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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.
Summary suggests wind. Makes sense.
Your reading ability will one day be the stuff of legends.
I know it's already been said, but the summary itself mentions the proposed power source (not to mention the article!). Is it really too much to ask that you read the few sentences you are replying to before you hit reply? Really?! How fucking lazy can you be? At least it seems like you read the whole entire headline so there's that.
the sweep-it-under-the-carpet method of trash removal
works great for the inlaws, the planet? not so much
Well, given that most of the newly minted CO2 that we are concerned about is produced by digging up carbon that was swept under the carpet and setting it on fire(with a side of deforestation), I'd say that under-the-carpet storage is a time-proven part of the carbon cycle.
Now, techniques for sweeping it under the carpet without titanic amounts of energy and in less than geologic time... that's still in progress.
This doesn't involve eating babies, does it?
#DeleteChrome
Sell it to Coca Cola and Pepsi for making all our drinks fizzy!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Not quite. The CO2 maybe sweeped under the carpet, but if you would actually read the paper, page 21 shows that there may be a significant amount of excess heat produced by the process, which needs to be release to the environment. The CO2 is not the problem. The heat is?
So, in order to combat global warming, we install 400+ heaters on Antarctica? I'm sure the science behind it will work, but my initial response is: uuh... what?
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
This actually seems like a feasible plan.
It plans not just for the extraction of atmospheric CO2, but the long-term storage of it. The power source is wind, so it doesn't fall into the trap of generating more CO2 than it generates.The choice of location makes sense for both the temperature and for the political neutrality. They don't list an actual cost, but it would likely be only in the tens of billions, hundreds of billions in the worst case. Which is a lot of money, yes, but not the trillions or quadrillions some plans have required. And it calls for a demonstration plant first, which would be just a few dozen million.
The only thing I see stopping it is politics. In particular, America and China. Europe seems to at least recognize the need for action, and they're willing to work together to try things. China is generally too selfish and shortsighted to worry about the environment, but you could probably convince them if you could make it somewhat-profitable for them (just have the wind turbines and such made in China, that should satisfy them).
But then it falls on to America. And you're going to need America at least not fighting this plan, because if the US decides to actively fight it, it's not happening. Period. You'd also need them to at least chip in a good chunk of the funding if you're going to do the full plan, make a serious dent in CO2. Problem is, denying the very existence global warming is a political *requirement* for half the country. They'll fight it just on principle, and I can't see the rest of the country fighting back for a project that doesn't have any immediate gains for the US specifically. While some sort of "compromise" could probably pull it off, or with luck it could be swept under the rug and never become a political issue, that's not guaranteed.
Still, it's the best plan I've seen so far.
Hm... the abstract appears to convert 1 B tonnes (1 billion, I assume) into 1012 kg. It also omits a lot of words and is generally difficult to read because of it. They appear to use the coldest ever recorded temperature as their working temperature. They also don't talk about how they're going to keep all that CO2 frozen, or how much energy that's going to cost. Or what you do with the plant after five years when it's surrounded by CO2 dumps.
You've heard the explanation from a few other people, so I'm here to tell you the really important thing that most people won't tell you:
Please kill yourself.
Firstly, read the article as others have suggested. Secondly, even if you didn't read the article, did you really, really think that the real scientists (I make the distinction in case you think you're one) who came up with this idea hadn't thought of those things? Or were you hoping they'd drop by Slashdot, see the holes you've ingeniously managed to poke in their scheme in 30 seconds when they've spent months coming up with it, bow before your mighty intellect and pop a Nobel prize in the post?
Scoffing at something you don't understand is not an intelligent response. Asking questions (or in this case, simply reading TFA) is.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It takes energy to make CO2.
Err, actually no, the reason we're in this mess is because CO2 is a by-product of our favourite way of liberating energy.
That energy will probably come from burning fossil fuels
If the process was (possibly magically) efficient enough, you could run it on fossil fuels as long as you put away more than you create. You may also be fascinated to know that the back of your fridge is hot.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
uuh... what?
