Science
The atmospheric and oceanographic science AMR is based on comes from two international scientific groups.
The first group was called “Restore Our Climate” (ROC). It was a non-profit organization based in Santa Cruz, California, USA. Without ROC – AMR AG would not exist. Oswald Petersen was a member of ROC, and the same was true for Franz Oeste, Peter Wadhams, Clive Elsworth and Renaud de Richter, who you find portrayed below. ROC has been closed in 2021.
The second group, Methane Action, was taken over in 2022 by Spark Climate, this is currently the main center of action regarding methane removal in the United States.
Both groups work the field of methane removal since some years and have dozens of scientists, journalists and project leaders on board who contribute to mankind’s ever growing knowledge regarding the atmosphere and the oceans. Unlike these non-profit organizations who concentrate on research, AMR plans to actually build a methane removal platform. Such endeavour cannot be realized by a non-profit organization, therefore we created a stock company for this project.
In November 2021 we have added Wolfgang Francke and Alexander Michalski to our scientific board. Both are professors for steel-building at HTWG Konstanz and help us in the planning of a methane removal platform. 5 of their students at HTWG write a master thesis on the construction of a high steel-tower on a swimming platform in the ocean, their results will form the basis of the construction plans we aim for.
Scientific Board
Dr. Peter Wadhams
Dr. Peter Wadhams, ScD, has spent the last 50 years researching sea ice and ocean processes in the Arctic and the Antarctic. His work has focused on expeditions and measurements in the field, involving more than 50 expeditions to both polar regions, working from ice camps, icebreakers, aircraft, and, uniquely, Royal Navy submarines (6 submerged voyages to North Pole ). He is Professor of Ocean Physics (Emeritus since 2015) and is the author of numerous publications on dynamics and thermodynamics of sea ice, sea ice thickness, waves in ice, icebergs, ocean convection and kindred topics. His book, A Farewell to Ice, convincingly explains the consequences of the loss of the planet’s ice. At present he is a visiting professor at the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy.
Franz Oeste
Franz Oeste, developer and co-patent-holder of the iron salt aerosol (ISA) method of depleting CO2, methane and other short-lived greenhouse gases; he is the lead author of the primary peer-reviewed article on ISA, and also lead author on a new major paper on natural carbon transport mechanisms that Sir David King is calling a “landmark” paper, and is interested in sponsoring for publication by the Royal Society.
Oeste found the inspiration for what became the ISA method when he tried to help Bangladesh villagers whose wells were arsenic-polluted, and realized the connection between methane and other pollutants.
In his spare time, he hosts a museum featuring the unusual chemical geology of his region and its rocks (in photo), weathered by the same process (only at the bottom of the ocean) that is featured in his latest paper. He has a Diplom-Ingenieur Chemical Engineering from the former State School of Engineering, Essen, Germany.
Renaud de Richter
Dr. Renaud de Richter is French and lives in France. He is a chemical engineer and holds a PhD in organic chemistry from the ENSC Montpellier, France. Renaud performed a post-doctorate at the School of Pharmacy in Minneapolis, MN, USA (1990).
Dr. de Richter was manager of R&D (1991–1993) at a
pharmaceutical start-up in Paris, France. Later, Renaud has been manager of a
team of 32 scientists and technicians of a physical-chemistry laboratory
(1998-2007).
He and his co-authors were the first to propose two
different methods to remove at a climatically significant scale several
greenhouse gases, such as methane
+ nitrous oxide + chloro-fluoro-carbons (May 2017), methane + tropospheric
(surface) ozone + soot (August 2017), methane
and carbon dioxide (March 2021).
Among Renaud’s other key contributions to science are his
proposals to improve solar updraft chimneys in order to produce CO2 free renewable
energy and fresh water in arid regions. View the list
of Renaud’s scientific peer-reviewed publications.
Clive Elsworth
Clive Elsworth took a keen interest in climate change in 2008 after reading leading climate scientist James Hansen’s book Storms of My Grandchildren. He subsequently co-founded Citizens Climate Lobby UK.
Clive has convened and chaired numerous meetings of international scientists and volunteers, and helped in the formation of the organization Restore Our Climate. Clive also maintains a personal climate change website, Climate Games Changers for a Sustainable World, including a page on the Iron Salt Aerosol method.
Clive is currently co-authoring with Franz Oeste what Sir David King has described as a „landmark paper“ on natural oceanic carbon dioxide absorption, transport and burial mechanisms.
Clive received A grades in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry A level at college, and obtained a BSc In Engineering from the University of Bristol.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Francke
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Francke is a civil engineer who graduated from TU Darmstadt, Germany (1989). Wolfgang received his doctorate in steel construction (1997) at the TU Darmstadt. He has been Professor for Steel and Timber Construction at the HTWG Konstanz since 1999 and has headed the Laboratory for Structural Dynamics there since 2014. Since his studies Wolfgang has been involved in areas with special challenges, e.g. feasibility studies for the Stratospheric-observatory for infrared astronomy SOFIA, Very Large Telescope VLT, wooden car parks and the realization of wood in multi-storey construction as an important response to climate change (Studentenwohnheim Paradies, Konstanz, u. a. Holzbaupreis Baden-Württemberg 2006). Another important contribution was Wolfgangs participation at ECOLAR Solar Decathlon 2012 and his first place in the section “Engineering & Construction“.
Wolfgang also worked and published on the realisation of solar updraft towers as an important CO2-free renewable energy together with Oswald Petersen und Dr. Renaud de Richter.
Further detail on Wolfgang may be obtained here.
Prof. Dr.- Ing. Alexander Michalski
Prof. Dr.- Ing. Alexander Michalski, born 1976 in Stuttgart, Germany is a civil engineer with 18 years of profound experience in the design, analysis and construction of light-weight structures.
Disciplines: Structural Mechanics/Dynamics in Engineering
He is a former member of the Chair of Structural Analysis, Technical University of Munich and holder of a Ph.D. degree on the numerical analysis of wind-excited movements of membrane structures. Since 2008, he is a founding partner and CEO of the international operating structural engineering company named str.ucture GmbH, based in Stuttgart, specialized in the analysis and design of special and lightweight structures. He has experience as a teaching Assistant at the Technical University Vienna, Austria, and holding a full professorship at the University of Applied Sciences Konstanz, Germany (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/A_Michalski)