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Zero-emission Power Plants Proposed
ckbreckenridge writes "Supercompact, superfast, superpowerful turbines called ZEPPS (zero-emission power plants), designed to combat global warming, could help produce the electrical power needed to keep up with 21st century demand. They would consume methane and oxygen and produce liquid carbon dioxide, which could be sequestered underground. The current electricity grid would need to be replaced by a 'supergrid' across the USA, says Jesse H. Ausubel in The Industrial Physicist. Work on such a system should start as soon as possible, since CO2 levels leaped up 2 ppm in the past two years as global warming becomes more of a reality."
How is this diffrent then toxic waste from nuclear plants being stored under ground.... if we continue storring all this wouldn't eventually run out of place to put it?
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Finally an unlimited source of dry ice for Omaha Steaks. I'm going to buy some stock....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I guess I'll be the first one to day it...
You are going to combat the excessive amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere by...producing more CO2? Even 'sequestered underground,' that isn't much of an option.
But it creates *liquid* co2 that needs to be stored?
Does this mean that I can continue to drive my gas-guzzling tank? I am so for this, I terrorizing people on the road more so than the environment!
I am glad the there are people in the world that think of these things. The only concern I have is the idea of putting the liquid CO2 in the ground. What impact will that have on other systems of our planet?
I thought it had CO2 as an output...?
And where exactly is all of this methane going to come from?
You can convert coal and oil to methane, but it isn't a clean process by any stretch of the imagination.
I doubt existing natural gas supplies would last long under this proposed plan.
NEW MIRACLE CURE!! Lets freeze the carbon dioxide blanketing the earth, and store it underground! Genius! Is this the best we can come up with? Pretty soon someone is going to suggest we blast it into space...
"They would consume methane and oxygen and produce liquid carbon dioxide, which could be sequestered underground." I'll guess we'll put it with the spent nuclear fuel rods.
It produces less radioactive waste then coal-fired plants, but could we please sink more into solar energy sources? By some estimates, we'll begin the end of primary production in the persian gulf within the next decade. Venezualia and the Ukraine may stretch the world's oil supplies by a few years, but the sooner we can get alternatives up and running, the less it's gonna suck when we run out of the cheap oil.
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It's all about the cash
Sequestering CO2 underground is tantamount to screwing our kids over -- again! Burying liquid CO2 will only result in it's boiling at a later point in time, at which point those that live above it will suffocate (this has already happened in Africa, I believe) and we'll get a really killer (as in bad) positive feedback mechanism with respect to climate change. Warm that area, warm it's contained CO2. That CO2 then boils, enters the atmosphere, and adds to the problem.
What we need is real solutions, not some half-assed band-aid effort. This is not a solution, but a cop-out.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
Have a safe planet and a smile.
Why is it only areas that can be monopolized get wise energy choices like methanol? The reduced-pollution benefits of alcohol have been known for over 2 decades, yet no politician wants to force the issue on ethanol-burning transportation. Instead it's oil-powered hydrogen fuel cells.
* Don't you just love that phrase? It's like 'solutions'. My waste solution is to sequester my used food wrappers and banana peels in the city dump. Hey, that does sound better than stinking up the environment with trash, doesn't it? OTOH the next time I serve jury duty, now that I know what 'sequestered' means I'll fight 'em tooth an nail.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
(Highschool chem education in full effect, please correct me if I'm wrong)
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
They've expanded the definition of zero. It now includes "quite a lot as long as it can be buried".
I bet our presidential candidates could make good use of this new zero.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
"Work on such a system should start as soon as possible, since CO2 levels leaped up 2 ppm in the past two years as global warming becomes more of a reality."
Please study statistics. Please realize that a sample over 2 years when Earth existed for billions of years don't mean a thing. Global warming may be a reality, as it may be caused by humans, or part of a natural cycle, or part of a natural cycle human activity accelerated.
In my book, 2 ppm over 2 years, considering error and all, isn't a good reason to start producing these plants 'as soon as possible'.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
Compressing the CO2 to liquid, and storing it underground, takes energy. So these new plants would be even less efficient than our current plants. Which means producing more CO2 per joule of energy generated. Less efficient plants just postpone a bigger disposal problem to the increasingly bombarded future. How about investing that money in a renewable energy *source*, like biomass, solar, wind or tide? Or more efficient bioreactors for separating electrons from petro fuels, cutting emissions proportionately to increased efficiency?
--
make install -not war
There is no such thing as global warming
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Sigh, why does people assume higher C02 levels or changes in gas levels are a product of industy? It could be but there's a lot of other things is could be. It could be ocean polution cutting into the flora that's converting it to oxygen. Hell, it could be a very nature process that is in a peak and about to drop. Nature is dynamic, shifting, changing it's really impossible for us to say what causes what. My personal opinion is that: In the long run we need to look into way ways of harnassing the by-products of industry to make it cyclic, as opposed to simple efficient though that is also a noble goal.
i agree, storing it underground is insane!
i've got a much better idea:
LET'S BLAST IT INTO SPACE!
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
The problem with all of these is you have to worry about the re-emergence of the CO2. Limestone seems like a good option because you just have to keep it dry. The downside is that limestone is heavy and even though the production is exothermic, producing lime has not been worked out. Pressurizing CO2 and storing it underground works, unless it leaks out. Then you have the same problem. Liquid bubbles are good if you have a very high pressure place to store them (the ocean), but the long term effect is acidification of the ocean and exhaustion of the carrying capacity (estimated to be around 1000-1500Gtons, we produce around 3Gtons/year).
There aren't any easy answers. However long term, since coal is about 57% of current electricity in the U.S., it's not going away. What carbon sequestration will do is allow us to bridge the gap economically and technologically between high and low carbon fuel sources.
I'm a big fan of wind, but there are still lots of hurdles.
-- Bird in the Bush: The Renewable Energy Blog http://www.birdinthebush.org
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings /01/vision21/v211-5.PDF
Chris Williams clw7500nc@gmail.com
If it puts out CO2 then it isn't zero emissions, It can only be dubbed zero emissions if it takes IN something and puts OUT NOTHING. The fact that it puts out CO2 instead of other chemicals really isn't the point.
ItWasFree.com - Take the mystery
Methanol
...is if we use neutron emissions to transmute the CO2 into gold.
--AP in economics from Devry Institute
since CO2 levels leaped up 2 ppm in the past two years as global warming becomes more of a reality.
Well this would be a problem if humans produced any real quantity of co2....the thing is 300 gigtons of co2 is produced a year from natural causes and humans only produce 6 gigtons...the more likely couse of increased co2 is that carbon sinks are going though a natural cycle and are currently absorbing less at this time....or it is possible that natrual production of co2 has increased.
stendec@gmail.com
It just seems wrong ... the heat pullled out of the CO_2 has to go somewhere. In practice gas compression is not a reversible process so total entropy has to go up. There is no magic to be had. This is almost as stupid as Dub's goal of building a hydrogen economy by converting fossil fuels.
Storing CO2 emissions underground is not the same as zero emissions.
Moving oil from underground to the surface is not the same as "producing" oil.
And breeder reactors do not create more fuel than they consume.
These may all be worthy activities, but let's try not to engage in magical thinking.
As Barry Commoner observed: "Everything must go someplace. Everything is connected to everything else. There is no such thing as a free lunch."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
A friend who worked in the Hazardous Waste disposal industry lamented the ignorance of many protesters who came out to his site and harrassed the workers. They didn't know the difference between Hazardous and Toxic waste. CO2 is not toxic. In high concentrations it can be harmful (depending on the lifeform), but that is the definition of Hazardous. Toxic means it does harm even in small concentrations.
Example:
1,000 gallons of horse urine if dumped on a field would probably kill the grass, but if dilluted and spread over time it would not.
1 milligram of plutonium spread on a field would kill the grass, no matter how you dilluted it and grass wouldn't grow again for a long time.
I'm sure I didn't explain this as well as he could have, but I hope you get the gist of it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There's perfectly good technology for producing emission-free power. I do believe it involves atoms.
This one would produce a shitload of liquid CO2. Even the article states it's challenging storing 500x the amount of CO2 oil companies do these days.
I suppose it's just a matter of time until the thetans will land and provide us with free energy. That's why we don't need emission free energy sources.
I'm zero-emissions after a six pack and a couple cans of corn. NOT!
We get about 20% of all our electricity from them. They're also known as nuclear power plants.
And before some wise ass decides to say, "The waste is an emission," no it's not. At least it's not in the context of this article.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Hurry! This is a limited time offer! While supplies last!
/. in the last year and these are actually being built (cheaper and/or more efficient solar cells, large wind turbines, inherently-safe nuclear reactors, etc.)
Oh, sorry. It's just that articles like this remind me of what I see on Home Shopping Network when I don't change the channel fast enough.
In this case we have an idea that is not tested, will require development of materials that don't currently exist, and will need a new "supergrid" to support. Further, the effects of the proposed sequestering are not known.
But in spite of that it merits "billions" of research dollars immediately because of the fear of global warming.