It's Judith Curry
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Um, you do realize that no human activity *creates* carbon, right? It just moves it around; in the case of global warming, we're moving it from in the ground (where it's not a problem) to in the atmosphere (where it is a problem). This moves the carbon back into the ground. How does that not work?
Release Comrade X or we'll firebomb Antartica. You don't want all that carbon up in the air, do you? On the other hand, maybe it'll be cheaper just to burn more fossil fuels or start a fair-sized forest fire.
Solid CO2 has a very high specific sublimation heat capacity. It'll take a looooong time for a significant amount of CO2 to sublimate given even minimal thermal insulation.
The amount of heat produced directly by all human activity combined is tiny compared to the heat applied by the sunlight the earth receives. The contribution of all human direct heat production is so small that no large-scale analysis of global heat retention even bothers to include it. Global warming is effectively entirely the result of increasing CO2, which increases the amount of incoming solar heat the Earth retains. Removing significant amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere would relieve global warming regardless of how much direct heat the process generated.
Because it's a greenhouse gas, pay attention.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
When he calls it a modest proposal, does he realize he is copying another title, which essentially indicates he is being completely sarcastic, and not serious at all in what he proposes?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
All we need is a John Carter now to lead a desperate mission to keep the atmosphere machine running... a half-trillion dollars or so later.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Michele Bachmann, is that you?
Building and maintaining a large infrastructure (especially something particularly mechanical like a wind far) in the especially hostile environment of Antarctica is going to have some really interesting engineering problems associated.
Then there's the problem of making sure that the CO2 remains frozen -- especially once the infrastructure is abandoned/broken
finally, there's the time bomb effect -- The antarctic ice belt Isn't static. It moves (albeit slowly) towards the sea, which means you're actually creating a CO2 TIme Bomb for some future generation to deal with.
Perhaps a better solution would be to put the power generation stations on Antarctica and find a way to distribute that energy to the rest of the world (or at least South America, Africa and Australia)
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Yes, but -- like anything else useful (water, oxygen), too much of it (also too fast an increase) can kill you (or, in this case, cause catastrophic climate effects).
CO2 isn't the worst of the greenhouse gasses, we're just generating lots and lots and lots of it all of a sudden, and the ecosystem doesn't have the ability to effectively deal with it that fast.
For an example of the effect, try drinking 20 litres of pure water tomorrow (just make sure to do it at a medical facility where they have some hope of reviving you when you collapse).
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
the sweep-it-under-the-carpet method of trash removal works great for the inlaws, the planet? not so much
Where did you think all the carbon from man made CO2 came from? We're just putting it back in the Earth.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Dr. Agee et al.. If you want people to read it, submit your paper to Arxiv. Publishing via Slashdot is just not the same.
I like the plan of fast-growing trees like poplar being planted in Northern mainland Canada, then being cut and sent north to the Arctic ocean, and towed to places like Ellesmere Island for storage. Those high Arctic islands are so dry and cold, we simulate Mars missions there. The logs will sit there for centuries, holding carbon.
...heat produced directly by all human activity combined is tiny..
Even in election years?
I am amazed at how many people can't figure out that the dude is joking.
If you are saying that you need to create a power source to convert the CO2 from the atmosphere into a form that can be buried, then the logical choice is why you can't simply use this power source to eliminate CO2 producing power sources in the first place.
His 'modest proposal' should have tipped you off. Apparently, it was far too subtle for Slashdot.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
What fusion reaction where you planning on using ? I don't think you are going to get much out of triple alpha.
with that frozen stuff, Future Generations!
Too bad you can't complain to the original producers.
It got rid of the carbon from the carboniferous era for a hundred million years or so.
i think some people get confused because it's called the green house effect , "don't vegetables come from greenhouses?"
That's odd. I seem to remember rather heated...oh discussions not all that long ago about this. And people keep saying that the sun has a negligible impact on the earths temperature? Especially in relation to Co2 levels. Especially with past relations to sunspot activity. And yet, this study came out the other day.
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2012/2012-39.shtml
Om, nomnomnom...
1. Build plant in really cold place
2. Profit from cold weather
3. Pull CO2 from atmosphere
4. Bury CO2 snow
5. Mankind benefits
You must be new here, because you've got this all out of order. Here's how it's supposed to go:
1. Build plant
2. Pull CO2 from atmosphere
3. Bury CO2 snow
4. ???
