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Can We Fight Climate Change With Carbon-Absorbing Rocks? (indiatimes.com)
The New York Times reports on rocks in the country of Oman that react naturally with carbon dioxide, turning it into stone.
Scientists say that if this natural process, called carbon mineralization, could be harnessed, accelerated and applied inexpensively on a huge scale -- admittedly some very big "ifs" -- it could help fight climate change. Rocks could remove some of the billions of tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that humans have pumped into the air since the beginning of the Industrial Age. And by turning that CO2 into stone, the rocks in Oman -- or in a number of other places around the world that have similar geological formations -- would ensure that the gas stayed out of the atmosphere forever...
Capturing and storing carbon dioxide, is drawing increased interest. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that deploying such technology is essential to efforts to rein in global warming... At a geothermal power plant in Iceland, after several years of experimentation, an energy company is injecting modest amounts of carbon dioxide into volcanic rock, where it becomes mineralized. Dutch researchers have suggested spreading a kind of crushed rock along coastlines to capture CO2. And scientists in Canada and South Africa are studying ways to use mine wastes, called tailings, to do the same thing.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports an alternate perspective from 86-year-old social scientist Mayer Hillman: "We're doomed." He's predicting the end of most life on the planet, citing the lack of any way to reverse the process that's already melting the polar ice caps.
"Optimism about the future is wishful thinking, says Hillman. He believes that accepting that our civilization is doomed could make humanity rather like an individual who recognizes he is terminally ill. Such people rarely go on a disastrous binge; instead, they do all they can to prolong their lives."
Capturing and storing carbon dioxide, is drawing increased interest. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that deploying such technology is essential to efforts to rein in global warming... At a geothermal power plant in Iceland, after several years of experimentation, an energy company is injecting modest amounts of carbon dioxide into volcanic rock, where it becomes mineralized. Dutch researchers have suggested spreading a kind of crushed rock along coastlines to capture CO2. And scientists in Canada and South Africa are studying ways to use mine wastes, called tailings, to do the same thing.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports an alternate perspective from 86-year-old social scientist Mayer Hillman: "We're doomed." He's predicting the end of most life on the planet, citing the lack of any way to reverse the process that's already melting the polar ice caps.
"Optimism about the future is wishful thinking, says Hillman. He believes that accepting that our civilization is doomed could make humanity rather like an individual who recognizes he is terminally ill. Such people rarely go on a disastrous binge; instead, they do all they can to prolong their lives."
The problem is, CO2 holds the atoms at a very low energy state. So you get energy out of creating CO2, and converting CO2 into a different form usually involves putting in energy. But if that energy came from burning fossil fuels, then the second law of thermodynamics says you're creating more CO2 than you're capturing. So most of these ideas for pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere involve putting even more CO2 into the atmosphere to generate the materials used to pull out the CO2.
Whether the goal is reduction of CO2 emissions, or sequestering CO2 already in the atmosphere, the solution is the same - we need to switch away from hydrocarbon-based fuels for energy. This is why decommissioning nuclear plants is extremely short-sighted. You're putting all our eggs in one basket (renewables) and gambling with the future of all life on Earth that we'll be able to develop renewable energy quickly enough before climate change reaches catastrophic levels. Why gamble when we already have a carbon-free energy source which we could ramp up within a decade or two, to provide the energy needed to power all these carbon sequestration strategies? Nuclear doesn't have to be the end-solution. We just need it to buy ourselves more time to develop renewables, then we can slowly phase out nuclear plants and replace them with renewables.
There is one way to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere without us having to do anything. Plants do exactly that via photosynthesis. They take the energy from sunlight, break the CO2 up into O2 (released into the atmosphere), and lock the carbon up in a hydrocarbon chain forming sugars, starches, and cellulose. Normally that carbon is released again when the plant dies and bacteria decompose it. If we can figure out a way to seal cellulose against decomposition, then all we'd have to do is let forests grow, chop them down, seal the wood and bury it, and plant new trees to continue the process.
... and as soon as those plants die, fungus and bacteria eat the plants and release that same CO2.
The only way that CO2 get stored for very long time frames is indeed in rocks. Typically, that involves the very slow process of sediment accumulating at the bottom of seas and oceans.
How about someone first prove that CO2 is an actual problem, and I don't mean by looking at computer models. Can someone point to a single verified and repeatable lab test that shows that CO2 is the problem? We're talking about 1 molecule out of 2500 molecules of air (CO2 is at 400ppm right now) as being able to pump out so much heat energy when it only absorbs 8% of the radiated energy that somehow that one little molecule is causing all this problem. Prove it with an actual lab test.
Setup conditions with the exact same amount of CO2 concentration in a controlled environment. Project heat energy through it to a surface as the Sun does to the earth, a surface with heat reflection characteristics similar to Earth. Measure the temperature of the atmosphere in the controlled environment. Then pump the CO2 up to 500ppm (1 in 2000 molecules) and perform the exact same test again with the exact same conditions and measure the temperature in the controlled environment. Continue pumping up the CO2 level and measure any changes and provide the data.
This would show what CO2 was potentially capable of doing to temperature without taking into consideration how the plants, oceans or rocks would affect the actual concentration growths, but at least we would have a clearer understanding that if CO2 concentrations were to hit some Xppm value we have empirical evidence that it would actually lead to temperature rises arguing against those analysis of geological past that seem to show CO2 increases follow warming trends, not the other way around
So just test it already and report the findings. Seems like a very simple, scientifically sound method to test the continued assertion that "CO2 is causing it all!!" yet I have never seen anyone perform this test, they only report on what the computer models say. Why is that?