We've discussed a lot more practical projects on
Time to send this guy packing till he comes up with more than vaporware.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Try breeder reactors. Say it with me, bree-der re-act-ors. CO2 is still an emission. Lets say there is a leak in the containment system of this lq CO2, ut-ohh now we have gas CO2. Same problem. Come on, next story.
Not meaning to be gloomy, but industry will follow the path of least cost unless standards dictate otherwise. If not for "bleeding heart California liberals and environuts" you wouldn't even have the mileage standards we enjoy today in our vehicles - they were derided as "impossible" by the auto industry in the day.
Let's not store that CO2, let's use it to hyper-carbonize plants in special greenhouses. We can then compost those plants to create the methane gas we need to run the darn things.
Of course, we could just wake up from our dream states and realize that there is NO zero-effect way to create energy.
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
Homer: "In this powerplant, we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics!". ...
The current trend is toward smaller, more distributed power, not massive single units. Distributing power generation closer to where it is needed reduces transmission line losses. Putting all your generation in a few, large units also causes problems when one or two of them go down at the same time. Can you say brownout?
The real solution is twofold: use more efficient powerplants (use waste heat from powerplants rather than dumping it into rivers and oceans), and more importantly, reduce consumption.
SCO, Microsoft, P2P, what's your hot button?
For sake of reference, the suffocation incident was at Lake Nyos in Cameroon and is documented at http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/smother.asp . 1,746 people killed in a matter of minutes... evidence of how scary Mother Nature can be. Although, to be fair, death was apparently very swift and likely painless.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Where I lived, a return to the long-term global average temperature (about 5C warmer than now) would be great. It might turn North Africa into a greenbelt again, too, just like it used to be. That would really help with the famines there! I know change is rough on everyone, but the poor dirt farmers would be a lot better off with an extra growing season. I really think that global warming is just too good to be true.
How much CO2 did Mt. St. Helens vent last eruption? How does that compare to the CO2 from power generation? This link claims that human CO2 inputs are at least an order of magnitude smaller than the natural output of CO2, and that that tips the balance towards increasing CO2 levels.
I really don't believe that idea, but just in case there is something to it, I say: go burn something. I'm sick of shivering!
See what I've been reading.
Is it me or does this sound like the time Homer put all the trash underground.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
In other news, astroid mining has been proposed to cut down on the harmful strip mines on earth.
Sounds like another 'solution' that would cause more problems than the problem.
Termites
Slashdotter's Diets
the single most immediate impact you (a single individual) can have on global warming is to stop taking airline flights.
airlines dump CO2 high in the atmosphere where it has a magnified effect on global warming.
Store the CO2 underground and when cheap spaceflight or space elevater becomes reality we can dump it into space for superman to clean up :)
[Rant]
I am so very tired of overused adjectives, and "super" is the worst of them. Everything is super-something. Here we get three in a row, and another one further down in the summary paragraph. I don't even know what they mean anymore. How compact? How fast? How powerful compared to current units? This has gone on for years, and communicates nothing anymore. So this is my super-sized outburst.
[/Rant]
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What a rosy view of the future!
...is mehead on mecrooked? If for some ridiculous reason they planned to go ahead with this, a more realistic solution for the CO2 waste product would be to run the gas produced by the evaporating liquid CO2 through another turbine, effectively extracting more electrical energy from the process. Chris
"You can drive out Nature with a pitchfork, but It always comes roaring back again." - Tom Waits
We are talking several hundred billion dollars, if not a trillion plus.
He then goes on to say it would take 100 years and 1 trillion dollars.
In other words "aint' gonna happen".
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Like America will do all this after they just spent all that money to get at Iraq's oil. Fossil fuel will be around for a long time to come yet.
I went to a speech last night about Peak Oil saying that oil production was going to start falling at 10% a year every year starting in two to three years because of a well known oil geology phenomenon known as Hubbert's Peak. So which is going to be the end of humanity? Global Warming or Peak Oil?
The proposed plants are to operate at higher efficiency than current ones. Higher temperatures allow higher efficiency.
No
kthxbye
Work on such a system should start as soon as possible, since CO2 levels leaped up 2 ppm in the past two years as global warming becomes more of a reality.
:-P
As a resident of northeast Ohio, I say lets wait until the average temperature here during the month of January is about 60. Then, lets get these babies running.
- Kevin
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
It's really easy, all we have to do is Kill all the People! Well, Kill all of the people and replace them with trees, and other vegetation. The reason we are in the pickle that we are in is we are over running the planet.
So my suggestion is to run right now to the nearest ammo shop, and buy up the most high powered assualt rifle you can find, with plenty of ammo, of course. Find a high spot, and then kill everyone in sight, finishing off with yourself of course, because any job worth doing is worth doing all of the way!
And if you can't bring yourself to kill others, or yourselves, then simply go to a nice large open area, near a high spot, and mill around for a while.
In the meantime I will continue my life up in teh woods, avoiding the usage of oil and other evils, being and enviromentally friendly as I can!
P.S. When I moved in I sent the Heating Oil usage in this house from 100 gallons a month to 10 gallons a months, through the burning of dead timber from the woods that was converting itself back to carbon dioxide anyway.
Like arts? Like cheesy little Indie mags? Check out www.artwerkmag.com, and don't laugh at the bad coding please.
Give me a break! Coal power plants do not produce radioactive waste.
"It can only be dubbed zero emissions if it takes IN something and puts OUT NOTHING"
Meaning what, something like total conversion of matter and antimatter into energy? Or maybe a black hole that permanently sucks up matter? Barring such exotic possibilities, I don't see how "zero emissions", strictly speaking, is possible.
OTOH, perhaps my attic could be considered "zero emissions", because nothing I put up their ever seems to come out again.
This is a fine idea, however, I can't help but wonder who will pay for "replacing" all of the existing plants.
Do you have any idea how many power plants (not to mention co-gens) there are in the US? A shitload. I know because I sell to them.
Great ideas come to fruition only if they can get funded. And we are talking a LOT of funding in this case. I mean, look at HRSG's (heat recovery steam generators). Those are here NOW -- and most plants can't "upgrade" because of the money.
How much CO2 is removed from the atmosphere from natural causes (photosynthetic plants for example)? Overall production of CO2, while an important metric, is not the only metric needed in this case.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
*SMACK!*
Pebble bed reactors are cool, no doubt. They are more efficient than standard reactors and by design safer. However, they aren't perfect.
They can, and in fact have, melted down. The first problem is that they heavily utilize graphite both in the core and in the fuel pebbles. Graphite is quite flammable and should it catch fire, you would have a meltdown. The fuel pebbles would have to be manufactured nearly 100% perfect to prevent this.
Second, a pebble bed reactor has in fact had an accident that released radiation to the environment. In 1986, a research reactor in Germany radiated a 2 Km square area when a pebble became stuck in the feeder tube and ruptured after attempts to remove it. Granted this is a small scale accident, but it shows that the design is not flawless.
Another problem is that these reactors are designed to be modular, so that you buy them and chain them together as needed. By virtue of this design, you cannot have a containment vessel. This means that any radiation released will be free to go out into the environment.
So, these reactors are an improvement, but they are definitely not the solution to the problem.
They have zero to hide.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
How is this diffrent then toxic waste from nuclear plants being stored under ground....
Much more hazardous, especially on an immediate basis.
Liquid CO2, pushed down injection wells under pressure, occasionally springs a leak. When this happens you suddenly get a giant bubble of CO2 on (and in) the ground, displacing the oxygen and killing everybody and everything (even plants if it persists in the soil long enough) for miles around.
This has happened when CO2 injection was used to pressurize oil wells to squeeze more oil out of the gound.
A similar phenomenon happens naturally (though fortunately VERY rarely) when largely CO2 volcanic gasses vent into a deep still lake (such as in a volcanic crater). The gasses disolve, carbonating the lower waters. Then suddenly something disturbs the water and some of the carbonated water comes up and starts to bubble - rapidly "turning over" and boiling out the CO2 in the rest of the lake in a matter of minutes and releasing a similar ground-hugging toxic bubble.
Think of a shaken soda can the size of Lake Tahoe.
if we continue storring all this wouldn't eventually run out of place to put it?
Nuclear, at least, takes up very little space and decays over years/centuries/millenia (depending on the isotope - generally the hotter the faster). Some of its components are also useful and can be separated out and put to work. Others can be "burned" in nuclear reactions into less hazardous and/or more useful material.
That's not to say it's safe or good stuff. Some of it is horrid. But "running out of room" isn't the problem. (Keeping it in its room until it promises to be a good little kid and MEANS it is the problem.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You are Super tired ;)
ba da bing
There would be this huge supply of liquid CO2 stored underground. Nobody wants to fill the atmosphere with CO2, but at least some of it gets converted back to oxygen by plants. Won't we eventually have an oxygen shortage when too much oxygen has been used in the ZEPP combustion process and is now stored underground in the form of liquid CO2? Will some future generation need to find an energy-efficient way to release oxygen from CO2 or possibly water? Is this more difficult than the original problem? There must be a better way.