5. Profit!
If profit is not the end goal, then fail. If "mankind benefits" is the last item on the list, then fail. Go back and try it again. You don't have to be evil to get this right, but it helps.
Every time a politician blows hot "air", he only releases heat once. But, it's the CO2/legislation that has the long-term, magnifying effect.
PS - I know you're joking, of course. I just think what you say could be made into a good analogy a lot of right-wing anti-government types could be made to understand. But, then, I don't really get the impression a lot of those people actually stop to think about the situation, anyways, since I'm pretty sure they're just reciting dogma. That's not to say the left (or center or whatever direction you choose) doesn't have its own dogma. But, then, most if it seems a lot less ignorant and a lot less harmful. But, then, as we know, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
...In a few million years
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I have to admit, this idea is pretty cool. :-)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
A big point of this proposal is the strong, constant katabatic wind currents around Antarctica, which make the generation of large amounts of power feasible. But that power is in Antarctica, not New York, so you can't do much with it.
And, yes, you can extract much more CO2 from the air with a unit of power than is produced generating that power, even from Coal.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Last I checked the moderation system here, there was not choice for "bald faced lie." It is posts like yours that argue persuasively for the need for such a classification.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
With the appropriate farming techniques, which have pretty much been forgotten in the age of high-volume industrial farming, carbon sequestration can be greatly increased.
It frustrates me beyond measure how our society tends to want to solve things with big, sweeping high-cost measures, and then when that becomes a problem, add yet another layer of over-engineering on top of that. Modern farming is one of the biggest problems in the carbon debacle. Cows are kept on bare concrete and fed a steady stream of grain, and the waste is just sloughed off to be turned to muck and eventually dried. Meanwhile, farms that grow produce tend to focus on only one crop (corn, wheat, whatever), thus progressively depleting the soil of resources for that crop, necessitating the high-volume production of fertilizer. Simple measures that can both increase the yield of farmland and create much healthier food, also happen to increase and thrive on carbon sequestration. If this were done on a major scale, I suspect our carbon problems would start to reverse.
But I know... promoting wholistic measures like this make one seem like an old hippy. Honestly, it's too bad. There are so many ways to save effort and improve things, but instead we focus on the dramatic high-effort, high-risk solutions.
The web site in your sig is broken.
Use orbiting shades to shade much of Antarctica so that it is dark most of the summer. This should make it cold enough to form CO2 snow, removing CO2 from the atmosphere. It also would increase H2O snow accumulation, but that's ok as it would bury the CO2 and also tend to counteract sea level rise.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Global warming is moving in from the seas over 100-300 years. Nobody dies.
More hurricanes, droughts, floods.
We are saying that the observed variations in the Sun's output in the last 50+ years have had a negligible impact on the Earth's temperature. But we still know that the Sun is essentially the only* source of energy driving the Earth's temperatures and any significant change in the Sun's output would be reflected on Earth.
* The other sources of energy are so small relative to the Sun that they can be ignored in first order calculations.
It's Judith Curry
Now I'm confused. Are you suspecting me of being a skeptic?
Either way, I simply just don't understand the logic. Antarctica is being threatened by melting ice, and now a scientist (who I'm sure is very intelligent) comes up with an idea to install huge heaters in that area. I'm sure they will remove co2, but won't the side-effects be worse than the medicine?
(honestly, not trying to troll here).
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
KENT
Our top story, the population of parasitic tree lizards has exploded, and local citizens couldn't be happier! It seems the rapacious reptiles have developed a taste for the common pigeon, also known as the 'feathered rat', or the 'gutter bird'. For the first time, citizens need not fear harassment by flocks of chattering disease-bags.
Later, Bart receives an award from Mayor Quimby outside the town hall. Several lizards slink past.
QUIMBY
For decimating our pigeon population, and making Springfield a less oppressive place to while away our worthless lives, I present you with this scented candle.
Skinner talks to Lisa.
SKINNER
Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
LISA
But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
SKINNER
No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
LISA
But aren't the snakes even worse?
