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Pilot Test Of Storing Carbon Dioxide In Rocks Shows Impressive Outcome (theaustralian.com.au)

Posted by msmash on from the plan-b dept.

For years we have been trying to find different ways to limit carbon dioxide produced from fossil fuels. Some researchers believe that things would be very convenient if we could just deposit carbon dioxide in rocks. A pilot project around this idea has shown an impressive result. John Ross, reporting for the Australian: Scientists say they have demonstrated a foolproof way of sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide -- turning it into rock. An international team of researchers says it has demonstrated for the first time that CO2 can be permanently locked away from the atmosphere by injecting it into volcanic bedrock. The study, reported this morning in the journal Science, could overcome the leakage problems that have plagued attempts to bury CO2 gas underground. Lead author Juerg Matter said between 95 per cent and 98 per cent of the injected CO2 had been mineralised in less than two years, "which is amazingly fast.""Until now it was thought this process would take hundreds to thousands of years," University of Southampton, which led the new study, said in a statement. "The current study has demonstrated that it can take as little as two years."

170 comments

  1. If it was that easy and worked that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Then you did it wrong, and missed something.

    1. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Then you did it wrong, and missed something.

      This process is expensive and there are better ways to do it. CO2 can be used for enhanced oil recovery which can sequester carbon while also helping improve yield. Since it has positive economic value, it is much more likely to actually happen.

    2. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Then you did it wrong, and missed something.

      This process is expensive and there are better ways to do it. CO2 can be used for enhanced oil recovery which can sequester carbon while also helping improve yield. Since it has positive economic value, it is much more likely to actually happen.

      Technologies and solutions are not mutually exclusive. And operating costs tend to decrease with scale or better technology. If the only reason to deter use of a technology is the up-front operational cost of a pilot program, we wouldn't have a lot of the shit we take for granted nowadays.

    3. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are you trolling about?

    4. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Rei · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, it means that it was a pilot project and it's the first time they've tried this.

      It's great news. I've been following as they've been working on this project. Most people wouldn't think we'd have much carbon dioxide here since virtually all of our power is either hydroelectric or geothermal, but we're actually abnormally high emitters per capita. Now, most of that's not easy to capture - we can pretty much rule out the fishing fleet, and two of the three aluminum smelters aren't that close to a geothermal plant (although I don't know if their technique needs to be directly coordinated with a geothermal plant or not). However, geothermal wells also can have surprising levels of CO2 emissions. They're quite varied, and generally far less than burning fossil fuels for power, but some of the worst wells can actually get up to a good fraction of the emissions of of an equivalent amount of fossil fuel power. So this experiment was conducted at Hellisheiði, which is the biggest geothermal plant in Iceland (and one of the biggest in the world), with the goal of making it eventually fully close-cycle. Maybe they'll also reduce their H2S emissions at the same time.

      Concerning one thing in the article:

      But Dr Matter said there was a risk of mobilising trace metals, potentially polluting downstream waterways. And any injection of water or CO2 into deep subsurface reservoirs carried the danger of “micro” earthquakes.

      They're already making regular earthquakes on the production end, so what's the big difference? More to the point, who would even notice? Wow, gee, earthquakes in Iceland, we've never gotten those before ;)

      I also don't have much concerns about trace metals flowing into waters. Those are geothermal layers. Any waters there are geothermal waters. Which means that they're pretty "contaminated" to begin with. You don't drink geothermal waters, or anything that they flow into. I have a lot more concerns about 1) agricultural / livestock / septic system contamination, and 2) suspended particulate (aka surface water contamination). See Mývatn for the effects of both, Lagarfljót particularly for the latter. Our main areas of concern with bodies of water have generally been with either clouding them or causing algal blooms.

      Then again, though, why should we even bother helping reduce CO2 levels? Make Iceland Covered With Redwoods Again! ;)

      --
      Maybe, but I can barely make out what you're saying because your horse is too high.
    5. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That someone might make CO2 sequester work and obviate the AGW agenda.

      Wait, you're saying someone has been warming the planet on purpose? That would suggest the "A" in "AGW" stands for "Alien!"

    6. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you claiming that the deranged Conservatives are burning excess fuel because they want to heat the world? I assumed that they're just very, very stupid, and can't comprehend any information from outside their cult, but I suppose that destroying civilization would work in favor of any awful Conservatives that survive. They won't have normal people telling them to stop being destructive assholes anymore.

    7. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i found this in a documentary about billionaires.

    8. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Except that I seem to recall that most such CO2 tends to leak back into the atmosphere within several years, making it rather useless as a carbon sequestration mechanism.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    9. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      Wait, you're saying someone has been warming the planet on purpose? That would suggest the "A" in "AGW" stands for "Alien!"

      That can't be it. If it was, it would mean Charlie Sheen isn't batshit crazy.

    10. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by DrStrangluv · · Score: 1

      Who's to say this doesn't have some of the same types of economic value? For example, it's doubtful they've had time yet to study whether the newly CO2 injected volcanic rock also has useful properties as, say, a building material.

    11. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Except that I seem to recall that most such CO2 tends to leak back into the atmosphere within several years

      No. A good site will retain 99% of the sequestered CO2 for at least 1000 years. The CO2 is typically injected into geologic formations that were able to hold methane for millions of years. If the methane didn't leak, why would the CO2?

    12. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      If the oil wells are hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from where the oil is burned are you going to transport the C02 back to the well head?

    13. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      They need to be extremely careful about this scheme of mixing CO2 with rocks. Don't forget that this is how "Mikey" got killed.

    14. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As mention in another comment and in the summary no less, this is a permanent solution. Current solutions of pushing gas into the ground just leak out back into the atmosphere by nature of gas unless you spend alot of money resealing and compressing all that bedrock which almost no company will do. Even then, seeping can still happen if not done perfectly as shown by history.

      As for expense, just take that money as a form of carbon tax which somewhat already exist. There is finally a way to fully quantize the cost of carbon emissions.

    15. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      I hate to be this kind of cynical, but have these tests been independently verified by someone who will not profit from "assurances that the colorless, odorless gas which naturally occurs at levels around 400ppm is not, in-fact, leaching out of the storage facility"?

    16. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

      Because the methane was internally generated inside a pocket that formed over thousands, if not millions, of years of material deposition, and the CO2 was injected into a geologic formation that was ripped open with mechanical machinery and bulldozed shut by underpaid contractors in a few hours?

    17. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I could be wrong. Or perhaps it's simply that most sites aren't good sites, so it's not a general solution.

      As for why it would leak now? Possibly because you intentionally punched holes through it to get to the oil, and probably engaged in fracking which it is seeming increasingly certain fractures the containing formations as well, allowing for groundwater contamination, and probably did a half-assed job of sealing up even the holes you know about because you figured nobody would notice at least until it was someone else's problem.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    18. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by DRJlaw · · Score: 1

      This process is expensive and there are better ways to do it. CO2 can be used for enhanced oil recovery [wikipedia.org] which can sequester carbon while also helping improve yield. Since it has positive economic value, it is much more likely to actually happen.

