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Technology and my Passion: Rob Kugel, Diving and Reef Check

Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.

This time it is Rob Kugel, SVP & Research Director of Office of Finance and Business Research at Ventana Research. Here he writes about his diving and the volunteer work he does with Reef Check. 

"I love the ocean. I started with Reef Check in 2010 as a volunteer diver because I fell in love with California’s kelp forest ecosystem. Diving in them is like floating through a forest with fish, marine mammals and – yes – birds (diving cormorants) all around you, some curious, some skittish. And plants and animals unlike anything on land. 

Becoming a volunteer diver requires four days of classroom and in-water training as well as annual recertification to ensure the quality of the data we collect. On the first day of our classroom training our instructor kicked off the session by informing us that all Reefcheckers share a common characteristic: We are “adventuresome nerds.”

Cold water SCUBA diving is a different, more complicated sport compared to tropical diving. In northern California, you need a lot more gear and a lot more insulation to be in water that’s usually 50 degrees Fahrenheit (plus or minus). I wear a dry suit because it’s more comfortable and I’m always wearing a hood and thick gloves. And usually, dive conditions here are “less than ideal,” with limited visibility (25 feet is great; often it’s more like 10-15 feet), and strong ocean surge and currents. Some people find all of this too cold and claustrophobic.

Reef Check dives are a challenge because they’re heavily task loaded. You have to accurately identify and count a range of target organisms (specific species of fish, invertebrates and algae) along a transect and write down the things you’ve found, all in these less-than-ideal conditions and within the time limits of your available air. For me, there’s a lot of satisfaction being able to do all that.

There’s also the satisfaction in supporting California’s Marine Protected Areas by collecting the data that demonstrates that MPAs do what they’re supposed to do. Reef Check is also doing experimental work to help restore the kelp forest. Many people are aware of the threats to coral reefs around the world. Few are aware of the devastation of the west coast's kelp forests over the past decade caused in part by a sea urchin population explosion that was the result from an epidemic die-off of sea stars, their main predator. Reef Check is leading projects in California that are designed to find ways to restore the kelp forests.

Five years ago, I joined the board of Reef Check Foundation and I’m also a member of our executive committee. Reef Check began in 1996 to do the first coordinated worldwide scientific assessment of the health of coral reefs. That work confirmed the rising phenomenon of coral reef bleaching. Reef Check’s mission is to save our reefs and oceans and ensure their sustainable future through education, research, and conservation. We have completed nearly 15,000 surveys in over 100 countries. We train thousands of citizen scientist volunteers every year around the world to survey the health of tropical coral reefs and kelp forest ecosystems along the entire coast of California. Government bodies, NGOs and academic organizations use the data we collect to improve natural resources management. Reef Check programs provide ecologically sound and economically sustainable solutions built on partnerships among community volunteers, government agencies, businesses, universities, and other nonprofits.

Here’s a video that I created and narrated to provide a short introduction and explanation of our mission. Most of the technology that we use is embodied in the refinements made of the past 50 years in SCUBA gear. When you watch the video, you’ll see that our survey work is all manual. You have a tablet for securing underwater paper and a pencil to record your findings, a dive light and a 30-meter tape. We’ve tried to find ways to use underwater cameras and video processing software to eliminate or reduce the need for humans but (so far) it’s not practical." 

Seaweed as climate change fighter?

Seaweed can play a huge role in fighting climate change by absorbing carbon emissions, regenerating marine ecosystems, creating biofuel and renewable plastics as well as generating marine protein. Until recently, this centuries old industry has mainly farmed seaweed for food in Asia, with China as the world’s biggest producer of seaweed, accounting for 60% of global volume. But over the past decade, global seaweed production has doubled—with an estimated value of $59.61 billion in 2019—as interest in seaweed as a food source, carbon sink option and renewable product from consumers, farmers, researchers, and business leaders blossoms. The coast of British Columbia, where Druehl has spent his adult life, is a hotspot of seaweed biodiversity and yet the industry here is only just taking off. A seaweed industry could bring jobs to the area, amidst mass layoffs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Could this remote, seaweed-rich corner of the world turn seaweed into climate solutions for the future? Druehl is optimistic: “I think we’re going to pull it off.”

Time

 

Flying Ferries

Lifting boats from the water reduces drag and fuel usage, even for older vessels, so Artemis Tech started developing foils and complex control systems for many kinds of new and existing vessels. Turbines mounted on the hydrofoils will generate electricity from the boat’s motion, storing it in batteries to power engines when the wind dies.