SKINNER
Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
LISA
But then we're stuck with gorillas!
SKINNER
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Messing with the environment because we messed with the environment before, what could possibly go wrong?
I had wondered about artificially creating methane hydrate crystals ... it'd involve mostly pumping CO2 into the deep ocean.
No, methane hydrate is formed from methane (natural gas), not CO2. Pumping CO2 underwater will not make it turn into methane (first law of thermodynamics, etc.).
Yes,in the TFA directly linked to, there is no mention of what is to be done with the heat that is pumped out of all that CO2 in order to solidify it. There is only a brief mention that it might be somehow put to use. But how? This part of the concept needs to be developed further.
Could the heat be used to melt Antarctic ice that could be hauled by refurbished oil tankers to Saudi Arabia for irrigation and bath water? Or should it just be dumped willy-nilly into the Antarctic environment? Maybe the penguins would like a warm bath?
There is some reason why Curry invokes Jonathan Swift's proposed solution to the Irish Question in the title of TFA. I think it has to do with the heated discussions that her article is likely to generate.
Will
Am I the only one ... to think that this is a really terrible idea.
It sounds like a great way to enable massive CO2 release just by any heating accident or lack of maintenance.
I was about to post something similar but was checking whether anybody had beaten me to it. You came close.
This looks like a DANDY way to set up a runaway-positive-feedback event:
1) Make gigatons of dry ice by freezing CO2 out of the atmosphere.
2) Bury it in Antarctica.
3) Pray that it stays cold.
4) If the temperature of the burial site rises above â'78.5 ÂC (â'109.3 ÂF) the dry ice starts sublimating, releasing the CO2 back into the atmosphere.
5) The released CO2 increases the greenhouse effect, which captures more heat, which raises the temperature, which sublimates more dry ice.
6) Rinse and repeat.
7) Prophet!
Even if the global warming observations aren't the sign of an oncoming anthropogenic overheating disaster, THIS could create one. Artificially sequestering the CO2 would retard natural sequestration mechanisms (such as increased photosynthesis stimulated by higher CO2 levels). Then suddenly (in geologic time) releasing the stockpile back into the atmosphere could leave you with a substantially higher CO2 level than if you hadn't run the project in the first place.
Oops!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Make that:
4) If the temperature of the burial site rises above -78.5 C (-109.3 F) the dry ice starts sublimating, releasing the CO2 back into the atmosphere.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Lol. Think about that for a second. Even if we wanted to melt the Antarctic with the industrial equivalent of a whole bunch of space heaters, do you honestly think we would have the means? That would be a bigger project than anything ever undertaken. It would probably be easier to make a base on Mars. The difference with CO2 is that we are amplifying the effect of the heat of the sun on the earth, rather than directly raising the earth's temperature.
This process needs to deal with 30 billion tons of CO2 a year. The average binding energy of CO2 is of the order of 3eV.
That's 10^26 * 10^-19 * 10^10 = 10^17 joules a year. or 10GW 24/7.
And Judith and other deniers think wind power cannot work to produce lots of power 24/7.
Perhaps sudden release of an enormous amount of C02. Suppose this works fairly well. We could sequester carbon for 50 years and then something could happen like another meteor from Mars and damage the refrigeration required. BAM! Sudden global climate chaos. Perhaps people will survive with the carbon intact for hundreds of years and society could degenerate. Then it would be a matter of time before lack of maintenance leads to failure.
I think we would be much better off seeking sequestration in soil enrichment through compost. Another possibility might be to stir up some of the ocean bottom in the dead part of the Pacific and stimulate life there.
Ray Seyfarth, ray.seyfarth@gmail.com, http://rayseyfarth.blogspot.com
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.
Need Mercedes parts ?
We really need a "-1 stupid".
First, I did not read in the article how the storage is supposed to work for a long enough time. The CO2 has to be stored for a time on the order of 10 000 years, since that is the approximate lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere. At atmospheric pressure the temperature has to stay below -78.5C for that. How is an isolated landfill supposed to achieve that?