      That is an extraction technology, not a storage technology. You will never be able to store an amount of CO2 in the oil formation comparable to the CO2 potential of the oil (when burned) that was extracted. Sure, you can potentially use this to finish an oil field, but you'll run out of oil fields to finish well before you run out of CO2 from even only that 'finished' oil. I'm sure there's also concerns that it's geologically temporary storage -- unless the engineering of the abandonment process is quite good, the pressure of the settling formation is going to eventually drive out a good portion of the injected CO2. The problem is mentioned, very briefly, as "leakage" in the third paragraph of TGA.

      The point of this technology is that the injected CO2 becomes converted to far less mobile rock, seemingly surprisingly quickly. That would make it a better storage option than post-carbon-capture storage in oil fields, deep sandstone formations, and other such storage as fluid (or gas) schemes.

      Frankly, it probably does not matter. I think we'll likely have moved away from power generation using carbon fuels (fixed facilities where carbon dioxide might be capturable) before capture and storage have commercially scalable solutions. The trick is going to be capturing or offsetting diffuse carbon sources like non-electric transportation fuel use.

    19. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      If the oil wells are hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from where the oil is burned are you going to transport the C02 back to the well head?

      Very little CO2 is collected from burning oil. Oil is mostly used in transportation, where is is not feasible to collect it. Most CO2 that is collected comes from burning coal or natural gas to generate electricity, or make cement, etc. One option is that instead of moving the CO2 to the oilfield, you can move the generator there, and burn the coal/NG locally. Many oilfields generate a lot of gas as a byproduct. There are a lot of geographically dispersed oil and gas fields, so the CO2 does not need to be piped far. For instance, there are plenty of suitable sites in Southern California, and Pennsylvania, which are close to population centers, and thus close to power plants.

      But anyway, CCS is a bridge technology, until we can move away from fossil fuels completely. It is not a permanent solution.

    20. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by MoaDweeb · · Score: 2

      From an articles at Ars Technica today:

      'So is this a breakthrough demonstration of carbon storage that can be emulated around the world? Not necessarily. It’s not entirely clear what it is about the CarbFix site that allowed such rapid mineralization. It could be some combination of characteristics of the geology and groundwater chemistry, although the researchers think their approach of dissolving the CO2 in water before injection played a role.

      Charlotte Sullivan studies CO2 storage in basalt at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She told Ars that slower rates of mineralization are expected in other locations that have been studied. '

      Not as cut and dried as our Australian climate denying mates would have you assume. If it can be replicated then that would be interesting.

      --
      New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
    21. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously China doesn't believe in AGW.. otherwise why spend tens of billions building airports mere meters above sea level?

      Ergo, Climate Change is a pseudoscience.

    22. Re: If it was that easy and worked that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget, we're currently in a heating period that will not stop even if we cut CO2 emissions to zero today. There's still value in bringing CO2 levels down to a level somewhere in the mid 1900s.

    23. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      Underpaid contractors? Have you ever actually talked to drillers and heavy equipment operators?

    24. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Zaelath · · Score: 1

      If that were true then why are the Chinese investing heavily in alternative energy?

      And why do the Dutch prefer anal to regular intercourse in all cases other than when trying to procreate?

      One of those might have been made up, but given both don't have attribution, I guess I'm almost as full bore retarded as you are.

    25. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      You are proposing to move the coal from the mines to near the oil fields then the electricity from the oil fields to where it is needed. That is a lot of moving to sequester some CO2.

      As for Southern California the coal would need to be shipped quite far. California only produces 5% of it's electricity from coal
      I agree that sequestration is a temporary measure but temporary can be a long time.

    26. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      I lived in Houston, and heard nearly monthly reports of some "event" or another involving contractors in the oil and gas industry, killing themselves while cleaning the inside of tanks, accidentally releasing a "minor" 600 lbs of cyanide gas, fire out of hand on a refinery sends 3 to hospital, pesticide warehouse catches fire and sends plume of smoke across city...

      Actually, the fires on the refineries are just part of how the machinery is built to operate, they're handled on a daily basis, not news. But, the "regular" workers were always complaining about how the "contractors" were hired last minute, under-trained if trained at all, etc. and how that led to these problems.

    27. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by budgenator · · Score: 1

      They are talking about the CO2 being reacting chemically with the silicates in the rock to sequester the CO2 permanently

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    28. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by Immerman · · Score: 1

      The article is, the poster I replied to is not. They're talking about using pressurized CO2 to assist with oil extraction.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    29. Re:If it was that easy and worked that well by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
      Amateurs, speaking of what they know not.

      Oh, it's Slashdot. Did I expect anything else?

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  2. Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is a pilot--first of its kind. It might herald a whole new era for the human race! Or it might not. We'll need many decades of work and repetitions of this study, and studies that grow forth from what we learn here, to know if this is truly a viable technology, or if this study is merely a fluke.

    --
    Who did what now?
    1. Re:Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like a good source of funding for all those unemployed post-grad "Research Assistant" types. Hooray planned economy!

    2. Re:Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hooray freedom of speech that lets foul mouthed conservative spread lies.

      The founding fathers said nothing about a Right To Lie.

    3. Re:Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by Robotbeat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm all for replications, HOWEVER: This isn't psychology or medicine. If a single, transparent, well-documented study shows that volcanic rock (of a common and well-characterized type) quickly locks up CO2, then it's not a fluke.

      Science works differently in different fields because some things are easier to fundamentally understand, even with a sample size of n=1, than others where fundamental understanding is basically non-existent (i.e. we don't actually know how the mind works on a fundamental level) and you have effects so small (with so many confounding factors) that you need n=1000 to have any hope at statistical significance.

    4. Re:Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...a single, transparent, well-documented study shows that volcanic rock (of a common and well-characterized type) quickly locks up CO2...

      What if there were some extenuating circumstances that contributed to the 'locking up' of CO2? What if the volcanic rock from Iceland performed better based on the weather/climate than it would in, say Hawaii?

      Scientific process exists for a reason, we don't want to jump on the CO2 sequestration train early thinking that 95% of it will be captured all the time, when the reality around the world the mean percentage is much lower and therefore high cost for little gain.

    5. Re:Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by khallow · · Score: 1

      A lot of stupidity, like what you just wrote, could be eliminated, if people would think first "What would my worst enemy do with this power?" If there isn't a right to lie, then someone like Trump could shut you down by decreeing that you were lying.

    6. Re:Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To calmt down your excitement Ill say two words: cold fusion.
      Even in quite exact disciplines like physics shit happens - and how many times cold fusion was replicated?
      (also in my department a guy - later called Mr.Fusion, now a professor - confirmed "positive energy balance" of his table-top setup).

    7. Re: Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Its not america. You are both retards.

    8. Re:Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by Robotbeat · · Score: 1

      Cold fusion posits new laws of physics, thus the bar is set higher. It also hasn't been transparent in the least.

    9. Re:Seems Promising, but Let's Not Get Too Excited by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "decades"... I'm sure the carbon-pumpers, the equipment manufacturers, and the carbon-pumping-efficacy-analysers will ALL agree with you.

