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

What about trees?

[evilviper]

When did trees go out of fashion?

Why invest so much money trying to replicate what just about all plants do naturally? I mean, geez, perhaps we will surpass plants' abilities to process Carbon Dioxide, but do you think it will run on water, Carbon Dioxide & dirt?

Re:What about trees?

[HiQ]

to harvest carbon dioxide from the air, reducing buildup of the so-called "greenhouse gas" in the atmosphere and allowing it to be converted into fuel.
Well, the last part says it all. They can convert it back into fuel. On the other hand, a tree is also fuel, but you try shove a tree up your tank the next time you go for gas!.
Mind you, hope they don't suffocate the trees by extracting too much carbon dioxide.

Re:What about trees?

[Cade144]

Trees went out of fashion because they are vulnerable to the very problem we are trying to solve, global warming.
Most species of trees have limited hability zone, raise or lower the temperature or annual rainfall, and the trees die. Dead trees decompose and give off methane (also a greenhouse gas) and C02.

Also, when was the last time you saw engineers tearing up a freeway, parking lot, or strip mall to plant a forest? Current land-use trends are for less greenspace, not more.

Re:What about trees?

[Exedore]

On the other hand, a tree is also fuel, but you try shove a tree up your tank the next time you go for gas.

In some parts of the U.S. we already do... up to 10% of the fuel at most gas stations around here is ethanol. Well, okay, it's grain alcohol not wood alcohol, but you get the idea.

It was an interesting concept at its inception back in the late 70's/early 80's (I think), but it hasn't quite lived up to expectations. I think it's stuck around more as a farmer subsidy kind of thing than an effective way of reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Oh, and I think engine and fuel system longevity is harmed somewhat, too.

Re:What about trees?

[Rupert]

You can put a tree in your gas tank. You just have to bury it really deep and wait a few million years.

Re:What about trees?

[sydneyfong]

if you want to turn carbon dioxide into fuel you'd need to input energy during the conversion. A LOT of energy too. Most of our energy comes from fossil fuels. and we aren't using the energy we got from fossil fuels to convert CO2 back into fuels!!! I don't think anybody is interested in doing that, unless the gas gets really annoying and there's a much better alternative energy source to provide the energy for conversion.

Re:What about trees?

[hansover]

Seems like a great technology to be coupled with Solar Cells, considering that some of the larger problems with Solar energy is the need to use it or lose it and the limited portability of large collections of cells. If Solar energy is used to supply the energy for the conversion process then we would again have storable, portable octane or other carbon based fuel of choice.

Re:What about trees?

[letxa2000]

The harvested CO2 is removed from the earth's carbon cycle. This is not a valid long-term way of dealing with the problem.

Why not? I thought the whole global warming problem was that we were pumping too much of it into the atmosphere. If we use this method, aren't we just counteracting our own CO2 production? (assuming we don't take out more than we put into the system).

Or is our CO2 production now considered "natural" and we should just let it run its course? I would personally agree with that, but it doesn't jive with the environmentalist platform...

Re:What about trees?

[morcego]

Well, isn't that tipical. Hey, let USA produce CO2 and all other green house gasses, and let the rest of the world take care of it.
Sorry, I don't mean to attack you personaly, but this is something really anoying. 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) ?
The USA is currently the country that polutes our atmosphere the most, while also trying to boss all other countries what they can do with their forests. I live in Brazil, so I know every well how much USA is bossing about the Amazon Forest. Then I ask, where are YOUR forests ? Oh, did you cut all the trees ? Thought. Now, take care of your all problem.
If you really want to have a part of the Amazon forest, what compensations do you of offer ?
And that is not only the USA. It's a thing we see all contries doing. Brazil does it too with other countries (not about forest, but about other issues). It's the same old story about dumping ones junk on the neighbour's year. If each country would be primarily concerned about it's own junk, we would solve most of the problem.
This CO2 extractor follows the same principle. It tries to circunvect the problem, not solve it. How long before the production of CO2 is greater then these extractors can handle ?
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).
Yes, removing some of the CO2 from the atmosphere is good, but we don't work on reducing the amount of polution produced, we are only delaying the inevitable.