One of the supposed great greenhouse threats is that cast amounts of methane are forzen on the ocean floor. Even minute warming can cause this to suddenly revert to the gaseous state causing large belches and farts to arise from the ocean floor and enhancing the warming process.
So, whoopee!!! Let's make man made CO2 ice that can unpredictably thaw in the future! Oh, and let us devote precious ENERGY resources to liquifying, cooling, and keeping cold all that CO2!! You have got to love envirowackos. Kerry should have brought up his support for this during the debate.
What a crock. This "solution" isn't a solution at all. If liquid CO2 in deep wells or the ground were a long-term sustainable storage mechanism for carbon, why is it that there is no such carbon storage existing naturally? Limestone, biomass, (living things, oil, gas), and oceans are all viable carbon storage media. I have no reason to believe the process described is a safe or effective way to store carbon so as to ensure indefinitely that it does not end up in the atmosphere.
It would be much better to continue research on other power sources, some of which are already commercially viable, or continue research on making lime from something other than limestone. If all that sounds too hard, plant a fucking tree. It'll do more long-term good than trying to sell people a way to make CO2 some future generation's problem.
There are only three kinds of energy available to us: solar, nuclear, and kinetic. The kinetic energy is that of the planet's motion through space; it includes a rotational component, its motion around the sun, the sun's motion around the galaxy, and the galaxy's motion through intergalactic space. We do not want to tap either of the first two (this would result in much greater climate change, since earth would turn more slowly and/or move closer to the sun), and the other two are impractical to exploit. Therefore we are left with either nuclear power or solar (light) energy and its immediate derivatives: wind, falling water, solar heat, and thermal differential. If we cannot find ways to make use of the five solar energy sources, or a way to make exploitation of nuclear energy safe, we will find our current living standards unsustainable within 200 years. This junk is just a temporary hack that would cost more in the long run than just finding cleaner energy sources.
With the "my electric bill is too high already" mindset of the average consumer, and the Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) approach of all but rural communities, who's going to pay for these new electrical grids (and their right of ways), and where are these new plants going to be built? It's difficult enough getting a spot for a conventional plant.
I suppose that our future energy security depends on diversity. There are lots of sources of energy and with $50/barrel oil, many of them are economical right now. You should now be able to make money with wind energy for instance.
I really don't like the thought of huge centralized plants that require a whole new distribution system. A few giant companies will make money and the rest of us will pay.
My favorite solution is the process where they change turkey guts to oil. It is pretty efficient and gets rid of a waste product that otherwise becomes polluting. The initial plant has been run at full capacity and more plants are in the works. The plants look fairly easy to build and could be sited wherever there is a reasonable supply of waste. The way I see it, that means jobs all over the country and a greatly reduced dependance on foreign oil. More jobs, better balance of payments, less pollution; what's not to like about it. Plus, the oil the process produces works with our existing infrastructure.
www.changingworldtech.com
the thing is 300 gigtons of co2 is produced a year from natural causes and humans only produce 6 gigtons
(assuming your numbers are correct.)
Carbon sinks would need to increase their capacity by an equal amount otherwise 6 trillion kilograms of additional CO2 in a year is pumped into the atmosphere.
If you increased your caloric intake by only 2% beyond the rate of metabolism (assuming a 2000 calorie daily intake), and you didn't increase the rate you metabolize, you would gain about 1 lb every 4 months. After 1 year you would gain about 3 lbs. After 20 years you would gain 60 lbs.
How many years of this would it take before you were willing to admit you have a weight problem?
Your belief that the atmosphere is fine because we are only overproducing C02 by 2% is fallacious. It is a dream.
2% will kill you. Slowly, but eventually it will kill you. And we are killing the atmosphere if we overproduce by 2% without increasing CO2 sink capacity by an equal amount.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
I keep "proposing" zero emmisions plants all the time, but as soon as I type the word "nuclear" around here, everyone gets all squirrly ...
...This whole sequester CO2 thing also sounds risky to me. First in addition to carbon, sulfur and hydrogen are being introduced to the climateshpere, among other elements. And 2 Oxygen atoms are being taken out for every one carbon atom sequestered. It would seem to me that the the balance chemicals in the atmsophere would still be disturbed...and not necessarily beneficial to man. My preference is to grow lots of vegetable oils from algae (for biodiesel et al), and stuff the excess underground.
This is a great piece of the puzzle, allowing methane waste from landfills to be re-cycled. It is only a stepping stone to truly revolutionary and sustainable development. Methane is desirable as a fuel source as it can be generated from both waste and mining. But it is a secondary product of biomass decay. I think that truly revolutionary technologies are available and more advantageous as they stop the actual material from being taken to the landfill in the first place, and can replace oil. Such revolutionary technologies as that can be more effective by solving several problems at once.
For a check on what has been done and is already in production today check out this article: http://www.teea.org/winners/winners_summary.asp?CA TEGORY=INNOVATIVE%20TECHNOLOGY&CURL=9
I think this paints a complete picture of the future of transportation: a plug-in diesel/electric hybrid running on biodiesel. The batteries are charged from zero-polution electric plants which feed the carbon dioxide to algae farms which create the oil for biodiesel. The car runs most of the day on the electricity, but switches to diesel when the battery gets low. IMHO this is a far more realistic scenario than the fuel-cell which is getting a good deal more political attention than it deserves at thsi stage.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
The incidents in africa were crater lakes over volcanos. The difference in pressures brought about by the lack of seasonal temperature change preventing mixing of the lake waters allowed large amounts of VOLCANIC gases to build up. Suddenly some catastrophic event (probably over-saturation) caused the lakes to release large quantities of gases which had been building up for a significant amount of time, which then quickly bubbled up through the lake. This has absolutely nothing to do with a bunch of "barrels" of liquid CO2 buried in the ground. First, you'd need all of the barrels to spontaneously and nearly simultaneously burst. Second, gas doesn't percolate through soil nearly as fast as it does through water, so there would be very little chance of a massive catastrophic release.
:-D
We'd all love to live in little mushroom houses powered by love, happiness, and sunshine, but unfortunately we live in the real world, and solar panels aren't going to be a viable energy source any time soon, so stop your fear-mongering and go back to hugging your trees, hippy. People bitch and moan all the time about how bad for the environment coal and nuclear power is, but when you suggest a vastly superior method, which pollutes much less, they kneejerk and say "THATS NOT GOOD ENOUGH WAH WAH WAH!" Sorry, dirtfoot, you can't have your shrooms and eat them too. I love how my post turned into flamebait at the end
Taking this to the next logical step - instead of taking in methane and oxygen, if they simply took in hydrogen and oxygen, the plant would output fresh clean water which could be used for drinking or irrigation.
I guess some scientists have difficulty thinking outside the box.
Although, water is toxic if breathed in large quantities and sometimes contains pirana, so my solution is not yet perfect.
Back to the drawing board.
>> They would consume methane and oxygen and >> produce liquid carbon dioxide, which could be >> sequestered underground.
It's called coral reefs and shellfish. Oh, wait, we're poisoning both of those already. Doh!
Time to dust off my paintball gun! What were we trying prevent from being released into the air again?
Natural processes do not change the global CO2 balance, at least not on the short time scales that humans are capable of changing it.
well exept for almost every historical global period co2 increases have lagged behind temprature increases...this is true of the most recent global warming....a more acurate model would be global warming causes higher consentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere not the other way around.
weather this is caused by the lowering of the ability of carbon sinks to absorb co2 or that it increses production of Co2 is still unknown.
stendec@gmail.com
since CO2 levels leaped up 2 ppm in the past two years as global warming becomes more of a reality.
Umnuh...If it weren't for methane (from cow farts), C02, and water vapor in the air, Earth would be frozen solid. Global warming IS a reality. Would you really have us go back to a Snowball Earth. The global environment is experiencing dramatic change, much of it influenced by human activity. Any problems will take care of itself if humans don't work to make it sustainable for themselves. And the cockroaches at last will achieve ascendancy.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Hydrocarbons are a DEAD END.
/slams head into desk //wishes there was a tool to punch people in the face across the internet.
If everyone can just accept that, we can move on.
Sure, it's expensive to move to actually cleaner power, like solar and wind, but it's kind of hard to spend the extra cash when you kill yourself with toxic waste and fumes, as well as the entire planet.
Fucking retards.
why put all the CO2 underground when we can just send it into orbit on the space elevator?
I hope you all realize that Sequestering does not mean they will put it in tanks and put those tanks under ground... Its a fancy process that involves putting the actual gas in the soil which (think back to ur last bio class) will be converted back to oxygen by mother nature herself... (No, your houseplant does not breathe in oxygen :-) Oh, and this is done mostly on farmland and the farmers get paid for it so if ur a farmer, you should be pushing for these things
The only concern I have is the idea of putting the liquid CO2 in the ground. What impact will that have on other systems of our planet?
If it stays put, nothing. Eventually (over geologic time) it will probably "cook", along with underground minerals and traces of water, into carbonates, methane, or even oil (depending on what's around it). (Not that it will matter to us. By the time that happens it's unlikely (absent major STABILIZING technology applied to the human genome) that any lifeforms on the planet will be recognizable as human by current standards.