  3. Just plant more trees! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Store the carbon in something much easier and cheaper. Trees!!!!. You'd think all these smart guys would have thought of this. Wait, you can't get a $2M research grant for planting trees. Guess that answers that question.

    1. Re:Just plant more trees! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with planting trees is that deforestation is happening at a faster rater than ever and this shows no sign of slowing. So we'd replant while human consumption is looking for more reasons to reverse that. The way people live today isn't sustainable at the current population. Planting trees will only make sense when people stop using the viable land we have to plant for more than crops and livestock.

    2. Re:Just plant more trees! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or maybe not "faster than ever": http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/326911/icode/

    3. Re:Just plant more trees! by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      Not only that, but trees are not some infinite carbon sink. There comes a point when emissions lead to climactic changes so great that not even vast forests could deal with the excess CO2 in the atmosphere.

      The solution is to stop CO2 getting into the atmosphere. If sequestering works, great, though the better solution is to simply move to alternatives that emit a lot less CO2, period. Ending fossil fuel use should be the ultimate goal. If sequestering offers a stopgap measure, so be it, but the long run should be the end of using fossil fuels.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:Just plant more trees! by ceoyoyo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You can't just plant trees, you have to harvest them when they're grown up and sequester them. Otherwise you'll just run out of land. People don't really like the idea of cutting down forests and burying or sinking the wood into the ocean.

      We'd have a nice little carbon sequestration economy going if we made it illegal to recycle paper or wood products.

    5. Re:Just plant more trees! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That will not happend, because the Wahabists of Riad have the U.S. and Western European elite in their Grip of Bribery. Their business model and power depends on oil sales. They alread destroyed nuclear power in large parts of the EU.

      See https://www.rt.com/news/346010-saudi-coalition-blacklist-un/

    6. Re:Just plant more trees! by Immerman · · Score: 1

      There has been some interesting work on making wood laminates with very impressive mechanical properties. I think there was a TED talk a while back about making skyscrapers out of wood - wood is already one of the strongest materials per unit weight that we use in construction, and engineered laminates can scale that strength up to large-scale construction levels using young-growth timber.

      That could simultaneously sequester carbon and reduce the demand for the carbon-rich production of iron and concrete.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    7. Re:Just plant more trees! by ravenshrike · · Score: 1

      What happens if you cut down the trees, waterlog them, band them in lead, and drop them in the Marianas trench?

    8. Re:Just plant more trees! by scatbomb · · Score: 1

      I'm seeing a lot of negative replies to this comment, but there is some truth in it. Let's do the math.

      Photosynthesis is about 1% efficient at converting CO2 to starches. The global solar flux is 178,000TW and the global photosynthesis productivity is about 1,780 TW. This is actually quite a lot of potential carbon sequestration if it could be slightly increased while maintaining an overall higher amount of biomass. Mankind's average power consumption is a mere 15TW., so 1% of the global photosynthesis productivity.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency

      The storage aspect could be augmented by sequestering biomass by converting it to char (sounds counterintuitive doesn't it). If you burn biomass some of the carbon is released as gas, but much of it is converted to char, which lasts for thousands of years in the soil. The released CO2 gas is offset by the fact that burning biomass releases nutrients to the soil and makes the soil more productive, raising it's photosynthesis productivity. The resulting biochar is a great soil additive and could be even commercialized and sold to farmers. The biochar cycle alternates between sequestering in biomass, and converting that biomass to char (which stays char for a long time) and CO2 gas (which is re-used by biomass). So every cycle you take a bit more of carbon from the atmosphere and place it in the soil where it lasts for a long time.

      In other words, slash and burn agriculture could be a solution. Read about it.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar

    9. Re:Just plant more trees! by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      The Saudis are creating the largest sovereign wealth fund in history. They know just as well as anyone that the Age of Oil is coming to an end.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    10. Re:Just plant more trees! by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Store the carbon in something much easier and cheaper. Trees!!!!. You'd think all these smart guys would have thought of this. Wait, you can't get a $2M research grant for planting trees. Guess that answers that question.

      When you're burning the equivalent of thousands of years of tree growth in one year there is no way to plant enough trees to keep up with carbon emissions. Trees help but they're not the answer.

    11. Re:Just plant more trees! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What happens if you cut down the trees, waterlog them, band them in lead, and drop them in the Marianas trench?

      You mean... Cut them down trees with gas chain saws, diesel truck them to a diesel boat and ship them out to the Marianas trench? That sounds like a great plan.

    12. Re: Just plant more trees! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i guess it is "carbon sinking" then

    13. Re:Just plant more trees! by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      There simply is not enough land for the number of trees required, even if you covered every square inch of the planet in trees you still would not have half the number of trees you need.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    14. Re:Just plant more trees! by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      What happens if you cut down the trees, waterlog them, band them in lead, and drop them in the Marianas trench?

      Lead becomes a precious metal and we start strip mining the trench.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  4. Let me tell you about "plants" by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2, Funny

    >> Scientists say they have demonstrated a foolproof way of sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide -- turning it into rock.

    Let me tell you about something called "plants," which are an exotic form of life that use clean solar energy to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide. Some people even believe that dead plants can be converted into an equally rare form of sequestered carbon called "coal," though this theory has yet to be proven.

    1. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Problem with plants is that the thus 'sequestered' carbon will be released back into the atmosphere after the plant's demise.

    2. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well, mr sarcastic, the coal and oil are the problem. they were in the ground but have been burned and the co2 is now back in the atmosphere.
        if you have another way to make synthetic coal, then step right up.

    3. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by amorsen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is even so convenient that said coal is already stored safely in the ground, so the only thing humanity has to do is, tada, not dig it up.

      Alas, something so sensible seems to be entirely beyond us.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    4. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by phantomfive · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A lot of it won't, it becomes soil.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Use exhausted mines and boreholes as organic waste dumps. Instead of letting the carbon rot and continue going through the different stages of lifecycles until it is again formed into CO2 and exhaled (or by burning), throw a significant percentage of the carbon-laden waste down a big hole rather than letting it compost at surface conditions.

      So, something not entirely unlike this article, but using known material behavior and gravity instead of trying to force atmospheric CO2 into rocks. It would result in some other compounds being buried once you cap off the former well, but if an increased carbon cycle is half as deadly as the Slashdot stories keep insisting, we can sacrifice some dilute minerals and phosphates to put excess carbon back were we found it.

    6. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Replace it with something that provides the same energy at the same cost, but cleaner.

    7. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by PCeye · · Score: 0

      Would blue crude suffice?

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...

    8. Re: Let me tell you about "plants" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably easier to just dump the stumps in oceanic subduction zones. 1) it's deep enough that microorganisms don't readily decay things, 2) eventually it'll get taken into the earth.

    9. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 3, Funny

      Let me get this straight: you burn hydrocarbons for energy. Then you take the waste products, add back the same amount of energy, and it all turns back into hydrocarbons. Repeat. Problem solved: we finally have a perpetual motion machine, thanks to the magic of your "plants."