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.

Re:What about trees?

[Paul Komarek]

I don't want to comment on everything you've written, just one statement:

"I read that there are more trees now than 30 years ago through careful management"

I've seen a fair number of replanted areas, and number of trees is not really the issue. The trees I've seen were pathetic toothpicks compared to the trees removed. They were overdense, and tended to break during winter freezes or high winds. You couldn't use them for lumber (well, you might get one 2x4 from each, and I suppose you could chip them), because they're too small. If these are the trees you've read about, then we haven't yet replaced any of what we've taken. It's not clear to me that these overdense tree plantings will ever resemble the forests they replace.

-Paul Komarek

Re:What about trees?

[electroniceric]

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.
Be cautious - this is the Weyerhauser spin on trees. There may or may not be more than 30 years ago (which was a really low point of environmental stewardship for our country), but the trees which have been "carefully managed" are softwood - i.e., pulp trees. In places where trees have been replanted, the ecosystems are not the same as they were.

This treaty is a sham designed to hurt the US.
This is energy company spin. While your points about the transfer of economic power are interesting, putting the "they're just out to get us" angle back in there makes your reply a counter-screed to the parent screed. Second, if the US derives economic power from activities which put a burden on the rest of the world, then we gotta make restitution, even if that involves a transfer of power. You gotta pay to play.

If you don't like losing them, stop selling them to us.
The "just stop selling them" argument is a little simplistic. By the same rights, the US has no business fighting a war on drugs abroad - we should "just stop" buying them. Even worse, it's totally cynical. You're suggesting that because we as the US have money, we're totally devoid of responsiblity for what happens when we throw it around, because after all, all those Congolese people "chose" to "sell" us their diamonds. Yes, there is an onus on Brazil to control it's own population and make sensible policy choices about their resources. But the onus is also on us to help them, because it's in our interests, as well as theirs to have less CO2 in the atmosphere.

The use sounds too good...

[flipflapflopflup]

Surely there must be some way to turn this into a weapon of some sort.

It would make it easier to get funding.

Re:The use sounds too good...

[sinserve]

Well, we can add "global warming" to the axis of evil.

--

The figures are extremely optimistic

[arivanov]

As a chemist I can say that the idea of capturing CO2 with CaO on an industrial scale is extremely optimistic.

It will consume huge amounts of energy to convert back and the efficiency will be very low. The figures come out so optimistic only if you forget about the fact that CaO gets covered by Ca carbonate quickly and in the absence of water the diffusion of CO2 to the remaining CaO will slow to a crawl.

Only alternative to this is to disperse the CaO to micron sizes which means emitting insane amounts of dust into the atmosphere. Same is valid for extracting back. Unless you make the CaCO3 granules of micron or less size the energy efficiency in recovering CaO is very low.In either case you either need huge amounts of water or you will pepper with CaCO3 dust everything several thousands miles windward.

This reeks of "reaserch" sponsored by specific global warming villains. Just the mentioning of "there is enough fossil fuels" about says it all. No names mentioned... We know them all...

[Insert rimshot here]

[eples]

a new method for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale and at normal concentrations

In the study, the old method called Planting a tree, was found to be too conventional and made the landscape too pleasing to look at.

But seriously, this is a GoodThing(tm).

Here at Los Alamos, we can do both!

[bachelor3]

Los Alamos enhances global security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction...

Just covering all our bases, I guess :)

other solutions?

[Apps]

For 20 cents per gallon, you could subsidise a better fuel such as Biodiesel which absorbs more carbon while growing than it emits while being used as fuel.

Also you could plant a lot of trees!!

Re:other solutions?

[foobar104]

thing with biodiesel is the whole food vs. energy... are we really going to grow crops to power vehicles when so many people starve?