Second, why on Antarctica? His argument is the environmental temperature, which is 226K on average. The process should run at 133K or 152K. The maximum theoretical efficiency of a cooling plant is cooled temperature over temperature difference. So if this is built in Europe with an average temperature of about 280K, it will require only 1.6-1.7 times as much energy as if the condensation is done on Antarctica. I am sure that the cost increase for building the wind farms on Antarctica alone is much higher than that. The high cost of building all this on Antarctica makes this project totally uneconomical.
Storing the CO2 in the ground, for example in former natural gas deposits makes much more sense than this.
On the other side, storing CO2 in the ground is also neither cheap or save, and having the CO2 released in Antarctica is better than in an inhabited area. Also in my opinion it is better if the CO2 is released within 10 000s or 100 000s of years than if it is stored for eternity, since it is generally needed for life, it is just too much at once now. The lifetime of a CO2 landfill isolated by water ice should be more predictable than the storage under ground.
So if the lifetime of such a landfill is really that long the idea would make sense.
Because clearly this plan is well thought through and has no obvious but overlooked side effects?
I feel a bit uneasy about storing megatonnes of frozen CO2, that has to be kept refrigerated below -80C, at least 20 degrees below ambient, indefinitely. Makes storing nuclear waste for centuries look simple and safe by comparison.
As you're in a nitpicking mode, you might note that a question mark normally terminates a question; your sentence is simply a statement.
do you honestly think we would have the means
Funny, that is an argument that many deniers use about anthropogenic global change.
In other words, you're a liberal.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
When did the human race become omnipotent? How can we have so much faith that we can 'fix Earth' when we don't even really understand how it works (follow _any_ science blog and note how many time scientists are 'surprised to discover that ...')?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
We are thinking like slave owners, try desperately to annex new land to move an increasingly inefficient economic model to. It doesn't work on cold economic grounds, because this is capital that will be very far away from all other human activity, and have no follow on applications. If you want giant wind farms, put them someplace people can actually use them...
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Global warming is moving in from the seas over 100-300 years. Nobody dies.
More hurricanes, droughts, floods.
And wars over farmland and fresh water.
Not quite. The CO2 maybe sweeped under the carpet, but if you would actually read the paper, page 21 shows that there may be a significant amount of excess heat produced by the process, which needs to be release to the environment. The CO2 is not the problem. The heat is? So, in order to combat global warming, we install 400+ heaters on Antarctica? I'm sure the science behind it will work, but my initial response is: uuh... what?
They aren't really talking about introducing any additional energy into Antartica. They said the power supply would be local wind turbines. So the only real heat difference will be the heat taken out of the CO2 and released into the remaining atmosphere. That should create small, localised heat bubbles in the atmosphere, which would probably be fairly rapidly dissipated by winds. And even if it does have a noticeable effect during the summer, the Antarctic interior winter atmosphere has relatively little moisture for trapping heat radiated back towards space, and very little incoming sunlight. I imagine it would all start being radiated out to space easily enough come April every year.
I saw a counter-argument there that this was an issue / bounding limit for human growth / use of energy:
``Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist''
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/
``Alright, the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that’s via (infrared) radiation. We understand the phenomenon perfectly well, and can predict the surface temperature of the planet as a function of how much energy the human race produces. The upshot is that at a 2.3% growth rate (conveniently chosen to represent a 10× increase every century), we would reach boiling temperature in about 400 years.''
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
On a global scale, maybe, but many cities have become what is known as "heat islands."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
That is not because of heat directly generated by human activity, but a change in the heat retention properties of a large area of land due to human engineered changes in the landscape.
You are describing a kind of perpetual motion machine, which like all such schemes fails when you consider the thermodynamics.
Methane is a reduced form of carbon. CO2 is an oxidized form of carbon. The energy from burning fuels like methane (and other fossil fuels which are also reduced carbon) comes from the thermodynamics of converting reduced carbon to oxidized carbon.
In other words, to convert CO2 from fossil fuels back into methane, we'd have to put all the energy we got out of burning the fuels back in--minus substantial and unavoidable energy losses at both ends of the process.
So basically, your process leaves us with less energy than never burning the fossil fuels in the first place and just leaving them in the ground.
