," says Falkowski. "Through this steady state, excess nitrogen added from human sources will be removed at rates equivalent to rates of addition, without accumulating."

But meanwhile, the Earth's population is approaching 7 billion people, and so ongoing pressures for food production are continuing to increase. "There is no way to feed people without fixing huge amounts of nitrogen from the atmosphere, and that nitrogen is presently applied to crop plants very ineffectively." says Falkowski.

So unless promising interventions are taken, the damage done by humans to the Earth's nitrogen cycle will persist for decades or centuries. These promising interventions, which would be designed to reduce the need to use fertilizers that add nitrogen to ecological systems, could include:

• Using systematic crop rotations that would supply nitrogen that would otherwise be provided by fertilizers;
• Optimizing the timing and amounts of fertilizer applications, adopting selected breeding techniques or developing genetically engineered varieties of plants that would increase the efficiency of nitrogen use;
• Using traditional breeding techniques to boost the ability of economically important varieties of wheat, barley and rye to interact favorably with the microbial communities associated with plant root systems and do so in ways that enhance the efficiency of nitrogen use.

"While the processes of eutrophication have been recognized for many years, only recently have scientists been able to begin placing the anthropogenic processes in the context of an understanding of the broader biogeochemical cycles of the planet," says Robert Burnap, an NSF program director. This is an important article because it concisely develops this understanding and also provides reasonable predictions regarding the economic and policy dimensions of the problem."

-NSF-

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The report does not discuss why algal blooms result in low Dissolved Oxygen levels of water when Diatom Algae are responsible for about 25% of the oxygen in the atmosphere.

It does not discuss why the increase in N in lakes and oceans is causing cyanobacteria blooms but not Diatom blooms.

It mentions "economically important varieties of wheat, barley and rye .." but does not mention economically important phytoplankton / algae - Diatoms.