We've had this conversation before. The idea that there's a world food shortage is a misconception. In fact, there's a fairly significant annual food surplus. Some of the surplus food is stockpiled, while some is just lost.

People starve because there is a local food shortage where they live. We could get our (where "our" refers to anybody who lives where there's a food surplus, like here in the US) surplus food to them if only it weren't for the excessive cost of fuel.

Full circle.

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:How irresponsible...

[bnenning]

You're proving the point of the poster above who wrote

How many people want to wager that environmentalists will think this is a bad thing. Anything that will allow me to drive my SUV, can't be good, can it?

Seriously, if there were a way to generate enough energy and other resources for our current lifestyles with no environmental impact, how would that not be a good thing? If your goal is to protect the environment, then problem solved. It's only if your goal is to force others to live according to the lifestyle that you deem best that you wouldn't be pleased.

Re:Quicklime

[BeeShoo]

You can download it from www.quicklime.apple.com...
No wait... In the words of the immortal Roseanne Rossanna Danna, "Nevermind".

Oceans gobbling up more carbon dioxide

[Slashdolt]

Ok, so more CO2 goes into the atomosphere = more plants. Oh no, more plants!

We're not destroying the planet by producing CO2. Heavy metals in drinking water is a problem, as are many other types of polution, but CO2 is simply not any more of a problem than Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO).

Get a clue and stop buying into all of this alarmist crap. Work to stop real forms of pollution. Scientists need funding to continue research. To get funding, you have to prove that you are working on something valuable. What could be more valuable than "I'm trying to find out if we're destroying the planet!" Don't think that these people are not in this for the money any less than any corporation out there.

Trees aren't necessarily the answer

[ObligatoryUserName]

I've seen a couple of highly rated posts here mentioning that everyone should just plant trees and then we wouldn't have this problem. As much as I agree with the sentiment there have been a few studies recently that point to the idea that forests aren't really all that efficient in storing carbon dioxide.

Study from this April
http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSScience0204/10_carbon-ap. html

Study from 1998
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2 36000/236276.stm

Also, don't forget that planting vast numbers of trees is something that in many places would be a huge ecological change. Just because they provide lots of nice benefits to people doesn't mean that trees wouldn't kill off native species in areas not currently forested.

Re:Preserve the seaweeds

[BadDoggie]

Probably fighting agains rivers/seas pollution is a better idea, since seaweeds are responsible for 90% of the oxigen production are done by them.

Cite that 90%.

I've heard that NASA spent 2 years developing a pen capable of writing in 0g. The russians used a pencil. Cite that 90%.

A lot of people have heard that. It's wrong.

That's exactly the point, don't just start acting, try the simplicity, haven't we learned anything with the fight Windows vs. Unix?

What does Win v. *nix have to do with removing CO2 from the atmosphere?

In case you missed it, Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is rising exponentially, seaweed is limited in where it can grow, and growth is held in balance with the animals the eat it. Oh, something interesting about seaweed.

Simplicity is much better, try preserving seaweeds instead of build expensive CO2 extractors and planting trees.

Nature is NOT simple. Have a look at how simple glucose metabolism is, and then consider it's one of the most basic processes for the majority of animal life.

Oh, and don't forget about the Hydrogen-cells engine, now a days it can be produced, but due to financial problems it is not as popular as it should be.

It's called a "fuel cell", and it's not extremely simple, either.

I'll give you credit and say, "There's one more troll sated."

woof.

I'll bet his answer to the Middle East situation is situation is, "If you guys would simply stop fighting, everyone will be happier."
The world is not a simple place, despite being filled with simple people.

The figures they are not releasing

[ipsuid]

Lets take the chemistry a bit further...

Converting the CaCO3 back into CaO will take a minimum of 176kJ/mol CaCO3. (CaCO3 + 176kJ -> CaO + CO2). Not even getting into thermodynamics, it will actually take more energy than that - since it can't be done in anything other than a CO2 atmosphere (since they want to recover the CO2).