WSJ (sub required)

 

Ocean bed mining for EV batteries

Vast areas of the abyssal (13,000 to 20,000 feet deep) seafloor, like the 1.8 million square-mile Clarion-Clipperton Zone between Hawaii and Baja California, are covered in potato-sized polymetallic nodules. These form over millennia as water-soluble manganese from sediment pore water on the seafloor causes insoluble manganese hydroxide to precipitate on pieces of fish bones or teeth. These hydroxide materials then scavenge soluble copper, cobalt, and nickel from these same mineral-rich waters.

Each nodule is a BEV starter kit composed of 29.2 percent manganese, 1.3 percent nickel, 1.1 percent copper, and 0.2 percent cobalt. The rest is ammonium sulphate (fertilizer). It's easier and cleaner to isolate the metals from nodules than from land-based ores.

Motor Trend

While EVs could solve some environmental issues, deep sea mining could open up new ones. The video below explores the challenges.

Tackling another Florida scourge

I have written about how tech is helping Florida with the Burmese python invasion

Then there is the invasive lionfish, also nicknamed Darwin's nightmare

From Popular Science

The lionfish first made its way from the South Pacific to the Sunshine State in the 1980s as a popular aquarium pet. It now reigns terror up and down the salty reaches of the eastern United States and Bermuda, with some places hosting hundreds of individuals in a single acre. The species also has a voracious appetite and few known predators (the venomous appendages help), making it nearly impossible to beat back.

Florida’s answer to this dilemma? A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that uses a harpoon gun to exterminate its ruffly target. The “reef sweeper” is designed to snag lionfish lurking well below the water’s surface. On land, a trained employee uses a joystick to home in on the target, almost like in a video game.

Other solutions are shown in this video.

Open Ocean drones

(Open Ocean) drones can be used to collect all kinds of ocean and environmental data. They’re solar-powered, and can reportedly stay on the ocean for up to a year, continuously collecting data, and send it to a user in real time using satellite and other communication systems.

That translates to precise information on marine weather conditions and more accurate forecasts, which can help optimize ship routing, cut fuel use and in turn reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The boats are equipped with 360-degree cameras, ship-tracking intelligence known as AIS and remote-sensing LIDAR (which uses lasers).

“This winter, we’ll conduct sea trials during big winter storms, where our boats could encounter waves that are 50 feet or larger,” says CEO Julie Angus. 

“Our boat will repeatedly capsize during these conditions, but its self-righting design will enable it to continue operating.

Forbes

 

 

 

 

Are shipwreck discoveries becoming easier?

Coupled with other underwater survey systems and GPS, this allows explorers to quickly and accurately map the scene below. Mapping data can then be run through software to detect anomalous undersea structures, like ship hulls, superstructures, and gun turrets, identifying possible wrecks. If the software finds something interesting, the crew can send an AUV equipped with a camera down to investigate up close.

Armed with these tools, explorers can close the book on mysteries decades long, writing a final chapter in the history of a ship, its crew, or sea battle. They can also bring closure to families of lost sailors, particularly those of the San Juan, who now have a location for their loved ones’ final resting place.

Popular Mechanics

The wreck of the Japanese battleship Hiei, sunk on November 14, 1942, was located in the Iron Bottom Sound by R/V Petrel. Watch video from more than 1000 meters below the sea.

 

 

Out There

Great PopSci issue which looks at the edge of everything - in space, under our oceans, the poles of our planet and elsewhere.

We know so little - so much more to explore

Artificial Surf Pool

The Kelly Slater Wave Co. purchased the 20-acre property in Lemoore in 2014. According to a report in Bloomberg, Slater chose Lemoore, a small city with a population of around 25,000, primarily because it was inexpensive. The property cost around $575,000, roughly half the price of a two-bedroom condo in San Francisco. The fact that two lakes already existed on the property also made it appealing. But if Slater was hoping for discretion when he chose Lemoore, which is located more than 100 miles from the California coastline, that part didn’t quite pan out: The internet has been in a frenzy about this man-made wave since Slater first started filing patent applications.

By 2015 the first version of the wave pool was operational. It is not open to the public for surfing, and may never be—although if you’re a Slater buddy, like Eddie Vedder or Tony Hawk, or a philanthropic organization, or an LA-based venture capitalist or tech executive with deep pockets, you can arrange an outing there.

Wired

Massive ocean clean up

The 2,000-foot-long unmanned structure was the product of about $20 million in funding from the Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that aims to trap up to 150,000 pounds of plastic during the boom’s first year at sea. Within five years, with the creation of dozens more booms, the organization hopes to clean half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The patch, a gyre of trash between California and Hawaii, comprises an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of scattered detritus, including at least 87,000 tons of plastic.

New York Times