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New Material Can Selectively Capture CO2
Socguy brings us a story from CBC News about a recently developed crystal that can soak up carbon dioxide gas "like a sponge." Chemists from UCLA believe that the crystals will become a cheap, stable method to absorb emissions at power plants. We discussed a prototype for another CO2 extraction device last year. Quoting:
"'The technical challenge of selectively removing carbon dioxide has been overcome,' said UCLA chemistry professor Omar Yaghi in a statement. The porous structures can be heated to high temperatures without decomposing and can be boiled in water or solvents for a week and remain stable, making them suitable for use in hot, energy-producing environments like power plants. The highly porous crystals also had what the researchers called 'extraordinary capacity for storing CO2': one litre of the crystals could store about 83 litres of CO2."
Another use for dilithium crystals!
Great Scott!
Slurm Extreme.. now with 83 times as much fizz!
Didn't you listen to Reagan, "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do"
Not listening to Reagan? Friggin' pinkos....
Monstar L
...thus solving the problem once and for all.
One where the lumber yards obviously think its easier to work with 'metric' wood .. because its easier to multiply with :P
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Well, "like a sponge", you squeeze it and use it again.
What?
Except for the boobie traps of course..
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Nuclear power plants, OTOH, there's a technology which could help."
Yes, that's the mentally balanced answer!
After all there's nothing more benign a powerplant that outputs high-level "spent" nuclear waste that we have nowhere in the world to store, and is going to remain "hot" for at least another hundred thousand years, not to mention the radioactive contamination left behind when they finally close down, that sees their former site uninhabitable for about the same time as the aforementioned waste.
As for those trifling concerns about how such reactors safely contain and process the constant stream of radioactive steam and water created during their operation, all the aforementioned concerns rightly pale by comparison to the proven unquestionably armageddon-like catastrophic effects of carbon dioxide and smoke particles escaping into the environment.
And if there's one thing we can be unquestionably certain of, it's that absolutely no carbon whatsoever is released into the environment during the extracting, (re)processing, transporting and safe-storage of all that radioactive material. I mean, imagine the dirty bomb they could create if Al Qaeda got their hands on some coal or oil.
Oh please! Won't somebody think of the environment!