But for sake of argument, we will use the 176kJ figure. Now, it will take an enormous amount of HEAT to to release the CO2. How are we going to create this heat? How about fossil fuels!

Let's say we use gasoline to heat the CaCO3 and recover the CO2. Gasoline is nearly the hotest burning fossil fuel. Oxidation(burning) of gasoline follows 2C8H12 + 25O2 -> 16CO2 + 18H2O + 5249kJ.

Wow that's hot! Problem though - we just released 16CO2's in that reaction! No problem, we'll just scrub them out with all the rest of CO2 in the atmosphere (notice this machine is getting more and more complicated as we speak).

The energy required to suck that CO2 that we just produced back into a bottle is going to cost us 2816kJ. Which leaves us with 2433kJ to extract more CO2. Unfortunately, the world isn't perfect and we are assuming 100% efficiency.

What does that mean in the real world you ask? Well, given a 100% efficient blackbox into which we feed gasoline and air:

To extract 1 ton of CO2, we will use about 1/4 ton of gasoline (.255ton), almost a ton of O2 (.894ton), and will produce nearly a half ton of H2O (.402ton).

So for all our time and effort, we just created a larger demand for fossil fuels for a process which not only removes CO2 from the atmosphere, but also a NEARLY EQUAL AMOUNT OF OXYGEN!!!

Can we check the math and the geography?

[John Murdoch]

Hi!

A typical extraction facility that could extract all current carbon dioxide emissions would require only an area of one square yard per person in the developed world. A facility of sufficient size could be located in arid regions, since discharged air that is deficient in carbon dioxide could have consequences on nearby plant life.

Okay--one square yard equals 9 square feet. There are 43,560 square feet in an acre, so 1 acre worth of quicklime would recapture CO2 for 4,840 people. There are, as of April 1, 2000, 281,421,906 people in the United States. So we'd need 58,145 acres of quicklime to process CO2 for just the United States.

Quiz: How big is Rhode Island?
Let's just skip the obligatory comparison to the size of the state of Rhode Island--and concede that we're talking about a lot of land. And, oh yeah--we're also talking about a huge amount of quicklime. Which will, of course, need to be replenished all over those tens of thousands of acres. And building a collection system to capture the calcium carbonate from all those tens of thousands of acres wouldn't be child's play, either. And then it has to be processed, and so forth.

This is the kind of government proposal that used to give the Keynesian macro-economics professors a head rush. Just think of the economic multipliers--think of all the jobs created finding and surveying and buying some 60,000 acres of land. Think of all the money spent on massive construction equipment necessary to find, dig, and move 60,000 acres worth of quicklime. Think of all the steel involved in building the equipment necessary to collect all that calcium carbonate. Think of all the steel, electricity, and machinery that will be required to do all this processing. Think of the tens of thousands of jobs we're talking about. Whoopie!

And, oh yeah! Think about the amount of CO2 generated by the electricity used to produce all that steel; and all the CO2 generated by all those cars driven by all those employees, and all those earth-movers scraping depleted quicklime out, and pushing new quicklime back in.

Still with me? Now consider this: there aren't a lot of vacant 60,000 acre tracts of land available in the Washington, D.C. metro area. So a project of this magnitude would require moving all those tens of thousands of people to wherever this (by definition) arid wasteland would be.

This isn't simple, and almost certainly not feasible
Okay, I'm just a simple programmer and part-time college professor. What could I possibly know? It seems pretty clear to me that this announcement wasn't peer-reviewed, or if it was, the peer-review processing happened at a really good office party. The chemistry might be "simple," but the project would not be.

Re:Can we check the math and the geography?

[BCoates]

Quiz: How big is Rhode Island?

776,960 acres if i did my math right... so less than one tenth of a state you could drop on wyoming without anyone noticing. And it doesn't really have to be one huge facility...

--
Benjamin Coates

Eh? Use more fossil fuels?