      The problem is that your proposed "plant" cells use something called photosynthesis, whereas what we really need are cells that do petrolsynthesis or coalsynthesis, because solar power is too unreliable or something (if solar power were any good then we wouldn't need to burn these "plants" or their fossil remains). So, genetic engineers, get on that!

      --
      "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
    10. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Okay, stick it in a hole. Good start. Now, how do you keep it from decaying? Back when the coal beds were formed there was an 80 million year gap between the evolution of cellulose and the evolution of something that could eat it. Nowadays... well, that's an awful lot of fungicide to be dumping into holes in the ground.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    11. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Scatbomb" above gives the answer. Biochar does not degrade or rot like wood and also increases the soil productivity. It is a win win.

    12. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by scatbomb · · Score: 1

      Thank you!! I was beginning to think nobody read that.

    13. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by scatbomb · · Score: 1

      well, mr sarcastic, the coal and oil are the problem. they were in the ground but have been burned and the co2 is now back in the atmosphere. if you have another way to make synthetic coal, then step right up.

      As I said in an earlier post which apparently nobody read, biomass can be pyrolyzed at lower flame temperatures (think smoldering) and primarily leaves behind char which is like 99% carbon. Char lasts in the soil for thousands of years. Un-charred biomass decays rapidly. Why does nobody know this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    14. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

      It is even so convenient that said coal is already stored safely in the ground, so the only thing humanity has to do is, tada, not dig it up.

      Or just burn it in-place. Centrailia, PA leads the way!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire/

    15. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by budgenator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why does nobody know this? Biochar

      Because Public Education is better at teaching people to drink the kool-aid, than it is at teaching them to find out what's in the kool-aid first.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    16. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I did not see it, but an excellent point. Makes a lot more sense than just throwing it down a hole and hoping it doesn't rot. Char it and dig it into the topsoil, everybody wins.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    17. Re:Let me tell you about "plants" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I seem to remember a terraformer character in Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Mars Trilogy' stories who built a unit that sucked in Martian atmosphere, released the O2, and "pooped-out" little black carbon bricks that the terraformers used to build structures.

      Sounds about as valid as some of the borderline-fictional solutions I've heard others come up with...

  5. An alternative? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you know what else removes atmospheric CO2?

    TREES!

    Stop clear-cutting all the trees for lumber and to put up crappy strip malls and subdivisions!

    1. Re:An alternative? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Stop clear-cutting all the trees for lumber and to put up crappy strip malls and subdivisions!

      That is backwards. A mature forest does not remove net CO2. You need to cut it down, sequester the wood in housing or whatever, and then let the forest regrow. If forests are going to be used to remove carbon, we need to cut down more of them.

    2. Re:An alternative? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And not merely cut them down, replant them as well.

    3. Re:An alternative? by Rei · · Score: 1

      Thank you, person-who-owns-nothing-made-of-wood. Damn all those other people!

      --
      Maybe, but I can barely make out what you're saying because your horse is too high.
    4. Re:An alternative? by hawkfish · · Score: 4, Informative

      Stop clear-cutting all the trees for lumber and to put up crappy strip malls and subdivisions!

      That is backwards. A mature forest does not remove net CO2. You need to cut it down, sequester the wood in housing or whatever, and then let the forest regrow. If forests are going to be used to remove carbon, we need to cut down more of them.

      Well, but old growth forests actually remove more carbon than their younger replacements, so it isn't that simple:

      "Rather than slowing down or ceasing growth and carbon uptake, as we previously assumed, most of the oldest trees in forests around the world actually grow faster, taking up more carbon," said Richard Condit, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. "A large tree may put on weight equivalent to an entire small tree in a year."

      So by leaving an old growth forest in place, we sequester the carbon (in the forest) and improve the uptake.

      --
      You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
    5. Re:An alternative? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the re-planting part.

    6. Re:An alternative? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      So by leaving an old growth forest in place, we sequester the carbon (in the forest) and improve the uptake.

      No you don't, because those old trees die, fall over, and rot. Then the CO2 is returned to the atmosphere.

    7. Re:An alternative? by guises · · Score: 1

      Some of the CO2 is returned to the atmosphere. This is circular logic anyway - when you promote reforestation you're talking about sequestering the CO2 in the forest. It's not some scheme to grow wood and then bury it, the forest itself contains the CO2 and as long as the forest remains standing then that CO2 is contained.

  6. Cars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My very first thought was this can be used as part of the Venus terraform

    1. Re:Cars? by ventsyv · · Score: 1

      Theoretically it could work, but we are nowhere near being able to set up a large manufacturing facilities on other planets. Just the launch costs will add up to hundreds of billions. On top of the surface of Venus is gruelling - the temperature reaches over 800F and the atmosphere is made out of CO2 and sulfuric acid.

    2. Re:Cars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just the launch costs will add up to hundreds of billions.

      Hundreds of billions ... that's nearly 1/3 of an Iraqi war.

      Given the choices of a war, or terraforming Venus ... well ...

    3. Re:Cars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Venus terraform might get started by releasing fine dust in its orbits to block sunlight from entering its atmosphere.

    4. Re:Cars? by rahultyagi · · Score: 1

      Well, as of now they don't know why it worked so well. They think it may have been because they used to much water to dissolve CO2 before injecting the water in. If so, it will need a LOT of water and that doesn't do much for our Venus terraforming project!

  7. The Fools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why put it in the ground?
    Nature already recycles CO^2.
    It is the other chemicals that nature doesn't recycle that we should be worrying about.

    1. Re:The Fools by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Our current problem is that we took all the carbon nature put in the ground and released it back into the atmosphere. So finding ways to put it back in the ground kind of makes sense.

    2. Re:The Fools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our current problem is that we took all the carbon nature put in the ground and released it back into the atmosphere.

      If that were the actual problem, we've have much more immediate trouble. As it is, there's still lots and lots left to extract.

    3. Re:The Fools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our current problem is that we took all the carbon nature put in the ground and released it back into the atmosphere. So finding ways to put it back in the ground kind of makes sense.

      No it doesn't!!!!
      Putting it in the ground is the same thing we do with our garbage, and it doesn't make sense at all.
      That is why recycling has became so popular, and makes more sense.
      Let nature do it's part, and in return we can reuse what nature creates(like trees) and let the cycle start over again.
      Putting it in the ground just makes it some other persons or animals problem later in time.

  8. Now, THIS makes sense . . . but . . . by mmell · · Score: 1
    The vast majority of the CO2 we've been pumping into the atmo has been from the use of fossil fuels. That's carbon that was in the slow carbon cycle. By burning fossil fuels, we've been pumping that carbon out of the slow carbon cycle and injecting it into the fast carbon cycle.

    Before we declare victory on the greenhouse gasses issue, what's this gonna cost? There are already several effective solutions to this problem, but nobody seems willing to pay for what they want. Much of that energy is spent feeding and clothing the rapidly growing human population of this planet, and I don't see the poor (surprisingly, one of the beneficiaries of cheap energy) volunteering to stop eating. Just to be clear - all of that cheap industrially grown food actually has a pretty large carbon footprint associated with it. Mechanized farming is what permits us to feed so many (not enough) people; make that more expensive, and those at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid will have to give up on that whole surviving thing.

