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World's First "Porous Liquid" Could Be Used For CO2 Sequestration (gizmag.com)
Zothecula sends word that scientists have developed the world's first "porous" liquid that can potentially be used to capture carbon emissions. Gizmag reports: "The Italians have a colorful expression – to make a hole in water – to describe an effort with no hope of succeeding. Researchers at Queen's University Belfast (QUB), however, have seemingly managed the impossible, creating a class of liquids that feature permanent holes at the molecular level. The properties of the new materials are still largely unknown, but what has been gleaned so far suggests they could be used for more convenient carbon capturing or as a molecular sieve to quickly separate different gases."
First of all, CO2 is a trace gas, second it is the weakest of all GHGs, third it is absolutely essential to all plant life which means if should ever drop below 150 ppm, all life will die.
I'm all for reducing emissions in certain areas of industry for the sake of air quality - but sequestering it ourselves is fucking stupid.
Why not just cut back on fossil fuel burning? Oh no's, can't have that, can we?
Actually, no we cannot cut back all that much. Unless you are figuring on systematically reducing the world's population, or hell, just starving them to death. You see, petro-chemicals are used extensively to create fertilizer, and if you stop doing that with oil people are going to starve. Of course we can all just go back to horse and buggy, whale oil lamps and the supportable population of the world we can support with that technology, but somehow I don't figure that the third world is going to accept going backwards further....
Best we can hope for is to cut down *some* on fossil fuel use by developing other energy sources. Fusion comes to mind as a promising solution..... But that's decades out....Just figure that CO2 emissions are here to stay for your lifetime, because even if you are a baby, they are....
If we don't cut back population over the long term. we'll all starve to death. And let's be honest, oil is not an infinite resource. Even ignoring global warming, there comes a time when the well goes dry.
And the problem is not that far away 2050 projections:
NEW population forecasts from the United Nations point to a new world order in 2050. The number of people will grow from 7.3 billion to 9.7 billion in 2050, 100m more than was estimated in the UN's last report two years ago. More than half of this growth comes from Africa, where the population is set to double to 2.5 billion. Nigeria's population will reach 413m, overtaking America as the world's third most-populous country. Congo and Ethiopia will swell to more than 195m and 188m repectively, more than twice their current numbers. India will surpass China as the world's most populous country in 2022, six years earlier than was previously forecast. China's population will peak at 1.4 billion in 2028; India's four decades later at 1.75 billion. Changes in fertility make long-term projections hard, but by 2100 the planet’s population will be rising past 11.2 billion. It will also be much older. The median age of 30 will rise to 36 in 2050 and 42 in 2100—the median age of Europeans today. A quarter of Europe's people are already aged 60 or more; by 2050 deaths will outnumber births by 32m. The UN warns that only migration will prevent the region's population from shrinking further.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Well the correct term is petroleum... petr from petra which means rock, and oleum means oil, so "rock oil". Quite appropriately named. Perhaps the supergroup which includes gaseous deposits should be called "organic fuel", since carbon chemistry is organic chemistry.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.