[Mike Hicks]

Maybe I'm just turning into a conspiracy theorist, but this looks like it's trying to get people to waste more fuel, and possibly support drilling in more places, such as the oft-contested ANWR.

I don't understand why the US government seems to be so intent on getting people to continue using lots of energy (/me says as he sits in an air-conditioned apartment with numerous computers running constantly..). Okay, I do know -- damn near everyone in the administration came from an oil company. Bush, Cheney, hell, even Condoleeza Rice..

Anyway.. Conserving just a little here and there can do quite a bit, especially since folks here in the US already use the most energy per capita.

I agree with the other comments. Plant a tree (or ten, or a hundred..) Get a slightly smaller car, or at least one with a better engine/transmission. Support biodiesel or other renewable energy sources.

Also, the article doesn't appear to say you can make fuel out of the carbon dioxide -- they just found another way to get a supply for people who already use it (the big one being oil refineries).. So, okay, it allows you to re-use CO2 that gets into the air, rather than just leaving it there. Still, I think trees are probably more efficient at it than this idea (an unscientific quick glance at it, unfortunately).

Somehow, this article just seems to be misplaced optimism..

Life terraformed the earth.

[Codifex Maximus]

There is nothing more powerful in chemical conversion than life. Life converts chemicals faster than any acid or agent known to man short of the sun or other nuclear reactions.

Life, however, is subject to a narrow band of habitable conditions. Raise or lower the ph, temperature, gas content of it's growth medium, or food availability and certain forms of life ceace.

Left to it's own devices, life will adapt but maybe not as we would wish. We think of ourselves as intelligent - let us prove it by stopping our meddling with natural processes. Creating manmade forms of removing gasses from the atmosphere will only create more expenses and costs - not to mention byproducts. We need to work WITH nature rather than battling it.

For energy we have the sun. Almost all forms of energy can be traced back to the sun in one form or another. Nature has found a way to convert solar energy into stored energy in the form of sugars. We have found ways of converting solar energy into usable gases which have a net zero effect on pollution - hydrogen/oxygen electrolysis for recombination in a feul cell. Lets develop this technology and avoid the original problem altogether. We could make better or more efficient alcohol or hydrogen burning engines at the very least.

Our very health is dependant on economic considerations. It seems that there isn't much money to be made from fixing the problem - profits are being made treating the symptoms - bottled water and air filtration systems. I guess those who profit feel that they can buy a livable atmosphere and potable water and poison free food while the rest of us suffer and die. What a bleak future we're likely to have - what a promising future we could all have if we just think. Assist or allow nature to fix itself.

60,000 acres is reasonable

[jeff.paulsen]

60,000 acres is the size of a moderate wheat ranch in Montana. It's a tiny fraction of the size of the US, and it doesn't have to be centralized. We're talking about facilities comparable in size and complexity to sewage treatment plants, on a per-capita basis. If we can build power plants and the infrastructure to support them, we can certainly build these.

As for the industrial side of getting all that quicklime, that's not a huge endeavor compared to any other kind of mining. We pull so much copper and bauxite and titanium and coal out of the earth that extracting a few million tons of quicklime wouldn't change the scale of the world's mining industry perceptibly.

Would it work? Maybe, maybe not. BUT, the argument against it on size and complexity does not appear valid.

Geez. You can STACK it!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Okay--one square yard equals 9 square feet. There are 43,560 square feet in an acre, so 1 acre worth of quicklime would recapture CO2 for 4,840 people.

They're talking one square yard of SURFACE area, not a square yard of GROUND. (Unless the engineers are dumb enough just to let the quicklime lie around and scrape it up with bulldozers for recycling.)

You can STACK it - trays in rooms in floors in skyscrapers. You can GRIND IT UP into powder to get LOTS of surface area in a tiny volume, then put a massive volume inside a container.

Three-D has LOTS more surface than Two-D, as much more as you want.

It's time to think INSIDE a box.