    So to ask more directly - what's it gonna cost, and what am I gonna get for it? What percentage of atmospheric CO2 can this reasonably be expected to remove, how quickly, and what's that going to cost those who will actually do it? Oh, and will this kill or save people?

    1. Re:Now, THIS makes sense . . . but . . . by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 2

      This would only be used to sequester CO2 from power plants and other large emitters, not from tractors. The problem is that in order to capture the CO2 from the exhaust it takes 25% to 40% more energy than just releasing the exhaust with the CO2. Since you seem to be so worried about the poor then how are they going to pay for that? Some sources of electricity that don't emit CO2 are getting close to the cost of electricity generation with fossil fuels. Having to pay for the extra fuel to power the carbon capture combined with the continued downward trend in clean power pricing will push this into clean powers favour.

    2. Re:Now, THIS makes sense . . . but . . . by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2

      Actually, a lot of low-development countries expend high amounts of labor on food production. In North America, it's usually under 2%; in Africa, it can be as high as 40% of the labor force.

      When you expand production beyond a certain amount, the secondary resources feeding that production require more effort to collect. Run out of fertile land and you can grow more by bringing fertilizer and irrigation to rocky soil; that may yield less, and so you have to farm a greater area of soil, requiring more fertilizer and more irrigation per land area, *plus* more direct human time spent traversing a larger area to harvest the same amount of food. Increasing the labor of chemists, oil producers, miners, machinists, and so forth to produce the machines, chemicals, fuels, and blunt manual labor involved in food production means you have to pay all these additional wages per unit food, and so food becomes expensive.

      Find a way to increase scale--grow food more densely (intensive farming) or grow food on lower-quality land with only *slightly* more human labor than on high-quality land--and you uncap scarcity. Sensing abundance, the population grows. So it is, so it's always been; a violation of this principle would lead to a chunk of the poorest of society simply starving away, so changing this trend is not only unlikely (no precipitating reason), but impossible.

      I predict a future in which alternate energy sources become necessarily cheaper. Advances in solar and wind will replace some of the oil and coal; advances in nuclear or a breakthrough technology (e.g. space energy, high-efficiency geothermal) will replace all of it when these exceed the cost of oil (which will increase with more resource exhaustion, and decrease with better drilling technology). The reduced load on the EPA will allow their budget to channel toward creating a strategic oil reserve by scrubbing the atmosphere of CO2, converting it to oil which we can store in the ground. On today's technology, a reasonable budget can thus sequester 1 day's worth of CO2 in 1 year of operation; further technical progress will accelerate that over the next 300 years, and starting at a stable point necessarily means movement goes in the direction of reversal from day one, even if slowly.

      That is the least-economically-disruptive outcome and the most likely.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    3. Re:Now, THIS makes sense . . . but . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Sensing abundance, the population grows.

      It's more that infant mortality starts to fall before the birth rate does, meaning more children survive to adulthood. Almost never does the birthrate increase, and rather tends to decrease.

  9. Pop rocks for everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mass produce snacky treats (pop rocks) for everyone!

  10. How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by RobinH · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Atmospheric CO2 is about half a percent (400 PPM), though it's rising. Most of these "sequestration" ideas only work if you have high concentrations of CO2 to begin with, so you take the high CO2 concentration from some kind of industrial process and instead of dumping it in the atmosphere, you pump it underground, or in this case into volcanic bedrock. It's not a good way to get existing CO2 levels down. Still, it's a much needed improvement if it works.

    --
    "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
    1. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      And the problem with capturing the CO2 is that it requires a fair bit of energy which usually creates more CO2 that needs to be captured.

    2. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to be too pedantic, but 400ppm is about half a hundredth of a percent.

    3. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And i'm no better than you: make that half a tenth of a percent.

    4. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      400ppm is 0.04% not half a percent. Lets hope you don't use maths for a living!

    5. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      Potentially, it would, but you could also use excess energy from solar or wind during peak production. If there's enough money in it, you could even build a small nuclear plant and keep that running.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    6. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by trout007 · · Score: 1

      There are new processes that burn fissile fuels in supercritical CO2 that is enriched with O2. This allows high efficiencies and allows you to capture the CO2 easily.

      --
      I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    7. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by Solandri · · Score: 3, Informative

      CO2 can be extracted from the atmosphere for about $160/ton.

      Gasoline emits 8.887 kg of CO2 per gallon of gasoline, so that's 112.5 gallons of gasoline for one ton of CO2. At current prices, that's about $225 worth of gasoline, so this process is "worth it" in terms of recapturing CO2 produced by burning gasoline (basically stick a $1.42/gal tax on gasoline to pay for it).

      Electricity generation results in 0.703 kg of CO2 per kWh (same EPA source), so that's 1422 kWh per ton of CO2. At a U.S. average of $0.115/kWh, that's $163.50 worth of electricity. So it would basically double the average price of electricity in the U.S. Still doable, although the similarity of the price means this is getting close to the break-even point where the energy cost to recapture the CO2 approaches the energy gained by producing it (by burning fuel) in the first place.

      Cost of sequestration would have to be added on top of this though.

    8. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      So what? If I put you in a room with 280 ppm of hydrogen cyanide in the air you'd be dead in a matter of minutes. Just because a number is small doesn't mean it's insignificant.

    9. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      It would have to be a source of power available whenever the original plant is running because the only time to capture the CO2 is when it is being sent through the exhaust system. Once it's in the atmosphere it's too diluted to capture efficiently. The energy requirements are around 25% to 40% (I know a couple of years ago it was 40% so I'm assuming it's coming down). The easiest way to get this power is to run the current plant at a higher rate or accept that you have a lower amount of output. Building clean energy sources so that you can filter the CO2 out of the exhaust of fossil fuel plants is just silly. Better to just sell the clean electricity to the grid where you can get a higher price for it. If the original plant doesn't produce electricity then you are better off buying the electricity from someone since producing electricity probably isn't one of your core businesses.

    10. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      Presumably you could just compress it as exhaust and then use the other energy sources as available. And yeah, atmospheric CO2 can't be efficiently captured yet, but presumably there's some sort of effort to develop a system to do that. We'll probably need it at some point.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    11. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by budgenator · · Score: 1

      It's not a good way to get existing CO2 levels down.

      Sure it is, the imbalance of what CO2 is released from all sources and what is Absorbed is about 6Gt, Anthropogenic emissions are 29Gt so a little will go a long way. If the rest of the world matches our reductions and the Net Primary Production keeps going up and we sequester a bit the Alarmist are going to have to find a new "End of the World" to complain about.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    12. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by RobinH · · Score: 1

      My math is of course off. 400 PPM is 0.04%, not 0.4%. My bad.