Will probably cause earthquakes, though, as such injection of other liquids has done in the past. (Imagine a hydraulic jack the size of a middle-tier state, applied to a faultline.)
If it leaks, bad news. It will form a CO2 bubble on the ground and kill everything for miles around. (This has happened with CO2 injection wells in the past used for squeezing more oil out of the rocks. This proposal would mean a LOT more injection, and probably more such accidents.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You can calm down. They're studying cheap ways to extract oil from the tar sands reserves in Alberta. It's going to happen. And there's more salvagable oil there than there is in all liquid oil in the entire planet. So it isn't going to be a problem for a long time, definitely not in the next decade.
He said radioactive WASTE. That assumes disposal issues. Burning fossil fuels may emit trace amounts of "radioactive" elements, but this is NOT a concern versus the issues with NO2, Sulfur Dioxide, Mercury, etc.
Using plants to reduce the atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn't work because eventually all of that carbon would end up back in the atmosphere. With plants decaying or being burnt, CO2 is let off.
But say instead the plants are eaten, by growing fruit and vegetables (which is the obvious choice vs. non-edible plants). However the carbon will still make its way back to the atmosphere by being released by the animals that ate those plants.
This shows clearly what the real problem is. We are mining carbon from underground in the form of crude oil, and have no way of getting it back down there. Therefore we will always have a positive sum of carbon.
Until we find a way to convert CO2 into straight carbon, the carbon that we have released from underground will always be with us up here.
Partly true; it's also a chemical poison, but you're correct in that the radiation hazard outweighs it, and plants are less vulnerable to heavy metal poisoning than things with a nervous system anyway. Additionally, plants are generally more resistant to radiation than animals.
Of course, grass is relatively fast growing as plants go, and fast dividing cells are more radiation susceptible as a rule. On the other hand, one gram Pu is "only" about 63 milicuries-- nasty, not mindboggling-- and grass uses a high k-factor reproductive strategy (IE, try for a lot of progeny, ignore 'em, and hope some live). So, while some of your grass will be noticably unhealthy, you'll still have green grass on your lawn... until the EPA shows up. =)
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Use that sequestered CO2 to provide carbonated water through the local waterworks. Urinals and stools just got a whole lot more fun.
It really works. One way of doing it is to put the manure into a covered ditch. The methane collects under the cover, and then it can be burned off.
Problem is, every so often, the carbon dioxide gets out. And lots of people die. Now, there are degassing projects which release the gas from the lakes into the atmosphere in a gradual controlled process.
Degassing
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Actually, most of the C02 on earth has always been stored underground. The C02 create by burning fuels (not only fossil fuels), is consumed by all plants on Earth. When these plants die, they fall to the ground and is slowly decomposed into the soil. A powerplant that consumes methane and oxygen, and produces CO2, which is then transported into the ground, would thus be doing something very similar to what all plants are doing now.
Nuclear waste is a bigger problem. It's not a matter of simply putting it back into the ground. Nowhere in nature can you find radioactive material as concentrated as in piece of nuclear waste. Then there's the problem of finding a suitable place that would sustain earth quakes, continental shifts, ice ages and the raising of the land afterwards. Sure, nuclear power is much better than burning fossil fuels, but we can most likely do better.
i thought of something on holiday (either watch cnn or think....)
when your syphen petrol out of a car, you such on a hosepipe and let air pressure keep sucking all the petrol out for you, so if you connected a hosepipe to a pool of water, then let the water come out of the top of the hosepipe (after one initial suck), the water could fall on windmill type things, to turn them - this energy would never cease to exist, unless somebody left the lid off and the water evapourated, or there was dirt in the water and it clogged up the windmill thing.
would this work?
as per the subject, please dont mock, i have no knowledge of "windmill type things", or most else to do with hydroelectric power. just tell me if it would work, if not, why not and if so, is it currently in use/viable?
thanks for your time.
Humans have a large percentage of carbon...
Charlton Heston: The space elevator is made of people!
Can someone please explain to me how "consumes oxygen and methane gas and produces liquid carbon dioxide" is a SOLUTION to "CO2 levels were up 2ppm"?!? This "solution" apparantly tries to convince us that the CO2 waste is OK because it's in liquid form?
This guy talks about 3000 RPM as a novel, high, shaft speed. Standard power generation turbines normally run at 3600 RPM, or sometimes 1800 RPM, to synch with the power grid. Modern microturbines run up to 96,000 RPM. (Yes, at last, Capstone Turbine isn't vaporware any more. You can actually buy a 60KW generator from them. This is an option worth considering if you need backup power for your data center.) Only 24% efficient, though. General Electric's most efficient gas turbines have reached 60%. (Big turbines are more efficient than little ones.)
Turbine technology is up against materials limits. Vast amounts of effort (many billions of dollars) have been put into finding better materials for turbine blades, because this limits aircraft performance. Current blades are single crystals of metal, often with a ceramic coating. Pure ceramic blades have been made, but have tensile strength and brittleness problems. The turbine this guy is talking about requires materials way beyond anything that exists today.
If it's thermodynamically possible to build a big machine of the type this guy is talking about, it should possible to build a little one right now.
A Neocon is a NeoConservatice. They believe that the use of military force is OK as long as it isn't used to directly protect the USA. That is why they are for protecting other nations borders with the US Military and against protecting the borders of the United State with the same military.
They also hate their kids and believe that current spending levels are OK and that future generations will pay off their debts.
Zero emission power plants have existed for more than a century. They are called hydro dams. In some countries this is the main means of producing electricity. The only output is water which would have gone down the river anyway.
ok so build a kernel module that does this:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
output =~ s/super//g;
or a mozilla module.
Do you think that oil was created in the supernova of a star? It came from decaying plant and animal material. So whats wrong with putting the carbon back into things that will eventually ( Billions of years later) return it to where it came from? What no pateince? What we need is a way to facilitate the means of turning plant material back into usable fuel... Biodiseal. If we can some how make that transformation more efficient we will have our solution.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
My bad. Nice catch.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
The current electricity grid would need to be replaced by a 'supergrid' across the USA.
Sorry, can't write the check for this one. Still paying down the nationwide fiber network that was supposed to yield $.0005 phone calls and *unlimited* bandwidth for everyone.
Can you call me back say -- next month?
Being wrong is not lying, it's either stupidity, ignorance, or incompetence. Pick all that apply! (In my case it's usually ignorance, but occasionally stupidity.)
Intelligent, well-informed, competent people who are not lying are right.
This has happened when CO2 injection was used to pressurize oil wells to squeeze more oil out of the gound.
They are still doing this. Any pointers to the deaths you mentioned?
"Global Warming" is a myth, "michael." Try to remember every once in a while that your personal political prejudices do not equal reality.
title sufficent
yet lameness filter attacks
my haiku deflects
filter returns blow
poem redoubles it's effort
will it be enough?
enemy unslain
patience wearing so thin
anticipation
revelation comes
slashcode prohibits colon
title corrected
What about those new-fangled fully-automated, self-replicating, carbon-sequestering, oxygen-producing food machines? By which I mean plants.
Maybe if we spent less time trying to engineer solutions from scratch and started improving the ones we already have we'd get somewhere faster?
thats a super idea !
Why do they have to come up with these stupid
solutions. Storing Carbon underground. What
is wrong with storing it in trees like they
did in the old days. There are millions of
acres of land that have been deforested by
people that could be put to use doing this.
Distributed power systems is what we need. Not
big power systems. Distributed and varied. Not
single kind. coal/nuclear. We need all kinds
of power systems. Diversification of power sources.
This is what industrial type people propose. Big,
Large, Humongous. Why not many small? Why not
try conservation too. How about intelligent wall
warts that would automatically disconnect from the
wall when they do not need the power? How about
better lighting systems?
I always was fascinated by these towers
Seems like an innovative means of power production with many usefull by-products...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Wait... nutmeg is poisonous if injected?
I'm not saying you're wrong (I don't know), but can you substantiate this? Not that I'm ever likely to inject any nutmeg in any way whatsoever, but still...
I would be more impressed if these ZEPPS were burning hydrogen rather than methane. The main isssue with Hydrogen is the production of it.
. htm
Fortunately it seems that science(and nature) may have provided the answer already:
http://www.zetatalk.com/energy/tengy14r
Potentially a neat system:
1. Create Algea bed
2. Stress the Algea to produce hydrogen. Required inputs water, sun, and other nutrients for the algea(don't know what those would be)
3. Siphon off the hydrogen
4. Burn hydrogen as needed. Outputs: Energy and water
5. Recycle the water to the algea
Costs:
1. Plant construction
2. Algea food
3. Water, due to entropic loss some water would have to be added to the systems.
Cons:
1. Hydrogen leaks could cause fires
Still it is a better system than the CO2 factory listed above. And much more practical in the short run the nuclear energy or hydrogen powered cars.
I agree with the idea on investing on solar, but keep in mind that the indicators that some catastrophist use to say that "there will soon be no oil more" are often based on a misunderstanding: when you hear that there are 40 years more of oil reserves, only the reservoirs present and economically advantageous are counted. If the oil price rises, someone will open again the oil field in Oklahoma, which were mostly closed long ago because it grew too costly to extract oil there.