Explain where all the CO2 we produce went. We KNOW how much we produce from burning fossil fuels et al. 30 billion tons a year.
And the increase in atmospheric CO2 is about equivalent to about 17 billion tons of CO2 a year.
But if it were the trees dying off doing it
a) where is all the 30 billion tons of our production going to
Much of it is going into the oceans. There, it is leading to acidification of the water, which could have much more dire consequences for the global ecosystem than "global warming". All of the shelled creatures in the seas have calcite shells, which could be more difficult for them to grow/maintain in more acid waters. And since many of them are near the bottom of the food chain....
AC is probably correct. Hydrogen fusion will produce stuff. Most of that should be helium. Some other elements will likely end up up in the mix too, in much smaller quantities.
Um... I missed the point where this firmly puts the carbon in the ground, and does not heat up the surrounding atmosphere enough to cause carbon release. Since this sounds to me like a giant bunch of heaters installed in a cold area, maybe you could show me what obvious detail I have overlooked?
Installing a bunch of heaters in a cold area assumes the intruduction of an external power supply to fuel those heaters. This plan does not include introduction of external energy to the local system.
Trees and plants are a method to kick the can down the road at best. Unless you actively plan to go and bury all these trees and plants into some deep holes, most of the carbon absorbed by aforementioned greenery will eventually be returned back into the air via decay and decomposition. Hence the word cycle in "carbon cycle". If it is still on the surface, it is still going back into the system.
Not only that, but in order to have any meaningful impact on atmospheric CO2 levels you would need to plant a HUGE amount of trees. Even to just counteract what we're adding to the atmosphere every year would require billions of trees planted, let alone trying to get CO2 levels back down to "normal" levels. The ocean, the largest carbon sink in the world, is absorbing a little under 60% of our emissions and it's covering 3/4 of the planet.
We're burning through carbon that took geological timescales to sequester in little more than a couple of human lifetimes. It is physically impossible to plant enough trees to counteract this. It's not even possible to plant trees at the same rate we're burning through fossilized ancient forests.
~X~
To be fair, current global climate change could also probably qualify as the "biggest project humanity has undertaken." We are releasing all the stores of carbon on the planet into the atmosphere, and it's a project that the vast majority of the planet is directly or indirectly contributing to, and has been for the past several decades/century and thus far we've *only* changed the average temperature a degree or so?
And that's only amplifying the sun, as opposed to applying heat directly.
So yes melting the ice caps directly with human made heat (as opposed to amplified heat from the sun) is not feasible.
Leaving aside the utterly disproven notion of AGW
This is where I stopped reading.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The planet's balance isn't a big problem but this is still a good idea. Require abandoned mines to be filled with biochar to help offset the CO2 release from mining.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Uhhh...did you just use the exact same argument that the deniers use for why its not humans causing the change? Oh irony pie, so delicious and sweet.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Not to argue your point but I understand the majority of the Earths carbon is actually bound up in rocks like limestone. In geological time this is the natural way carbon is sequestered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Interesting. Naturally I thought it was in fossil fuels and coal. Still, burning all the fuel sources is a massive undertaking.
Uhhh...did you just use the exact same argument that the deniers use for why its not humans causing the change? Oh irony pie, so delicious and sweet.
I think you are misunderstanding the scale of these two concepts. First of all I'm not denying climate change. I'm saying it has been a massive undertaking over a few generations. Climate deniers are wrong to say it's impossible but right to say it takes a lot of energy to do it.
Melting the antarctic by applying direct heat, rather than using heat from the sun, I think, would be a much more massive undertaking.
Also, even if your misunderstanding was what I meant I don't know if it qualifies as true irony, much less a pie's worth of it. I think it would only be a simple contradiction.
So, you're saying that 50 years of data is enough, when the agu article disagrees with that statement. You did read the brief and perhaps the paper listed there right? Because if you did, the first thing you'd find is that your statement is inaccurate.
Om, nomnomnom...
No, it's not incorrect. I could dig through nearly a decade of news stories and posts and find repeats of what I just said. Where people, articles, and even scientists have said that the sun has no variation on the temperature as a whole.
Then again, in those special cases where posts like yours come up perhaps we need a "group think" moderation label.