      --
      "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
    13. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by RobinH · · Score: 1

      So I just read that article, and they're talking about using CO2 from an industrial source, not getting it from the atmosphere ("The Keyes ethanol plant already uses a dual-pass wet scrubber to produce 99.9% pure CO2"). It's referred to in the article as Carbon Capture and Use (CCU). That's what they're doing for $160/ton.

      --
      "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
    14. Re:How to collect "atmospheric" CO2? by budgenator · · Score: 1

      Fissile fuels are U235, U237, plutonium, stuff used in a nuclear fission reactor, Fossil fuels are Natural Gas, Petroleum and coal are stuff used in combustion devices; I assume you meant fossil.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  11. Cool but not really an answer to GW by ventsyv · · Score: 2

    Great, if you have a coal power plant sitting on top of bedrock... Capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and transporting it to a sequestering facility will most likely be prohibitively expensive.

    1. Re:Cool but not really an answer to GW by riverat1 · · Score: 2

      Why transport it? If you're capturing it from the atmosphere you can just do it at the sequestering facility.

  12. Of course it only takes 2 years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Earth, being only 7000 years old needs to get this geological shit done fast. Fake dinosaur bones can be mineralized in as little as 3 weeks under the right conditions.

  13. Idiocy in action... by john.r.strohm · · Score: 0

    There's a very simple reason why carbon dioxide sequestration is a REALLY bad idea.

    6 CO2 + 6 H2O + energy C6H12O6 + 6 O2

    Running the reaction one way, you have the miracle of photosynthesis. Running it the other way, you have animals (including people) inhaling oxygen and eating food.

    Carbon dioxide, far from being a pollutant, is a critically necessary component in food production.

    Note also that photosynthesis is Mother Nature's way of recycling carbon dioxide, and "global warming" is the rate control on the reaction: More carbon dioxide, more warmth, longer growing season, more food grown, more CO2 removed from the atmosphere. This is negative feedback control and it is arguably part of why environmental conditions on Earth have been pretty stable for a very long time.

    1. Re:Idiocy in action... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's even better than that. Let's say we are super effective at this and put all our CO2 into the volcanic rock. Earth's geological activity - especially relating volcanos - will remain unaffected? It's crap like this that will eventually inadvertently trigger an extinction event from the Yellowstone super-volcano or something.

    2. Re:Idiocy in action... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're the idiot.

    3. Re:Idiocy in action... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sure, because there's no possible way something could ever upset that feedback, say, by causing massive dieoff of plants or something like that, or changing the ocean's properties so it starts sourcing CO2 rather than sinking it. Nope. No way. Never happen.

    4. Re:Idiocy in action... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We've heavily overbalanced one end of the scale by burning fossil fuels, and Mother Nature can't keep up.

      (well, the earth would eventually catch up millions of years after we've gone extinct, but we're trying to avoid that outcome)

    5. Re:Idiocy in action... by quantaman · · Score: 1

      There's a very simple reason why carbon dioxide sequestration is a REALLY bad idea.

      6 CO2 + 6 H2O + energy C6H12O6 + 6 O2

      Running the reaction one way, you have the miracle of photosynthesis. Running it the other way, you have animals (including people) inhaling oxygen and eating food.

      Carbon dioxide, far from being a pollutant, is a critically necessary component in food production.

      Note also that photosynthesis is Mother Nature's way of recycling carbon dioxide, and "global warming" is the rate control on the reaction: More carbon dioxide, more warmth, longer growing season, more food grown, more CO2 removed from the atmosphere. This is negative feedback control and it is arguably part of why environmental conditions on Earth have been pretty stable for a very long time.

      Fascinating! You should really tell a professional climate scientist about your amazing discovery that more CO2 in the atmosphere is a good thing!

      You might even be in line for a Nobel Prize or two!!

      --
      I stole this Sig
    6. Re:Idiocy in action... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that in this case, the end result is CaCO3 and/or CaMg(CO3)2, and the CO2 will be returned to the atmosphere over the very long term (millions of years) as the resultant rocks eventually get exposed and eroded as part of the geological parts of the carbon cycle. It balances the multi-million-year-old geologically-sourced carbon that has been emitted rapidly over the last century as we burn fossil fuels. It came from the Earth's geology, and sequestration shoves it back in there. There's no downside other than the high energy costs of implementing the sequestration process. There's zero risk to biological processes. There's plenty of CO2 left in the atmosphere. It's not like we're going to deplete it given that we've increased the concentration by over 100ppm from what it was a couple of centuries ago, reaching almost 400ppm now. It hasn't been that high in millions of years. We could suck out 100ppm and have things back to the way they were, not that we have the practical capacity to get anywhere near that.

      Photosynthesis also doesn't have an indefinite increase with CO2 concentration. It maxes out once the concentration reaches a certain level, and usually photosynthesis is limited by other things rather than CO2. It also neglects the negative effect on certain types of phytoplankton due to ocean acidification, which relates to CO2 concentration. It's not a simple relationship.

  14. So initial results are fine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Long-term? Remains to be seen. Might be that it doesn't work out so well down the road. Or widespread. They may have gotten lucky with uptake conditions in that situation where they won't elsewhere.

    It may be good that the rate of uptake was higher than expected, but don't be foolish enough to think this solves everything. This isn't even a divergent case of sequestration, in some other combination it might be less desirable.

  15. Re:Imagine ... by Rei · · Score: 1

    As someone who's spent way too much time trying to get trees to grow in Iceland, I have to say: pumping it back underground at Hellisheiði is probably a heck of a lot easier ;)

    --
    Maybe, but I can barely make out what you're saying because your horse is too high.
  16. Easier said than done by dlenmn · · Score: 2

    Let's crunch some numbers.

    The largest tree planting project that I know of is the Civilian Conservation Core which planted about 3 billion trees in the US over about a decade (source).

    Let's say that a 40-year-old tree is sequestering about 1 ton of CO2 (source, and yes, I realize this will vary a lot based on species and location, but we need to start somewhere).

    So, let's say that we magically plant 3 billion trees tomorrow. That will sequester 3e9 trees*2e3 lbs/tree*4.54e-13 lbs/gigatonne / 40 years = 0.068 gigatonnes/year of CO2 sequestered. (Note that ton and tonne are different.) In comparison, the US produces about 1.4 gigatonnes a year (source).

    I'm not saying that sequestering CO2 in rock is a better scheme, but planting a few *billion* trees won't solve our problem.

    (PS. someone check my math. It's easy to screw these calculations up.)

    1. Re:Easier said than done by dlenmn · · Score: 1

      *core->corps

  17. Except for fossil fuels by DavidMZ · · Score: 1
    Fossil fuels are not food, and were created over millions of years.

    A negative feedback control works fine as long as you don't mess it up with an additional input...

  18. What's the rate of return on this process by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How much energy do you have to expend to sequester the carbon? Sure, you can use "carbon free" energy sources; but it's still important for the process to use as little energy as possible.