So there is not going to be a catastrophic doomsday when the gas stations are suddenly empty, but a oil price that will rise gradually until you decide it's actually cheaper to buy a hydrogen car, or another technology.
Given the quantity of money people waste on satellite tv showing reality shows or strawberry-flavoured condoms, it's hardly going to be that hard (though we'll definitely notice).
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Clearly, we just need to wait until we can cheaply convert the
CO2 to molecular carbon and pure oxygen. (Yeah, I know the energetics aren't favorable.)
Big-ass diamonds and bottled oxygen for everyone! Whoo hoo!
oook... so how about we dont put the stores on cliffs abouve villages? put it at the low ground... or hey.. even fricken underground.
Go check the link out - it's to wired.com - they have developed a nuclear reactor that doesn't go critical when the coolant system is switched off.
Normal (in the US, that is) pressurized water reactors don't "go critical" when the coolant system is switched off either. Bad things can certainly ensue, if all other safety systems also fail, but continued self-sustaining nuclear reaction is not one of them, because neutron moderation caused by the water is a necessary component of a sustained reaction.
Just nitpicking, of course - the main point of your argument is absolutely correct.
The connection between global warming and carbon dioxide emissions is an anti-development boogie-man fabricated by elitist, self-righteous, unscientific, volvo-driving, mac-using, eco-nazis.
The problem with storing vast amounts of CO2 underground is when it does get released and it will, it will flood the atmosphere with CO2. In smaller amounts plants can convert the CO2 to oxygen. So we could concievably add CO2 to the atmosphere as long as we increase rain forest size and create a balance to the CO2. But an extremely large amount of stored CO2 being released because of tectonic motion is not a pleasant thought. Everywhere man inhabits, we kill vast amounts of plant life. We now have billions of humans on the earth consuming resources and producing waste. How long do you think we can sustain that? We have to discover "new" sources of energy, shrink the worlds population dramatically and take care of our resources. All these things are really tough problems. But as long as we as a world, not just a few industrialized countries, work towards solutions. we can eventually solve these problems. But the current situation is while some countries work towards solving these problems, many others don't, instead they get exemptions because they are poor countries. Worse yet, their populations are growing rapidly because they are having 15 kids per family all born into poverty.
From the slashdot excerpt: "The current electricity grid would need to be replaced by a 'supergrid' across the USA, says Jesse H. Ausubel in The Industrial Physicist."
False.
A careful read of the article reveals that the author did not claim that replacing the entire grid was needed [to implement his cleaner "ZEPP" plan]. The ZEPP plant's output is electricity, whereas the misnamed "replacement grid" conveys liquid hydrogen.
Furthermore, the article said "...power companies could insert ZEPPs into densely settled regions such as eastern China without much change to the footprint of the energy system."
So we would not have to replace the whole power grid to adopt the cleaner ZEPP process. ZEPPs make electriciy, which can be used to generate hydrogen (via electrolisys). In turn, the "new relay grid" would convey liquid hydrogen, yet I doubt that we'll live to see the day that electricity is obsolete. The so-called "new grid" would be the addition of liquid hydrogen as an option, alongside electricity and natural gas.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Inhale the gasses rising from a bed of burning charcoal, as in when bbq-ing. Nasty burning sensation thanks to carbonic acid forming from moisture on mucous membranes...
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
WINDMILLS DON'T WORK THAT WAY!
(read subject before modding me down please)
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Initially, one would think so, wouldn't one? And if nuclear power plants would only produce nuclear waste and energy, this reasoning would be even correct. However, nuclear power plants also consume radioactive fuel -- typically Uranium -- which exists out in the wild. Therefore, the total amount of nuclear material does not increase as alarmingly as one first suspects.
Similarly, excess CO2 can be sequestered for a while, then put into more productive uses -- turning it into calcium carbonate (marble) for construction work, for example.
At the end of the article, the author debunks some green myths about solar and wind power. Truly green methods of energy generation involve being able to scale up, like we scale computing capacity. Solar and Wind power require just too much surface area to ever be useful. In the medium to long term, underground nuclear plants and emission-controlled internal thermoeletric turbines are what will allow us to control environmental degradation while allowing the energy demand to increase to meet the demands of the developing world economy.
It won't stop global warming, since global warming is not caused by man made pollution.
The problem is not what we are putting in the air, but what is not in the air anymore: residue from a very large volcanic eruption that happened approximately 1300 (give or take 50) years ago.
Also, changing the infrastructure is going to be expensive and a possible deal killer.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Ok, so it came out of the ground, so lets put it back in the ground. I am sure we can find uses also for co2. What about sending some of it to mars, start the greenhouse affect over there.
All nuclear isotopes are dangerous, especially plutonium. The radiation is what kills people. Alpha and gamma radiation is extremely deadly. When you inhale or ingest it, it radiates the inside of the body, producing cancerous cells, increasingly the likelihood of early death due to cancer.
This is what happened in and around Chernobyl (and downwind of it), its why people couldn't eat crops and animals from certain places in Europe following Chernobyl, this is what happens in Uranium mines, this is what happened to Madame Curie, this is what happened to unburned survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This should be obvious to anyone who's had highschool physics.
We may have to someday depend on nuclear energy despite its safety concerns, not because of them. Vitrification technique may someday lessen the risk, but it is still very nasty stuff, which isn't doesn't become less nasty because of blatant ignorance.
It will take more than one idea or technology to solve this problem. Windmills, for instance, might be a complementary solution. Windmills take energy directly out of the atmosphere, which can help counteract the most direct effects of global warming. I believe I saw a post here on /. that said that if 95% of the world's energy was produced by windmills, we would be extracting more energy from the atmosphere then is being added by global warming.
95% is probably an impractically large number. In reality, we need lots of cooperating elements in order to solve this problem. We need to immediately curtail the growth of carbon emissions and then work to reduce it. We need to increase the number and capacity of carbon sinks. New trees need to be planted to replace those being lost in South America. We need to understand what effect the regions of the ocean suffering from hypoxia are having on the oceans ability to absorb carbon dioxide. We need to find out what other problems are being caused by the change in the makeup of the atmosphere and work to fix them.
The U.S. is going to have to step up and become a leader in environmental issues again. This could be the most important long term threat the world has ever had to deal with. The U.S. has been one of the largest producers of CO2 pollution. It's only recently that other large countries have been generating more. The U.S. risks becoming the scapegoat for the entire problem and the target of justifiable anger. Our actions here in the U.S. affect everyone in the world.
I hope that the U.S. and other nations find the strength and will to rise above pettiness and cooperate to solve this problem. It certainly can't be done by any one nation alone.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
anfofew vcnowofo aosnovnos asdfnv awdfh?!? where did all my oxygen go?????
Bladeless or Tesla turbines are much simpler compared to traditional bladed designs. Why not use these for power generation, hybrid-electric cars, etc.?
DMoz Tesla Turbine page
Slashdotters,
t m
One thing that we all have to understand is that our supply of natural gas is dwindling. You see in the 1980s there was a large push for de-regulating the electricity industry. This caused (among other favorable economics)independant power producers to build lots and lots of natural gas fired gas turbine combined cycle plants (60-70% efficiency). These plants thrived because natural gas prices were low and electricity prices were high. Hence the Vacuum cleaner effect. These plants consume tonnes of natural gas and the natural gas industry was very happy. Now the problem is that the natural gas industry is having a hard time finding more supplies of gas, resulting in an increase in gas prices. Raising gas prices also affects electricity prices. In the US right now, peak electricity prices can reach up to 60 cents a kWh. That is huge compared to Quebec electricty (mostly hydro dam plants) costing 4 cents a kWh!!!
With respect to the ZEPPs, we don't know need more natural gas plants. This ZEPP is just a glorified gas turbine combined cycle plant(GTCC). Besides, GTCC plants have 3 times less greenhouse gas emissions than coal and 2 times less than oil fired plants. Plus gas has little NOx emissions if burned completely. So they are pretty good compared to other fossil plants.
What we need is to change these GTCC plants and make them more efficient. We also need to reduce our demand. It is going to happen anyway, unless people like paying arms and legs for energy. Our supply is on the brink of depletion. We need to conserve, not build up.
Check out: http://www.ec.gc.ca/energ/industry/indus_home_e.h
A few days ago I read on Slashdot about biodiesel produced by a very efficient algae. One big stumbling block was that you needed CO2 in concentrations like you would get from the exhaust of a power plant to grow that algae at top rate. And looky here, today Slashdot is discussing a bunch of power plants putting out CO2 and they don't know what to do with it.
On a side note, I also heard somewhere that current emission standards has led to a decrease in carbon monoxide poisonings, as people are simply finding it harder to get their car to produce enough carbon monoxide to suffocate, at least before some well-meaning relative stops by.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Please consider making your feelings known to your representatives. Environmental Defense has a petition at their Undoit.org global warming site (http://www.undoit.org) that sends a message of support for the bipartisan McCain Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act.
