Goodbye Global Warming!...Hello Terraforming?

silance writes "Here is an article from Science Daily detailing a new method for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale and at normal concentrations. Previous systems require placement near high concentration centers such as power plants, and do not address low-concentration sources (such as internal combustion engines) which are responsible for half of the world's carbon dioxide pollution. The article descibes the technology as scalable to the point of repairing Earth's atmosphere to pre-Industrial-Age levels! Next stop, Mars..." I seem to remember something like this in SimEarth ^? - but I'm not going to hold my breath (Ha! I pun!) waiting for this.

Comments

Where does it get its power from?

[cperciva]

Wouldn't such an operation require rather a large power budget?

I think the first step in reducing athmospheric CO2 must be to stop the use of fossil fuels for large power plants where clear alternatives (eg, solar/wind/wave/tidal/nuclear) exist.

How irresponsible...

[DickPhallus]

Imagine No Restrictions On Fossil-Fuel Usage And No Global Warming

I kind of found this headline a bit disturbing... I hate things like this because they really discourage any responsibilty... It reminds me of all those miracle diets; "Eat all the fatty foods you want and don't gain a pound." Seems like people today just don't want responsibility.

I'm sure it would be a lot better on the planet on a whole if we aimed to reduce emmisions gradually, thus *if* there were any consequences to the environemnt they could probably be dealt with a lot easier than massive forest die-offs or the like.

Of course reducing emissions need some sort of united effort *cough* kyoto *cough*...

Re:What about trees?

[GreyPoopon]

Well, the last part says it all. They can convert it back into fuel.

Later in the article, they actually say that the CO2 is used to process the petroleum. In light of that, I found the following interesting.

Cost of the entire process is equivalent to about 20 cents per gallon of gasoline - a nominal cost when one considers the recent price fluctuations at gasoline pumps across the nation, Dubey said.

So, does that 20 cents per gallon include an estimated return on providing petroleum processors with the large amounts carbon dioxide they need? If not, would include that into the equation yield a solution that is cost neutral? Or maybe even cheaper overall? That would be cool. Those places out west that get to pay a premium for gasoline could reduce their costs because there is a CO2 reprocessing center in the nearby desert.

Re:What about trees?

[JordanH]

• Why has the USA refused (AFAIK, the only one to refuse) to sign that protocol/treat that would stablish rules about CO2 production (and other atmospheric emissions) ?

I really don't want to get into this, but. First, a lot of countries have not signed Kyoto. Second, Kyoto has more to do with transfer of economic power from the US to other countries than it does with reducing greenhouse gases. Under Kyoto, countries like China are largely exempt and will begin producing more heavily. Either you are for reducing greenhouse gases or you aren't, I say. This treaty is a sham designed to hurt the US.

• I live in Brazil, so I know every well how much USA is bossing about the Amazon Forest.

Bossing? I think we're just buying them. If you don't like losing them, stop selling them to us. Of course, this ignores the fact that US activists are in the forefront of trying to protect rain forests, even establishing funds to buy up huge swaths in an effort to protect them.

Aren't a lot of the rain forest cut down to support indigenous agriculture? If this is the case, stop increasing your population and stop blaming the US on all the ills of the world.

• Oh, did you cut all the trees ? Thought. Now, take care of your all problem.

We didn't cut down all of our trees. There are huge forests in the US. I believe I read that there are more trees now than 30 years ago through careful management. We may have increased our consumption our trees from Brazil, but that's because many of the fine woods are not and have never been available in the US are plentiful down there. Oh, I think you'll find the Japanese and others, not just Americans, buy a lot of that wood, too.

• Brazil is a small fish of a country, but we managed to reduce the polution created by cars in about 20%, using alchool based fuels, and another few percent points by mixing some of this alchool on out gas. As far as I know, it's the only country where the usage of alchool fuel for cars really worked (not like ethanol in USA, where it's only in some isolated places).

I'm no chemist, but I think you'll find that alcohol produces very similar CO2 output to Gasoline for the same energy produced. Alcohol doesn't produce the Sulphur, CO1 and other nasty pollution that Gasoline produces, but similar CO2, I believe.