  19. Sequester all the CO2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The plants don't _really_ need it.

    1. Re:Sequester all the CO2 by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      They can grow on Brawndo. Cos it's got electrolytes.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  20. One of many feedback mechanisms by dlenmn · · Score: 4, Informative

    Believe it or not, you're not the first person to think of feedback loops at work in climate change. There are many known feedback mechanisms (relevant wikipedia article), both negative and _positive_. Let's not pretend that the "Net Primary Productivity" feedback mechanism (what you're talking about) will save us. In fact, it seems to be a pretty weak feedback loop compared to feedback loops that are at work. After all, we're burning up a _lot_ of dead plants (many of them from the days when the earth was covered with jungles). We'd need a lot of new plants to make up for it, and they'd have to show up pretty fast to overpower the other feedback mechanisms. It's easy to see that this feedback loop isn't too strong: just look at the amount of biomass around us and compare it to how much was there 50 years ago. The amount of biomass hasn't changed much even though the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has gone up an appreciable amount.

    These feedback loops are included in climate models. No one pretends that we fully understand them or model them exactly, but people have put a lot of thought into them and have a decent grasp of their workings.

    1. Re:One of many feedback mechanisms by whathappenedtomonday · · Score: 2

      Also, there is a limit to the amount of additional CO2 that is beneficial to plant growth, and it's a complex matter: CO2 enhanced plants will need extra water. Too high a concentration of CO2 causes a reduction of photosynthesis in certain of plants. Plants with exhorbitant (sic) supplies of CO2 run up against limited availability of other nutrients. Increasing CO2 will increase temperatures throughout the Earth. This will make deserts and other types of dry land grow. Et cetera, et cetera. Talk about simple ... .

      --
      I hope I didn't brain my damage.
    2. Re:One of many feedback mechanisms by budgenator · · Score: 1

      These feedback loops are included in climate models. No one pretends that we fully understand them or model them exactly, but people have put a lot of thought into them and have a decent grasp of their workings.

      Well they are pretty good at hindcasting, none have demonstrated any ability to forecast, so it seems reasonable to assume They underestimate their lack of understanding and overestimate their decent grasp. Many of those feedbacks aren't modelled at all and are entered as assumed parameters.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  21. Giant baloons? by kheldan · · Score: 1

    That's nice, glad they found a way to make it work. However, how do you store the CO2 in the meantime? Are all ICE vehicles supposed to carry a compressor and a giant tank around behind them, or a gigantic balloon or something, to trap all the exhaust gasses? The article doesn't say anything about how you're supposed to get the CO2 from vehicles burning fossil fuels (or anything else burning fossil fuels for that matter) to where they inject it underground.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    1. Re:Giant baloons? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just replace ICEs with EVs.

      Even if you still burn fossil fuels to generate the electricity powering the EVs, that will be done at a central plant where, yes, they carry a compressor and giant tank.

  22. Industrial Scale Carbonation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why not refill oil wells with water that has been carbonated to the extremes?
    If anything, it will give the giants some bubbly for when they come back to devour the human race.

    Seriously though, stuff like this is really cool.
    I was wondering where the whole rock-storage idea was, and it seems it actually went really well. Fantastic.
    Clay storage could probably work well too since it is fairly porous and spongy.
    What about hydrogels? Could they work? I know they are pretty expensive to produce at the moment.

    Planting millions more large surface area trees and bushes can also help and is a cheap option. Air CO2 is managed very well by plants.
    Equally converting useless hilly mountains to useful dirt-covered land can help. (via terracing especially, we've been terracing like Minecraft autists for thousands of years, no reason not to keep that up)
    More places are creating farms that have trees and bushes around them to aid farming yields in a natural way, and it works incredibly well.
    Agroforesty is a combination of areas that this falls under, strip cropping, alley cropping, inter-cropping, and many others.

    Of course, these won't just work alone.
    We sadly need to use a multi-angled approach since it has smashed right through the threshold that nature was capable of fixing easily and in decent time, that which prevents massive loss of species.

  23. Or make just make rock out of it.. by bored · · Score: 1

    Lime + carbon dioxide = limestone..

    AKA
    Ca0 + C02 = CaC03

    Crap-load of the stuff lying around already. And, oh golly someone already thought of it.

    https://www.technologyreview.c...

  24. Over geologic time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    CO2 will gradually, irrevocably be incorporated into carbonate rocks. Volcanism will naturally decrease do to reduced radiogenic heating. In 1.1Gyr photosynthesis will shut down due to *lack* of CO2, ending life on earth. Ponder that environmental wackos.

    1. Re:Over geologic time by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      CO2 will gradually, irrevocably be incorporated into carbonate rocks. Volcanism will naturally decrease do to reduced radiogenic heating. In 1.1Gyr photosynthesis will shut down due to *lack* of CO2, ending life on earth. Ponder that environmental wackos.

      In 1.1 Gyr the Sun may have gotten enough hotter to make life as we know it impossible anyway. But if humans haven't managed to establish other outposts out in the Milky Way galaxy by then it probably doesn't matter anyway.

  25. Fracking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's an interesting idea, no doubt, but I wonder if there are unintended consequences. It's pretty clear that fracking causes earthquakes, the effects of which are being felt in Oklahoma. Perhaps I'm not fully understanding the process, but I don't see a big difference between the proposed sequestration and fracking. In fact, CO2 has been proposed as an alternative to the water/sand mixture used in fracking. Could there be some significant side effects to this method of sequestration?

  26. Straight to ground instead of sky by Immerial · · Score: 1

    Also the there is the ability to capture the CO2 right at the source and pipe it directly into the volcanic bedrock. Think pipes to ground vs smokestacks. Or a thing you attach to automotive exhaust pipes that you then have to empty at the gas station while you are refilling your tank. Etc.

    1. Re:Straight to ground instead of sky by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      Yep, those could definitely be part of the solution. I doubt something like that would work for planes, but cars and plants put out a lot, so getting that out of the picture would be huge.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
  27. Lost atoms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why "store" CO2 virtually forever in rock and loose the oxygen when we could strip the carbon and get oxygen instead? We only have a finite amount of these things, throwing them away forever (especially oxygen) is really stupid.

    1. Re:Lost atoms by budgenator · · Score: 1

      There has been work on the electrolysis of CO2, 2CO2 -> 2C0 +O2, where the CO could easily be used in the Fischer–Tropsch process to make Synfuel .

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  28. Okay, I'm officially impressed. by Chas · · Score: 1

    That's actually an EXTREMELY novel approach to sequestration. And likely one of the best I've seen thus far as it becomes about as near to "permanent" sequestration as we're likely to see.

    And there's a HELL of a lot of volcanic sites that can be utilized for this sort of thing. So humanity could, conceivably, sequester VAST quantities of surplus carbon this way.

    I hope further testing accelerates this project's scheduling and allows it to jump start a full-blown industry...

    This way, skeptic or believer, we leave the planet a bit "cleaner" than we found it.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  29. How do the collect the CO2? by no1nose · · Score: 1

    How do these groups collect the CO2 in order to have enough to inject into the rocks?

  30. Why do we wast time on this? by bobbied · · Score: 1

    What difference does it make? There is no way we will get 3rd world countries, China and Russia to curb their emissions instead of going for cheap energy anyway, so pumping CO2 into the ground or pushing it into rocks is pretty much all cost and zero benefit for us. It's like trying to stop a hurricane using a household box fan or empty the ocean with a 2 gallon bucket... You will have zero measureable affect on the real issue.