Or we could place a huge fusion plant outside of urban areas, say 93,000,000 miles away and deliver the power wirelessly through high-frequency electormagnetic waves. When the fuel is all used up the powerplant automatically disassembles itself. And it is available today!
Entropy people! You cannot possibly produce anything without taking something else apart. It's a law we can't change, (yet anyways, and probably never). YOu can't call something zero emission and then speak about it's exhaust and how you are going to store it. It's moronic. It insults everyone's intelligence. Get with the program moron!
IT'S PEOPLE!
Peak Oil is a crock.
I'm not too happy about the idea of a super grid that the article left me with. As demonstrated by the Northeastern blackout and the California energy crisis in the recent past, deregulation coupled with the fact that energy is now traded like a commodity raises some serious concerns. The infrastructure, as it exists today, has demonstrated that is not designed to handle the tolerances imposed by deregulation and large energy concerns. Vital sysetms, such as high power transmission lines, should not be regularly running anywhere near 100% capacity because it leaves no room for error. We can build a perfect machine, but it would still be operated by humans under the control of corporations. As anyone in an IT related field can tell you, there are bound to be many poor decisions made when you have people who specalize in business and management contoling technology that they have little or no understanding of. The last thing anyone needs is a cascade failure when one set of lines goes down or one circuit breaker trips as a result of over use and/or abuse.
Fast Breeder Reactors have quite a good case. A fast breeder can produce excess fuel for later consumption. The thought being, once you initially fuel the reactor it can sustain itself for quite a long time. It has been fueled initally by plutonium, which in turn brings up the weapons proliferation problem. Weapons grade material can be extracted from the waste. Current common US reactors are fueled by enriched uranium which is currently abundant and cheaper than plutonium (According to my research). Fast breeder reactors are more efficient and the waste has a much shorter half-life. Look into it. Good stuff. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/ fasbre.html
Seriously, there are industrial processors you can buy which convert hydrogen and CO2 into methanol (CO2 + 3 H2 -> CH3OH + H2O). If you have any process which can generate enough hydrogen cheaply enough, you can use it to "fix" carbon into methanol. From there you can convert it into other things, if desired; polymerizing it into heavy waxes and pumping it underground to freeze would effectively put it back where the original oil and coal came from, and in a form that's not terribly difficult to retrieve either.
Where and how do you get the hydrogen? Aye, there's the rub...
Sustainability and energy independence essay
The real solution is not to create any waste products at all and a practical economic solution has already been demonstrated. Look at Solar 2 for example where they demonstrated a practical and cost effective way collect, store, and release solar energy as electricity on a round the clock basis if mass produced. There are also plenty of real sunny places out in the desert to put these things. If you implement it in the following manner our energy problems would be gone:
1. Phase one - suppliment fossil fuel power plants throughout most of the year. This will greatly cut down on CO2 production without a significant hike on costs.
2. Phase two - Add in hydrogen storage and intelligent usage of fuel cells such as using fuel cell electricity on days when not much solar is gathered and using the waste heat for things like heating water year round and heating homes in the winter. This way you can have all of the electricity you want even when you don't gather much solar energy and just build up your hydrogen storage throughout the vast majority of the year when a lot of electricity is produced from solar energy. Doing this should be cost effective when done on large scales.
3. Phase 3 - Use NAS battery and fuel cell hybrid vehicles and have more electric and fuel cell powered machines in general. The primarily material for NAS batteries are dirt cheep and they last a long time with technology the Japanese are mass producing right now. They also have more than a high enough power to mass ratio to get a car around town. Then suplimenting with a fuel cell should make for a convienient way to do interstate travel by car and also allow you to run off of hydrogen reserves on a bad solar day.
Neither. The correct answer is giant bees.
--- Ban humanity.
To badly quote "The Graduate": "You know where the future is son? One word: Plastics." Plastics are made of carbon, and as we use more and more of them, they turn into a carbon sink. Either permanent use, or nonbiodegradable plastics mean that the carbon is locked up.
And you thought disposable dipers wern't enviromentally friendly.
You've never heard of the methane cycle?
Atmospheric methane is absorbed into the ocean, condenses out under pressure and temperature, and settles to the bottom of the ocean. There are Vast frozen methane fields off of Canada & Russia's coasts (& US Alaska). Who needs the middle east?
The methane cycle is probably responsible for the vast amount of oil reserves (bacteria/pressure convert the methane into longer chained hydrocarbons). This is the reason most "Oil" fields are former ocean bottoms. Methane can also be fed into fuel cells directly - result is solid carbon, H & H2o and e.
If we really want to halt or slow down global warming, the industrialized countries are going to have to shell out the cash to rapidly change out the third worlds power supply as that is where most unchecked pollution is. China is trying to deal with its energy needs with coal and water power. In Iraq the Tigris and Euphrates are basically open sewers, Saddam did not care about the environment at all and what plants that were in the country let the waste into the rivers drifting downstream to the sea into the Ocean. The Iraqi government and the US and NATO need to act and help the Iraqis clean up the rivers and the air.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here...
--those are the two main types now. Paleocons (I am one basically) are the old traditional conservatives, fiscally conservative, non interventionist, smaller government and so on. They believe in a fair deal, not a new deal or a raw deal. They were represented by say the old goldwater wing, and then there was the rockefeller wing, or the "eastern establishment" or "limousine liberal" conservatives, who are now known as neocons. Neocons are globalists, interventionists, proponents of larger government,israel-firsters, corporate apologists, and so on. They really aren't conservative, just stayed in the R party, and took it over during some pretty intense inter party warfare in the 60-68 time frame. They sabotaged their own candidate in 64 on purpose. They are global totalitarian socialists actually, if you look really close at their agendas and think tanks, just they like to be the "bosses" about things and give a lot more credence and power to corporations than they do to private people. Socialism for corporations I gue4ss comes close. Money and power and profit over traditional nationalism or conservatism, just keep the name. It gets confusing. They are anti democratic in that sense, really closer to a feudalistic bent, they think they are appointed or something to "lead" because of their birthrights and level of income, etc. they "know better". I call them technofeudalists, because it fits the best. Paleos just want to be left alone, and are much closer to the capital L party by nature in any reasonable comparison. They differ from the L party in mostly being prolife, anti illegal unlimited immigration, and are in favor of a bit more protectionism in trade policies, they usually aren't for what is called "free" trade.
There are a very few paleocons left in upper government circles, most of them can be found in what is called the "liberty lobby".
This is a *rough* outline and description but it's close enough for posting purposes.
Nuclear powerplants with breeder reactors will produce plenty of electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. No CO2 added.
produce liquid carbon dioxide, which could be sequestered underground
:-)
That is the most idiotic thing i've heard in a long time. "Zero-emission"... yeah, right, let's bury all emission underground, so it's zero.
Oh, wait...
I'm to lazy to sign in, so I'm way to lazy to find this link (newscientist or sciencedaily), but a big piece of news this year (well for chemical engineers) is that the secondary steam heat can be recovered. In a relatively simple modification to an existing turbine system the steams heat below 400C is recovered by employing a secondary heat recovery system on the current heat recovery system with another refridgerant that works at lower temperatures. Early estimates is a 10-20 percent efficiency gain! This is huge, as it is relatively easy to implement at existing power plants.
Sure caffeeine is a toxin, but the body can process it and remove it in sub-lethal quanities. Swallow/inhale some caffiene and wait a few days and it is out of your system. I doubt plutoniam particles in the lungs will be ejected quickly.
I hunch that all we have here is some drivvling over the dictionary meaning of "toxic". Asbestos is not toxic (you could swallow a lump of it, nor is sand or carbon. But when these materials get into the wrong part of your body (eg lungs) in the wrong form (eg. asbestos fibres, fine dust, coal dust) your body will not appreciate it. Plutonium is the same, but the amounts required are far lower.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
a mixture of gases including hydrogen and sulphur ... from a volcanic lake.
I'm looking something about deaths from CO2 releases from C02 injections for oil drilling. Not toxic clouds from a volcano.
and another thing... the argon that goes with it!
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 95039
Using thermal depolymerization, various organic material can be converted to oil and methane. In the first commercial plant, unwanted parts of turkeys are processed.
In that process, CO2 is taken from the atmosphere by growing plants. The plants/seeds are fed to turkeys. The turkeys are converted to oil/methane. The oil/methane is burned and releases CO2 -- to the atmosphere, where it can again be converted by growing plants. The process is powered by solar energy.
Actually, some of the carbon ends up as charcoal. That is easier to sequester if you want to do so.
Hi,
What you described works because the water is moving to a lower point...
Well argued, AC.
Maybe you should make yourself an account so people know who to praise.
Clean Energy Systems paper
Carbon Capture and Storage from Fossil Fuel Use
Capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide"
the research in the field seems to be quite activeEfficiency generally increases with scale. So does the ability to apply environemntal measures.
Natural gas works well for heating homes because it is clean and does not require extensive environmental processes.
If we use natural gas in power plants, its cost will increase, and home owners will start to switch to alternate fuels -- oil, coal, and wood -- all of which are "filthy" fuels when burned in a small home heating plant.
