Ocean life Imperiled Can Photo Voltaic Systems and Electric Vehicles Help Rescue Our Oceans?

Dr Eric Prince, Chief of the Migratory Fishery Biology Branch of NOAA's Southeast fisheries was a special guest on "The Splendid Table," American Public Media show which aired on NPR on Sunday the 24th.

Dr. Prince reported on the expanding "Hypoxia" zones an oceanographic feature that only occurs on the western side of continents. "Hypoxia is a term for diminished oxygen in the ocean. " People more commonly refer to it as "dead zones."

According to Dr. Prince the expansion of these dead zones is from our current cycle of climate change and escalated global warming. "For every degree the surface mixed layer water temperature increase, less dissolved oxygen can be forced into the surface waters."

The area of Hypoxia is immensely large, from North Africa it extends across the ocean in equatorial waters and touches South Africa in the area of French Guiana. It is large enough to comfortably fit the entire continental United States inside its boarders. The size of these hypoxia zones has grown in the last 50 years by 15%.

Because animals can't survive very long without oxygen they tend to be squeezed by this hypoxia into a very narrow layer on the surface of the ocean. Due to the compression near the surface they have become a lot more vulnerable to over exploitation for surface harvesting.

Scientists when they do stock assessments, the classical way is to look at indices of abundance. "One of the most relied upon anywhere in the world is called catch per unit effort. When you have a high catch per unit effort, in theory that is supposed to be indicative of a healthy population. "

As host Lynn Rossetto Kasper, acclaimed food writer and cooking teacher summarized, "We have a lot more fish that are vulnerable to being caught and are very desirable going to the surface of the ocean, which could also lead to people thinking there are more of those fish than there really are."

You can listen to the podcast to find out more about Dr. Prince's study. (Advance to 7.46 if you want to skip to the interview with Dr. Prince)

Why would disappearing fish be of concern to a businessperson?

The concern is that the long-term survival of all fish species is at risk as the ocean hypoxia continues to expand due to the rising temperatures from CO2 in the atmosphere. Collapsing fish stock would have a devastating impact on commerce in and around global coastal communities affecting fishing, restaurants and tourism.

So what does this have to do with Solar Photo Voltaic power?

Tracy Farwell from Better Energy LLC proposes that homeowners have an economically viable option for reducing household carbon release by 50% through switching to electric vehicles for transportation and using Photo Voltaic (PV) electricity generation to recharge the vehicles.

Mr. Farwell sites the US Department of energy statistics that show on average, half of a household's carbon emissions are due to transportation.

With PV connected to the energy grid, energy is sent to the grid during the day and used to charge the EV at night.

If you add the savings on fuel costs, with the tax breaks for the PV, you will pay off the cost of the PV installation much more quickly than if your previous transportation costs are not figured into the consideration for a PV system. Taking your transportation completely off of gasoline dependence also isolates you from the ever-increasing gasoline prices.

Tracy Farwell has put together a power point presentation that explains this proposal in detail.

The challenge is the high upfront cost of purchasing both an electric vehicle and a Photo Voltaic system to charge it. With so much at stake for coastal communities and the long term cost savings it would be worth discussing ways to offer "community solar" and lobby municipalities to invest in electric fleet vehicles for use on a commercial scale. Using economies of scale and cost sharing or Local Improvement Districts communities could bring down the cost of the upfront investment and provide for a means to pay for it out of the energy savings.