Om, nomnomnom...
Sure. You don't see, of course. That dollar bills in front of your eyes might have something to do with it. This project makes a great thermodynamic sense - the energy required to condense CO2 out of the air is a very small fraction (less than 1%) of energy liberated during burning of carbon. That's why it makes sense to do this.
Links please.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Actually I should have been more exact, the majority of carbon in the lithosphere is bound in rock form. Wiki says 80% as limestone etc and 20% as oil and such. Most carbon is probably in the mantle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Or maybe a lot of C4 plants, the ones that use crazy amounts of CO2 and do really well when CO2 is high
Wow! I didn't know that C4 comes from a plant. Better not step on it.
I'll admit I didn't read your link until now. But I don't think it supports your thesis much. To quote from the link:
“Due to this indirect effect, the solar cycle does not impact hemispherically averaged temperatures, but only leads to regional temperature anomalies,” said Stephan Pfahl, a co-author of the study who is now at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich.
The authors show that this change in atmospheric circulation leads to cooling in parts of Central Europe but warming in other European countries, such as Iceland. So, sunspots don’t necessarily cool the entire globe – their cooling effect is more localized, Sirocko said.
And ...
Moreover, the researchers also point out that, despite Central Europe’s prospect to suffer colder winters every 11 years or so, the average temperature of those winters is increasing and has been for the past three decades. As one piece of evidence of that warming, the Rhine River has not frozen over since 1963. Sirocko said such warming results, in part, from climate change.
The 11 year solar cycle is well known and can be detected in the temperature record. Nobody is denying the effect. But over longer time periods the Sun's cycles average out and since the 1950's the Sun's average output has if anything declined slightly. Yet temperatures are rising.
Sunspot levels which are a pretty good proxy for solar output have been recorded for around 400 years so we have more than 50 years of data. Other proxies that are less certain take the record back even further.
In particular, America and China.
China recognizes the necessity of action, and are developing huge wind farms. (6 at 20GW each. By comparison, France uses 80GW.)
A majority in the USA would like to see some action, and indeed, 1/5th of the USA lives under a carbon trading scheme -- with no evidence of any economic damage. A carbon neutral tax takes from the utility companies bottom line, and generates demand for energy efficient products and infrastructure. The official rggi report specifically shows that this is what has been happening over the last 10 years, with net savings for both consumers and business. Furthermore, this region of the US economy has grown in proportion to the rest of the USA. The "damage" of a carbon tax is a conservative myth. And besides, many Republicans want action on climate change, including supply-side economics guru Art Laffer.
Now, China wants the west to pay through the nose before it officially ties itself to any legally binding targets. Same with India, and the rest of the developed world. In my opinion, they have a victim complex, which does have some legitimate basis. But seriously: grow up.
But, returning to your post, it is too black-and-white to suggest that nothing is happening in the USA. And in China, the boots are marching.
Only the regressive climate-change denial machine stops real and cheap action on AGW, and for purely philosophical reasons that are not grounded in out best understanding of either science or economics. These people are not oil industry shills (although they do have oil-sugar-daddys) but they do really believe in the imminent threat of climate-change legislation.
History will not remember them kindly.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Carbons Credits. Biggest legal scam going. And you just reminded me that I need to get my carbon bank up asap.
A thoughtful person would want to know what the consequences were of carbon-limiting legislation around the world, and, a large chunk of the USA.
If you think you already know the answer before looking... then I have no reason to believe that you know anything of value on the subject.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Let me ask you a question. If your options were 1) Use a power source that doesn't require emission of CO2 to clean up CO2 or 2) Replace CO2 emitting power plants with power sources that don't require emission of CO2, which do you think would be more efficient? If you said #1, you missed a law of physics or two.
Obviously it is more efficient to simply produce energy in ways that emit little CO2 in the first place. However, because scientists tend to be very conservative, esp. en masse, we have every reason to believe that there is already too much CO2 in the atmosphere, and it will start to cost real $$$ and lives and human suffering in the coming decades. I am not saying that that is a certainty, but it is certainly a possibility.
So in makes sense to think about ways to remove the extant CO2.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The "don't emit CO2" idea is not a very realistic one as far as reality is concerned.