It makes more sense to use these dirty fuels in large central plants where they can be burned with greater efficiency, and environmental measures better applied.
We instead should be investing in a modular new Power Grid that would generate millions of jobs over 50 years.
If that isn't a smart investment for the Banking Industry to have it privatized, but coordinated with the highest quality product, instead of the lowest bid fiascos by the Government, then nothing is.
We don't even need to specifically target this design, but graft the benefits from their extensive research to build a State by State infrastructure. That will most certainly get countless Americans and foreign workers off their collective asses and become productive.
The key is being productive.
I was glad, in reading the article, to find out that the SuperGrid portion was an ADDITIONAL enhancement that was suggested, and not required for the ZEPPs necessarily.
The capital investment required to completely replace the grid would be substantial, and I wouldn't want to see a good idea like the ZEPP be killed because the grid investement would be too much initially.
Its not always good to frontload your costs. If we can make an incremental investment and still reap immediate environmental rewards, then thats a more economically viable path.
If you're just using hydrogen to fix carbon that you've captured from the atmosphere then the carbon cycle is closed again and it's not a problem.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Main Entry: toxic
Pronunciation: 'täk-sik
Function: adjective
1 : of, relating to, or caused by a poison or toxin
2 : affected by a poison or toxin
3 : POISONOUS
Carbon dioxide is toxic.
Your friend has been the victim of job security bullshit. Or, you have. There is no scientific basis to differentiate between toxic waste and waste that is merely "hazardous". CO.2 is toxic. It's that simple. If you have waste CO.2, that's toxic waste. In a sealed room you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning before you die of asphyxiation from the lack of oxygen.
Off topic?
OFF TOPIC?
Fuck you, mystery moderator. Fuck you, your children, and your children's children for being related to a mindless prick like you. Using your mod points to mod down an opposing viewpoint! FOR FUCKING SHAME.
I recall that the only treatment for radiation poisoning (from PL) during the Manhattan project was immediate high amputation, if possible. And the body of the dead bastard has to be sealed in lead, because IT was now dangerous.
People who die from radiation poisoning are not radioactive. Even in the event of a nuclear war. You obviously have no idea how radiation affects an organic. Or how it spreads. Let Google be your personal lord and savior.
If you rely on Robert Heinlein for accurate information about nuclear science, you're a pretty fucking sad individual.
I hate hearing about global warming. It's a complete farce. The earth is several Billion years old, while humanity has 200 years, if that, of accurate temperature data. Looking at this tiny sliver of time and developing preposterous warming theories is akin to examining a single drop of sea water and theorizing about humpback whale breeding patterns. It's just plain nonsense.
I think I'm going to wear my "Industrial Revolution Day" T-Shirt to work tomorrow.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Let me recap the relevant portions of the post you're replying to, since you didn't seem to read it:
...this is what happens in Uranium mines...
...this is what happened to Madame Curie...
...this is what happened to unburned survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
...it is still very nasty stuff, which isn't doesn't become less nasty because of blatant ignorance.
1. As of 2003, there has yet to be a single human death officially attributed to plutonium exposure.
2. Alpha radiation does not penetrate the skin.
3. Extremely small particles of plutonium on the order of micrograms have a *small* chance to cause lung cancer if inhaled into the lungs.
This is what happened in and around Chernobyl...
The plutonium fallout from Chernobyl had a nearly negligible effect on the environment. The plutonium released at Chernobyl had a radioactivity of about 2000 Curie. The iodine-131 had a radioactivity of about 47 million Curie. The xenon-133 had a radioactivity of about 175 million Curie.
Since when is there plutonium in uranium mines? Since when is plutonium a naturally occurring element? Right. Idiot.
Marie Curie died of leukemia brought about by prolonged radium exposure. Radium is not plutonium. Radium-226 (the most common isotope) is a gamma emitter. Do you get tired of writing bullshit?
There was no plutonium in the Hiroshima bomb. There was no significant plutonium fallout at Nagasaki, since it all fissioned. There was significant fallout of radio-isotopes of plutonium, but that's a different story. Your stupidity knows no bounds.
This should be obvious to anyone who's had highschool physics.
Maybe you need a refresher course. And the "maybe" was only added to give the illusion of politeness.
I accept that you are an authority on blatant ignorance, but nuclear science also isn't doesn't become more nasty because of it.
But you could be bothered to reply. How consistent you are in your ignorance.
A megagram is slightly more than a ton. And when I first read that passage, I thought he meant magnesium. I guess that's the difference between chemists and physicists.
If we start using a lot of oxygen and don't replace it with C02 that plants can use to make more oxygen, won't we just run out of oxygen eventually? All of our O's will be in stored C02 and not 02 in the air. (Not good for us animals) Maybe planting a tree is better solution? They do grow faster in a CO2 rich environment.
You know, this is what really gets to me. Carbon dioxide is good for plants. They hate that corrosive oxygen shit that everyone else seems to be using. And plants totally love warm climates; the most dense and diverse forests on the planet, now and in the past, have always been in warm areas. More heat means more water vapor, which means more rain.
Warm and moist.
Good in bed, good in a forest. Have you hugged a tree today?
Thats coal that plant (and animals) decay to in the right conditions. Oil comes from some other process that we don't fully understand yet.
I've read through many of the comments and there are many un-enlightened people out there.
1) Natural Gas production peaked in North America between 2000 and 2001 at a level of about 786.8 Billion Cubic Meters. In 2003 it was at 766.3 so that represents about 2.5%. Expect this decline rate to increase. The McKensie Valley pipeline was shedualed to carry about 800 million cubic feet per day or about 0.3 tcf per year. This makes a small dent. Note that the conversion factor from m^3 to ft^3 is about 35.3 so 766.3 bu ft^3 = 27 tcf and this is total North American production incl Mexico.
2) if we assume a 3% decline rate from here on in then we lose about 1/3 of gas production by say 2015.
3) Tar Sands operations are anticipated to climb into the 5 million barrels per day region over the next 10-15 years. In order to do this they will need in the vicinity of 2 tcf per year using present technology.
Canada produced about 6.3 tcf in 2003 and of that about 52% was exported.
We can calculate the expected gas supplies as follows. I'm going to EXPAND the McKensie pipeline to 1 TCF/year from the 0.3 tcf currently being considered for two reasons: a) with more compressor stations they can about double it. b) there is already talk of doubling it. So maybe they will triple it before it gets underway.
6.3 tcf current production
-2.0 tcf expected decline
-2.0 tcf increased consumption from tar sands ops
+1.0 tcf new gas via McKensie etc.
--------
3.3 tcf available.in time frame 2015
Here is another way to look at this.
6.3 tcf total production now
-3.3 tcf exports to the USA (52% of 6.3)
--------
3.0 tcf current Canadian consumption
So clearly if Canada ceases to export ANY gas to the USA then with a HUGE pipeline we can carry enough new gas to meet Canadian needs including offsetting current production and meeting the needs of tar sands operations. However if Canada attempts to continue the current export ratios then Canada has to push about 1/2 of the current consumers out of the market.
Meanwhile the USA will have to push about 1/3 of present consumers out of the market.
This can only be offset if significant new production comes on stream -OR- if LNG imports can make up the declines.
However since the current production in the USA is about (2003) 549.5 Billion cubic meters = 19.4 tcf it will be very difficult to keep up these levels.
Personally I doubt the LNG imports can be ramped up enough to make much of a difference.
-----------------
The obvious conclusion is that any plan to produce more electricity from Natural Gas is doomed before it starts. The real question is how much of the present consumption we can sustain and who gets weaned from their gas consumption.
As for the CO2 issues. That just makes me laugh! If they are going to produce liquid CO2 then put it into bottles and sell it!
From the Green House gasses issue - one has to look at the total water vapour and the percentage increase in same because Water Vapour is a stronger green house gas than CO2. In addition there is about 100x greater concentration of H2O in the atmosphere. Thus a 1% increase in H2O totally overwhelms the effect of _ALL_ the other green house gasses. The IPCC reports in their technical documents that water vapour increases per decade are several percent.
The IPCC ALSO reports that the changes in water vapour concentrations are not included in the models (its in chap 7).
The bottom line is that IF Global Warming is actually happening (which is not proven) then it COULD be due to water vapour increases and irrigation would be probably the greatest factor. CO2 woudl be blamed simply because it increased at the same time and the models don't consider the real cause (H2O).
At this point there is no reason to liquify CO2 at GREAT EXPENSE.
So - pretty much all these ideas are non-starters.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
Just what we need something that consumes fuel and urinates CO2. Am I the only one who reads Wired here? I want to see pebble bed reactors! They're cleaner than these Zero Emissions monsters. They're safer that the Nuke Plant(tm) down the street from me. And they can be small enough to be placed closer to where the power is consumed, resulting in less wasted energy in transmission.
So the story says they'll store it in liquid form. If I remember from my hazy chemistry days, CO2 goes directly from a solid to a gas (dry ice), it has no liquid state. Is this right, or did I inhale too much NO2?
