For CO2 remediation, Klaus Lachner has designed his artificial tree. Its a pollution exchanger, designed by Lachner at Columbia university NYC. Its supposed to be 100 times more efficient at removing atmospheric co2, then a normal, deciduous, tree. Cost? Who knows?
-----Original Message----- From: Chris de Morsella <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Nov 14, 2013 9:05 pm Subject: RE: Global warming silliness From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 12:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Global warming silliness On 14 November 2013 20:24, Chris de Morsella <[email protected]> wrote: From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 7:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Global warming silliness On 14 November 2013 16:25, Chris de Morsella <[email protected]> wrote: And to have the depth and breadth of understanding of the climatic systems both atmospheric and oceanic to be able to say with a high degree of certainty that there won't be unintended consequences that emerge out of the geo-engineering intervention (especially if it is difficult to reverse). I say this because as history shows we -- as a species (or culture perhaps) -- often fail to first understand before we act... there is quite a bit of precedent. >> Yes of course. It would be preferable to stabilise the climate in its >> current benign state, which has allowed us to develop agriculture and >> civilisation, by simply (!) removing CO2 from the air. That’s not removing it – it is recycling the energy carriers (the hydrogen and the carbon) into new hydrocarbons (requiring other systems and taking more by some factor energy to re-generate the hydrocarbon chains that are the liquid fuel. Certainly preferable to just burning more fossil carbon, but it is not removing carbon from the biosphere (it is returned as soon as the fuel is burnt). "That's not removing it" is a non sequiteur in answer to me saying we should remove it. I think we should, if possible, remove some of the CO2 from the atmosphere. Whether removing it is removing it I will leave it to others to judge. >> Were you perhaps responding to my next comment, which you've left buried >> down below for some reason? The one where I say we should remove CO2 from >> the air and combine it with water (and sunlight) to make petrol? That is what I was responding to Liz – synthesizing hydrocarbons in some chemical process from CO2 and water + copious amounts of needed energy in order to reduce both the CO2 and H2O – would return CO2 into the biosphere as soon as the fuel was burnt. It is rec-cycling carbon through the biosphere; not removing it. IMO – I am not certain that this is the best use of the energy inputs that would be required in order to synthesize the hydrocarbon from CO2 + H2O. Why not just use the energy directly. Remember no process is 100% efficient so more energy is going to go in to making the fuel by a substantial factor than will ever be extracted from that fuel by burning it – transforming it into heat and then finally useful work. An ICE engine – a very efficient one operates at around 20-25% efficiency – and that is a modern efficient ICE. Do the math. Lets say it takes 200% the energy in inputs to produce one energy unit of synthesized fuel – even if by burning it you could turn it into 100% work the efficiency would still be 50%. Now multiply the 50% by the efficiency of an ICE engine and you are getting in a good case about 10% maybe at the very best 15% of the energy you are putting into to this artificial hydrocarbon fuel system. Why not just use the energy directly? Sometimes there can be other factors that make it make sense to produce a liquid fuel even though it takes far more energy to produce it than can ever be extracted from it as useful work. For example, liquid fuels are essential for aviation for example – because of their power density; some energy is of low quality – for example wind energy (or nuclear or other big thermal electric power plant) that is being generated at 3:30 am. So there is an argument for doing so, but it is a for niche reasons. >>If so - yes, I realise that removing CO2 from the air and converting it to >>petrol is recycling it. Obviously. I'm not a complete idiot. The point is >>that doing that would be a short term solution that would make the economy >>more carbon neutral and wouldn't require creating huge amounts of new >>infrastructure. It isn't intended to be a universal panacea, merely a >>suggestion - a highly hypothetical one at this moment - for how we can use >>solar power to reduce the amount of stuff we're digging up and burning. It would require a whole new infrastructure – the infrastructure to synthesize the liquid fuels from CO2 gas + water. The massive energy production infrastructure required in order to supply these huge refineries with their energy inputs. Etc. (Unless of course we can remove more CO2 from the air than we burn, in which case we might even have "negative emissions". But this is all, if you'll forgive the pun, a pipe dream at present). What if we discover that we need to sequester large numbers of gigatons of CO2 in a near term horizon? >>We do. How would you suggest we go about it? At the moment we're mainly using >>the oceans, which is bad news for anything that lives there. That is a tough problem. It is far better to not dump it in the atmosphere to begin with. The has been talk about deep geologic sequestration – pumping CO2 into deep porous geologic formations that are covered by cap rock. They are doing this in Canada as part of a tertiary recovery effort in some oil or gas field up there. I covered that story a few years ago. Local farmers were starting to complain that CO2 gas was ex-filtrating up from where it was supposed to be sequestered – so I am not certain geologic sequestration will work. It has been proposed to turn it into CO2 ice then essentially bomb the ocean depths with it. Some suggest that under the immense pressure and pretty low temperature of the sea floor mud that it would remain sequestered down there for a long time. Re-growing old growth forests (perhaps). Low grade peridot minerals of which some areas have a good accessible supply also can chemically absorb CO2. But – it is a tough problem. Much easier to not put it into the biosphere in the first place where it becomes dispersed and hard to re-capture. So called clean coal basically is attempting to do something like this – taking a significant energy and capital hit in order to sequester the CO2; never seen any of these systems actually work – but am reporting them as I have heard them porposed. Chris (And preferably turning it plus water into petrol... but I am starting to sound like a stuck record.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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