I have met people who think that there are too many human beings, and the world could do with a big die-off. They are few and far between, and not representative of the majority who take environmental issues seriously. You are imaging a boggie-man if you think that that is what reducing CO2 emissions is all about.
The real question is: how can we sustain our project of civilization long-term?
From a scientific point of view -- which represents our best understanding -- we should be concerned about the long-term consequences of allow atmospheric CO2 to climb. Such measured analysis has nothing to do with kitsch throwaways like: "don't emit CO2" and "mass extinction of humankind".
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
China may happily offer to sell them windmills etc to do it on a massive scale (and burn all the coal to do it ;) ).
China is building huge wind farms. Their energy-policy doesn't make sense at first blush because it isn't based on "four-legs-good, two-legs-bad" when it comes to traditional power generation.
The same could be said of the USA, which generates a huge amount of wind energy, and has developed (along with Europe) the know-how for integrating it seamlessly into the power grid. The USA also has a 1/5th of its economy under a carbon tax, which over the last 10 years, has saved industry and consumers $$$ on their power bills. Interesting how incentive structures give people the little push to save money long-term.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Um, you do realize that when you type "Um", which is a filler word, into a form and post it, when you have all the time in the world to consider your post and edit it, the readers think you are an idiot, right?
"Um" is more than just a filler word. In context, it alters the emphasis of the sentence it is placed in.
For instance, read the sentence I quoted above, and then read it again without the initial "Um". The meaning is the same, but the tone is different. Including the "Um" makes it sound more sarcastic, which I'm sure is what you were intending.
Also, I missed the point where this firmly puts the carbon in the ground, and does not heat up the surrounding atmosphere enough to cause carbon release. Since this sounds to me like a giant bunch of heaters installed in a cold area, maybe you could show me what obvious detail I have overlooked? Because clearly this plan is well thought through and has no obvious but overlooked side effects?
You don't heat your house with a match. Yeah, Antarctica is the smallest continent, but it's still very big and very cold. The amount of heat needed to actually raise the ambient temperature there would require a lot more than what you're going to get out of a bunch of wind turbines.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Don't worry. Chances of this lame-assed idea ever going anywhere are less than zero.
Consider: Who is going to work there? Who is going to dig and insulate the pit? Who is goin to fund this lunacy? Who would ever approve such trashing of the Antarctic?
Snowball's chance of this ever getting any real progress.
Modest proposal? Ha ha.
Perhaps they could split the carbons out, release the O2, or even generate and release O3, and spread the carbon matter out over the surface of some glaciers to help melt them?
In other words, you're a liberal.
...but, are you using the word "liberal" there as it if means something negative?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Plant more trees. They harvest huge amounts of carbon over their lifetime, require no maintenance, and even reproduce by themselves. The only problem is that solution can't make someone rich.
The amount of heat produced directly by all human activity combined is tiny compared to the heat applied by the sunlight the earth receives. .
This may be tiny now but with exponential growth, parity (and its subsequent depletion) always occurs in linear time. In the case of energy consumption growth rates, it's only about 400 years into the future to reach parity with total solar input....
...He comes from the future.
Speaking of farmland, there's a farmer in Virginia who claims his permaculture techniques could sequester all the CO2 emitted by humans since the industrial revolution in less than 10 years. His name is Joel Salatin and the technique he invented is called mob-stocking herbivorous solar conversion lignified carbon sequestration fertilization. In the 50 years the Salatins have been farming this way, they've added 8 inches of topsoil to their land (this is how the carbon is sequestered). Salatin is featured in Michael Pollan's book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Pollan gives a brief introduction to the farm in this video among others.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Sorry BTW, I blew myself and it up.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
Yes because maintaining windmills in the artic will be a cakewalk I am sure.
Windmills being noteriously immune to ice and cold weather.
1) Run a diseal generator to keep support staff
2) Have support staff slowly chip ice off windmills, and repair frozen machines
3) Sequester CO2!
Just grow more forests. It not only sequesters the carbon, it frees most of the oxygen for our use, to breathe and stuff.
-- thinkyhead software and media