Water, flows downhill past and interacting with a wheel, which is connected to and turns a variety of mechanical contraptions to provide work. The water is replaced at the top of the run by precipitation or a natural spring (or in some cases a man-made contraption). If a natural replenishment of water, then the resulting system would be a pollution-free generator of power.
But, in your post: '... this energy would never cease to exist ...', well there we have a problem. That's not how it works.
We need the water to flow downhill, the exit end of the tube must be lower than the entrance (it will not flow uphill ... well, actually it will, if the tube were small enough, but then it won't flow out ...), and then we need a mechanism to input energy into the system to move the water back up to the top of the run. The energy input in this effort is greater than the energy that is generated by the wheel (due to friction loss and a host of other less significant factors).
The same holds true for my example. It is not a perpetual motion machine. The sun is providing most of the energy to move the water back to the top of the run -- more energy than we can get out. But, the sun is a good source of clean energy ...
My affinity for hyperbole knows no bounds
First: Where are you going to get the methane, in quantity, in conveniently-transportable containers? How are you going to transport the methane?
Second: Where does the power come from to capture the exhaust, and cool it down AND compress it enough to get a liquid? AND *KEEP* it cooled AND pressurized. Nuclear material is stable at room temperature and pressure: you don't have to cool it and you don't have to pressurize it. You do have to keep it in storage casks, but the casks don't require continuous (second by second) supervision AND POWER to maintain cooling and pressurization.
Here's an experiment. Take a 2- or 3-liter plastic soda bottle. Put a chunk of dry ice inside. Seal the bottle, set it down, stand WAY back, and watch what happens. You will get an explosion, as the dry ice absorbs heat, sublimes to vapor, expands, and overstresses the plastic bottle.
Google "carbon dioxide phase diagram" and consider the implications. (Freshman chemistry, people.)
Third: the energy density of chemical reactions is well-known. No matter how much you wave your hands, you are still talking single-digit electron volts (also freshman chemistry, people, or you might have seen it in sophomore semiconductor materials). Compare with nuclear reactions. Any way you look at it, you are going to have to build a LOT bigger plant if you run it off of chemical reactions than if you run it off of nuclear.
... you left out granola-munching tree-hugging subaru-driving brain-dead green-peacer socialist ...
My affinity for hyperbole knows no bounds
Actually developing a new hydro scheme is quite bad in terms of greenhouse gasses released, since perminantly flooding large areas of vegetation leads to them decaying anerobically and releasing methane (which contributes 20x more to global warming than an equal quantity of CO2). Of course clear felling the valley first helps, but you still need to consider the environmental cost to the river system, especially in areas where regular flooding of mangroves will be prevented by the fact you release only a limited stream of water from your dam.
Solar isn't that green either in large installations, since you have to put a pretty big nasty pile of solar panels somewhere, which screws with water runoff and leads to large changes in the thermal characteristics of an area (exactly in the same way as concreting over a large area does). Also solar panels are so expensive because of the amount of energy and rare minerals required in their contruction, which is generally produced from nuclear/coal power stations and not recycled.
Of course a solar panels on your roof would be a good thing, since its already screwing with runoff etc. and would in about 5 years probably pay off the energy/financial/environmental cost of constructing the panels.
Since I'm ranting, I'll just point out again that a hydrogen economy is a funny idea, since hydrogen is either produced from coal/gas and produces exactly the same emissions as burning them directly (if not more of things like NOx), or from electricity generated from coal/gas/nuclear power stations adding an extra conversion and thus reducing the efficiency with which we use the energy provided in the coal/gas/uranium.
"plants can convert the CO2 to oxygen"
Where'd the carbon go?
Plants convert CO2 to plant matter.
Bury it if you want. In a billion years it will be oil again.
Please read a chemistry book
All right, everyone take a deep breath now, annnnnnnnndddd after me:
Bullshit, bullshit, bulllllshit
Just another example of greenie-weenie brain damage. Takae a close look at the assumptions, and you'll find that, well gee whiz, IT CAN'T BE DONE!
How about that? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true.
Now, go back to geeking.
Brilliance doesn't need a sig.
The point behind burning coal and oil is cheap energy. If we have to store every liter of CO2 produced by generators forever, this is no longer cheap energy.
It's time to grow our oil instead of drilling it in an increasing number of Third World nations hostile to the USA. Biomass oil is inherently carbon-neutral, the carbon dioxide released when it is burned came from the atmosphere to begin with.
We KNOW how to build orbiting solar cell arrays that work in space. We are on the edge of being able to put those arrays in space for under $1/pound, otherwise known as the SPS (Space Power Satellite) projects. Remember the blimp to orbit project? The engineering yet to be done to make this work is a hell of a lot less complex than these "'Zero' Emission Power Plants" (development of exotic new materials is unnecessary... and utterly necessary for the zero-emission powerplant program and the ridiculous "supergrid" and the cost numbers for develoing either are likely to be in proportion. We're better off funding whatever is left that's unfunded with respect to cheap orbital launch technology.
Biomass oil allows refining and distribution via existing refineries and distribution networks. Rectenna farms to receive energy from space power satellites can be built on the rooftops of existing generator facilities, and in addition, in places that have never had electricity before at minimal cost.
I like "big" thinking, but it only makes sense when it's pointed in the right direction. The article leaves out little details like "where is the methane coming from". Does he propose to capture cow farts? The leakage from city dumps? He makes no more sense than the hydrogen advocates do. People who like machines with lots of moving parts may find his concept k3w1 and l335, but I prefer systems where the moving parts are either electrons or E/M radiation which aren't prone to mechanical failure.
NASA's original plan for the Space Power Satellite was based on $200+ per pound, and the program made sense even then. It makes much more sense now.
You can get to the links to NASA and the DOE and an American univerity that substantiate what I've said from here.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I thought that we were just coming out of an ice age?
Why was it warmer in medieval times? Come to think of it, why was it warmer during the time of the dinosaurs?
I guess we've had accurate weather measurements for what... maybe a 100 years? How old is the earth? 5 billion years? I think someone is overreacting just a wee bit.
And Zero Emission turbines? I didn't think that the turbine actually produced any emissions... ?? Has someone been keeping secrets at all those hydroelectric plants all these years?
Some of you greenpeace/sierra club people need to go down to South America and start saving the rain forest. Camp out in a tree. Do something. Spouting off about an emmission free turbine isn't getting you anywhere.
Also, read about neutron sources, that's the way to make other things radioactive, although it would have to be an utterly ridiculous accident before it would make someone radioactive before they die. I've met someone who saw a neutron source being used for general radiography, but that was in a third world military nuclear installation.
Also there was incredibly stupid stuff going on like flouroscopes being used in shoe stores to do radiography on childrens feet to help with shoe selection. A lot of the people who operated those leaky radiation sources died of cancer. These days we take radiation safety seriously because we know it isn't clean, green, safe and whatever the next bit of bullshit is.
Especially the part where it says "The chemical and radiological toxicity of plutonium should be distinguished from each other"
Radium is a common heavy element found in topsoil. Indeed, in high concentrations it is extremely dangerous. Radium is not plutonium, however. I refer you to the Periodic Table. Look for Ra (number 88) and look for Pu (number 94). Notice how they're not the same. In fact the degree of differences between the two elements is comparable to that of Calcium and Iron.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
He then goes on to say it would take 100 years and 1 trillion dollars.
Heck, we're going to spend 1 trillion dollars in Iraq after just 5 years at the rate we're going. I know which boondogle I'd rather have seen us (the USA) blow the cash on....
Um, hasn't anybody noticed this? We're digging up hydrocarbons (mostly Hydrogen & Carbon), burning them, and now we're talking about burying the resulting CO2 while letting the H2O go free.
The Oceans will flood! We'll run out of the Oxygen we need to breathe!
(I'm being a little sarcastic).
I've read in a couple of places that the average oxygen content of the atmosphere has dropped a little. I'd rather go nuclear than with these CO2 burying power plants.
I don't read AC A human right
Who is saying CO2 doesn't explode? Put enough of it in a rock, and I'm pretty sure it does. I am pretty sure I have seen coke cans explode--and it wasnt the water or sugar causing it.
My experience with chemistry doesn't suggest that it will easily remain liquid, except in very cold, very high-pressure environments like maybe under the Antarctic ice cap. But IANAC.
The reason it sounds crazy--a reason you have not countered--is because CO2 is not the same thing as coal. It behaves very differently. Think solid versus gas. Think about the fact that the gas tends to move around and smother living things.
No, CO2 in any form does not seem like a good way to sequester Carbon. It is mechanically, chemically, and environmentally risky.
How the fuck is it a zero-emission system if it emits CO2?
Yes, calcium carbonate is a great way to sequester carbon. Atmospheric carbon moves into limestone through the activity of the little guys that build coral reefs. So we need lots of healthy reefs to keep sequestering carbon. Limestone can metamorphose into marble under the right conditions of heat and pressure.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
the submitters write them, dipshit. /took the bait
Those who are interestied in the recent Industrial Physicist article by Jesse Ausubel might want to visit http://www.w2agz.com/PMG%20SuperGrid%20Home.htm and click "The Vision" button.