    What we should be doing is developing better SOURCES of energy which are cheaper and have less environmental impact. We should be investing heavily in fusion and nuclear research and development not this. Doing this Carbon sequestration stuff is short sighted and largely useless anyway.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Why do we wast time on this? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Doing this Carbon sequestration stuff is short sighted and largely useless anyway

      It's the distraction of choice because oil companies were already aware of pumping gas underground to drive out more oil.

    2. Re:Why do we wast time on this? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      China is reducing their CO2 output, or at least are doing their best to. Any problems encountered in that task will not be down to China not wanting to reduce CO2 emissions. Flat out denying that is happening doesn't paint the rest of your comment in the best of lights, as clearly you've not been paying too much attention to this.

    3. Re:Why do we wast time on this? by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Claiming to be Trying and actually Doing are totally different things, but you are missing the whole point here...

      My point is that there is zero chance we can make enough difference and actually curb emissions world wide while we are dependent on our current sources of Energy. Alternate forms of energy which have NO EMISSONS need to be developed to the point where they are cheap enough to be used or it doesn't matter how much we try here in the western world, emissions will continue to grow with the world's population.

      Folks like you are too short sighted for our own good. Think about the reality of the global economic situation and stop taking a "pie in the sky" view about what can be done here for industrial scale energy production. Then carefully consider the local impact of the local regulations you are proposing. If you are thoughtful and honest, I think you will see at least *some* justification for what I'm saying.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    4. Re:Why do we wast time on this? by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Doing this Carbon sequestration stuff is short sighted and largely useless anyway

      It's the distraction of choice because oil companies were already aware of pumping gas underground to drive out more oil.

      What are you talking about? Yes, I've heard about this oil extraction process, but it doesn't mean that it makes sense to just willy-nilly pump CO2 into the ground wherever we want. Besides, read TFA and you will see that this is talking about a different kind of process, that needs research money (of course).

      I'm saying that we should forego the investment into this kind of research and instead concentrate in development of the technology to REPLACE the processes we currently use which emit stuff we don't like with processes we DO like and can afford. Develop ALTERNATE ways of industrial power production like Fusion, Fission and the like so we can wean the western world and then the less industrial world off of the kinds of things which don't have as many environmental issues... Our priority should be in R&D in areas that promise THAT kind of return, not on things like carbon sequestration technologies which are likely to have environmental impacts of their own and stand little chance of actually making any kind of difference...

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    5. Re:Why do we wast time on this? by dbIII · · Score: 1
      It should be obvious from what I wrote. Sequestration keeps getting chosen because oil companies are well aware of it and it's a cheap way to do some superficial demonstrations to pretend some sort of care.

      Our priority should be in R&D in areas that promise

      I never said otherwise but instead just outlined why something that is short sighted and largely useless keeps on coming up instead of putting real effort into something better.

  31. The tech will never be allowed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The tech will never be allowed because it completely destroys the new world economy plan which is based on bad science anyway. Gore stands to lose a lot of money, lol.

  32. So how long till... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...cars poop out rocks?

  33. Re:Imagine ... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Have you succeeded? (I grow house plants, but when I get a new one, I usually apologize to it in advance)

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  34. four hundreds of a percent by peter303 · · Score: 1

    Double the glacial low. It may have been as high as percent several hundred million years ago. Life can adapt if over hundreds of thousands, but not centuries like now.

  35. sounds great, until.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    someone drops a mentos down there

  36. Efficiency? by matbury · · Score: 1

    So how much energy, i.e. how much oil, gas, and/or coal do we need to burn to provide the energy, to capture, compress, and transport the CO2 in the first place? And can anyone imagine an energy company actually doing this?

    1. Re:Efficiency? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      That's the problem since at the moment cheap energy comes with carbon dioxide output.
      Look at modern society - cheap energy solved a huge number of things at the cost of pollution.
      There are other sources of cheap energy but there is no magic only costs and benefits.

  37. Here is where I get confused... by cyanman · · Score: 1
    Here is where I get confused...
    • Burning fossil fuels put CO2 in the air which is bad because it will make the earth to hot for life.
    • Fossil fuels started as CO2 in the environment that plants converted into carbon for their structure and oxygen which was released as a poisonous byproduct into the atmosphere.
    • Occasionally living things died in mass and piled up fast enough to be converted into coal and oil deposits (i.e. fossil fuels) rather than decay into composted soil
    • Humans burn those fossil fuels to make civilization possible at an acceptable price point
    • Burning the fossil fuels releases CO2 back into the environment where it started before that pesky plant life stuff screwed up the normal condition
    • CO2 levels for most of earths history, even most of the part where there was life, have been way higher than they are today
    • During previous ice ages atmospheric CO2 levels were 8 to 12 times higher than today but somehow - occasional ice ages - rather than uncontrolled AGW

    Isn't burning fossil fuels releasing fossilized CO2 back into the atmosphere as it was for epochs of time where life thrived on earth rather than introducing an unprecedented life threatening condition upon the earth?

    1. Re:Here is where I get confused... by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Where is the confusion? If start looking at geological time you'll notice that there are a lot of differences in conditions over that time. If things get really hot or cold the earth isn't fucked - we are. Life may thrive all right but not agriculturally dependent oxygen breathing us.

  38. Re: Imagine ... by Rei · · Score: 1

    Limited success. Nothing yet that I can confidently point to and say, "yep, that one's definitely going to make it"

    --
    Maybe, but I can barely make out what you're saying because your horse is too high.
  39. Wait by kwbauer · · Score: 1

    So, they showed that C)2 can be crystallized in a couple of years instead of thousands of years and the best people can come up with is "maybe this is viable"? How about, maybe the belief about it taking millions or hundreds of millions of years to produce oil and coal is just crap because we now have proof that it doesn't?

    1. Re:Wait by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Different things are different.
      However, I'm a bit astonished that someone is able to write English at an adult level without grasping where the phrase "fossil fuels" comes from, but I suppose you could just be taking the piss and pretending to be astonishingly ignorant for some sort of fun.

  40. Re: Imagine ... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Good luck!

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  41. Ever read "The mayan prophecy" by Steve Alten? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    * BOOK SPOILERS * https://www.amazon.com/Mayan-Prophecy-Steve-Alten/dp/0857381695/188-0742445-9940023

    In the book, mineral deposits are vaporized by extreme heat bombs which causes them to release the CO2 to the environment.
    When I read this news, I totally dreaded this autocome.

    Imagine if you will... We sequester thousands of tons of CO2 to mineralize unto volcanic bedrock; then a terrorist organisation holds the world hostage for ransom with the means to vaporize all this new CO2 deposits, all at once ... 50 years of climate change effect in 1 day *shudders*

  42. Previous Art by Kinthelt · · Score: 1

    It's been done before.

    --

    "Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)

  43. 2 Easy solutions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1) plant more trees

    2) drink more coke