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Divers Are Attempting To Regrow Great Barrier Reef With Electricity (newscientist.com)

Posted by msmash on from the worth-a-try dept.

A trial is underway to restore damaged coral on the Great Barrier Reef using electricity. From a report: The reef has been severely assaulted in recent years by cyclones and back-to-back heatwaves. Nathan Cook at conservation group Reef Ecologic and his colleagues are attempting to regrow surviving coral fragments on steel frames. The frames are placed on damaged parts of the reef and stimulated with electricity to accelerate the coral's growth. Electrified metal frames have previously been used to encourage coral growth on reefs in South-East Asia, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. They have been shown to attract mineral deposits that help corals grow 3 to 4 times faster than normal. The technique is being trialed at a section of the reef 100 kilometres north of Cairns that was badly affected by the 2016 and 2017 mass coral bleaching events. Some coral is starting to grow back naturally, but it will take at least a decade for even the fastest-growing species to fully recover.

23 comments

  1. Sounds like a giant waste of electricity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic

    Climate change is going to make the destruction so far look like child's play

  2. 444 million by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    444 million they didn't ask or tender for. #turnbullwithhillaryinprison

  3. Oh sure! by JoeDuncan · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Divers" are allowed to zap the Great Barrier reef to keep it alive, but when I taze homeless people to make sure they're still alive, suddenly it's a crime?!?

    1. Re:Oh sure! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Homeless people aren't an endangered species.

    2. Re: Oh sure! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They should be. Or straight up extinct.

    3. Re: Oh sure! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't cut yourself with all that edge.

  4. Unsafe prediction. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... it will take at least a decade for even the fastest-growing species to fully recover.

    I'm not sure of this affirmation. The climate change is still deteriorating the life of the animals and plants on the Earth year to year.

  5. It's electric! by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    Doo doo, doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo ...

    1. Re:It's electric! by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      My sacrificial anode is a coral reef, and nobody can figure out if they're supposed to be mad at me or not.

  6. It's alive! by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    The process involves a creepy castle laboratory and a thunderstorm.

  7. Coral Reef Documentaries by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

    I'm sure there are others I've missed but these two stood out:

    * Netflix has a great documentary called Mission Blue

    * National Geographic's Australia's Great Barrier Reef is also good.

    1. Re:Coral Reef Documentaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chasing Coral on Netflix, and of course the respective episodes of Blue Planet and Blue Planet 2 are some of the best.

  8. Zee Coral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Zee coral will be regrowing, else we vill be giving it zee zapp! Zapping shall continue until conformity mit our vishes!

    If you fail to conform, we vill be sending you unter sea to sleep mit zee fishes! Zat is all!!

  9. Shock therapy, in this day and age? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We thought the blowback from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' ended it..

  10. Nearly as stupid as Trump's wall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This reef is 1000s of miles long and 100s of miles wide. What a feeble idea.

  11. Leave it alone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nature does a fantastic job of fixing problems, including the reef. Nano scale experiments are pointless, other than helping spend $500 Million of govt money through nobody reef research organizations.

    1. Re: Leave it alone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nano scale experiments are how we learn.

      Imagine this
      1000 miles of corals dead and gone forever due to a bleaching. But a mile of farm as a protected area could contain a snapshot of nearly the entire biodiversity. So when the event happens, you have a coral seed bank.

    2. Re: Leave it alone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This site just loves to attract amateur scientists, doesn't it?

      They already do extensive research and have done for a very long time. Do you think people just sit around waiting for a something new to happen?

      This 'electric' solution is pie in the sky stuff.

  12. Biorock. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's a really interesting process to go read up on. Basically with a wire mesh, saltwater, and a few volts of electricity you can begin growing rock on a metal surface, limited only by your anode and cathode, ability to supply current, and time permitted. The coral growth numbers for this technique are quite impressive, with a 1-4C tolerance of temperature fluctuations for coral near electrified biorock mesh and an up to 100 percent increase in coral growth due to the advantageous environmental factors created. Put simply it helps facilitate the growth of the coral shells at a much lower energy level than either the biorock or coral can be produced separately.

  13. How will Abbot Point be affected by this? by Synonymous+Homonym · · Score: 1

    If the Great Barrier Reef gets electricied, will Adani have to stop dumping waste from the Carmichael coal mine into the Coral Sea?

  14. And when they screw it up worse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And when they screw it up worse and kill 100% of it they will blame global warming and not themselves.