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A Modest Proposal For Sequestration of CO2 In the Antarctic

First time accepted submitter Alienwise writes "Judith Curry reports a scientific concept of an atmospheric CO2 sequestration plant. It would be based in the Antartic to profit from the cold weather, which would facilitate the creation of CO2 snow — which would then be buried. The plant could be powered by windmills." The lead author has agreed to let Curry link to a copy of the final manuscript, if you'd like to read more.

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  1. Re:Also known as by rs79 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not only that, but this guy says if we don't have more CO2 we're not going to be able to grow enough food for the planet.
    http://www.liebertpub.com/MContent/Files/Kleinman_ch19_p379-398.pdf

    I hate to state the obvious but do you suppose there's a chance that the balance of trees to CO2 got a bit messed up when we cut them all down?
    http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j2BAdNIG5Q2FJlEdac1l-KXiTSCA?docId=CNG.dfe97e07f144a2d29eb615412e0c12be.a81

    Maybe... put the trees back? If everybody on the planet planted 10 fast growing and 10 slow growing trees... well, do the math.
    Or maybe a lot of C4 plants, the ones that use crazy amounts of CO2 and do really well when CO2 is high (the historical maximum is 7000ppm, we're at about 400ppm now).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation
    "Today, C4 plants represent about 5% of Earth's plant biomass and 3% of its known plant species.[13][9] Despite this scarcity, they account for about 30% of terrestrial carbon fixation.[10] Increasing the proportion of C4 plants on earth could assist biosequestration of CO2 and represent an important climate change avoidance strategy. Present-day C4 plants are concentrated in the tropics and subtropics (below latitudes of 45) where the high air temperature contributes to higher possible levels of oxygenase activity by RuBisCO, which increases rates of photorespiration in C3 plants."

    And no excess heat. The plan in TFA sounds to me like introducing cane toads to Australia.

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