Re: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me
Dear Oliver Thank you for your comment. I very much hope that you are correct. This is EXACTLY what we want to happen so that we can reverse the unwanted changes to heat distribution and wind patterns caused by greenhouse gases and get back to some 'golden age'. The most obvious one to adjust is el Nino but I have also seem papers linking Indian monsoons to the temperature gradient across the Indian Ocean. I am sure that finding out just where and when and how much to spray will be quite a problem but I hope that we can solve it using coded modulation patterns of CCN concentration. The first attempt to do this was promising. It showed that spray could adjust precipitation in both directions and that scatter between runs with different coded sequences was usually smaller than the effect. It has been a surprise that climate modellers are reluctant to try replication. Stephen Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering. University of Edinburgh. Mayfield Road. Edinburgh EH9 3JL. Scotland s.sal...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change On 15/11/2014 22:09, Oliver Wingenter wrote: Hi Stephen, 1. Cloud brightening (and any change in albedo) by sea spray or sulfate particles from DMS will change the heat distribution and temperature of the planet and therefore the winds. Best, Oliver Oliver Wingenter Assoc. Professor Department of Chemistry Research Scientist Geophysical Research Center New Mexico Tech Socorro, NM 87801 USA On 11/15/2014 4:56 AM, Stephen Salter wrote: Hi All Engineers who have to design reliable hardware are always glad to get advice from colleagues which might prevent mistakes. This advice is particularly valuable if it comes from people who have read the papers, studied the drawings and checked the algebra of the design equations. When I read Jim's comment about Rube Golberg ideas I immediately sent him a paper on the design ideas, asked him for technical criticism and offered to send him all my calculations. He has not got back to me yet but when he does, and with his permission, I would like to share them around the community. The more scutiny I can get the less chance of mistakes. If there is anyone else who can offer help in spotting potential problems about marine cloud brightening, please contact me and John Latham. Alan has done some valuable work with his list of 26 problems for solar radiation management using stratospheric sulphur. But there is not much overlap to marine cloud brightening in the troposphere and I hope he can produce a similar list. Stephen Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering. University of Edinburgh. Mayfield Road. Edinburgh EH9 3JL. Scotland s.sal...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change On 10/11/2014 15:03, Alan Robock wrote: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/11/09/many_experts_say_technology_cant_fix_climate_change.html Many experts say technology can't fix climate change There are several geoengineering schemes for fixing climate change, but so far none seems a sure bet. *By:* Joseph Hall http://www.thestar.com/authors.hall_joe.html News reporter, Published on Sun Nov 09 2014 As scientific proposals go, these might well be labelled pie in the sky. Indeed, most of the atmosphere-altering techniques that have been suggested to combat carbon-induced global warming are more science fantasy than workable fixes, many climate experts say. “I call them Rube Goldberg http://www.rubegoldberg.com/ideas,” says James Rodger Fleming, a meteorological historian at Maine’s Colby College, referring to the cartoonist who created designs for gratuitously complex contraptions. “I think it’s a tragic comedy because these people are sincere, but they’re kind of deluded to think that there could be a simple, cheap, technical fix for climate change,” adds Fleming, author of the 2010 book /Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control./ Yet the idea that geoengineering — the use of technology to alter planet-wide systems — could curb global warming has persisted in a world that seems incapable of addressing the root, carbon-spewing causes of the problem. And it emerged again earlier this month with a brief mention in a United Nations report on the scope and imminent perils of a rapidly warming world. That Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report http://www.ipcc.ch/, which seemed to despair of an emissions-lowering solution being achieved — laid out in broad terms the types of technical fixes currently being studied to help mitigate climate catastrophe. First among these proposed geoengineering solutions is solar radiation management, or SRM, which would involve millions of tons of sulphur dioxide (SO2) being pumped into the stratosphere
Re: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me
Dear Mike Perhaps with your help we can make the amplitude effect be equal and opposite for long enough for the renewables to get going. The butterfly principle predicts that you need information and intelligence more than very large amounts of energy. Stephen Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering. University of Edinburgh. Mayfield Road. Edinburgh EH9 3JL. Scotland s.sal...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change On 15/11/2014 22:35, Mike MacCracken wrote: Re: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me Hi Oliver--Yes, but quite possibly the cloud brightening effect would be far less than the rising concentrations of GHGs over time—you really need to be doing a comparative analysis. And then also there is the question of statistical significance. Just sending this message also created a redistribution of heat that would, under the butterfly principle, change the weather—the question is if the statistics are changed significantly or not. Mike On 11/15/14 5:09 PM, Oliver Wingenter oli...@nmt.edu wrote: Hi Stephen, 1. Cloud brightening (and any change in albedo) by sea spray or sulfate particles from DMS will change the heat distribution and temperature of the planet and therefore the winds. Best, Oliver Oliver Wingenter Assoc. Professor Department of Chemistry Research Scientist Geophysical Research Center New Mexico Tech Socorro, NM 87801 USA On 11/15/2014 4:56 AM, Stephen Salter wrote: Hi All Engineers who have to design reliable hardware are always glad to get advice from colleagues which might prevent mistakes. This advice is particularly valuable if it comes from people who have read the papers, studied the drawings and checked the algebra of the design equations. When I read Jim's comment about Rube Golberg ideas I immediately sent him a paper on the design ideas, asked him for technical criticism and offered to send him all my calculations. He has not got back to me yet but when he does, and with his permission, I would like to share them around the community. The more scutiny I can get the less chance of mistakes. If there is anyone else who can offer help in spotting potential problems about marine cloud brightening, please contact me and John Latham. Alan has done some valuable work with his list of 26 problems for solar radiation management using stratospheric sulphur. But there is not much overlap to marine cloud brightening in the troposphere and I hope he can produce a similar list. Stephen Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering. University of Edinburgh. Mayfield Road. Edinburgh EH9 3JL. Scotland s.sal...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs http://WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/%7Eshs YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change On 10/11/2014 15:03, Alan Robock wrote: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/11/09/many_experts_say_technology_cant_fix_climate_change.html *Many experts say technology can't fix climate change * *There are several geoengineering schemes for fixing climate change, but so far none seems a sure bet. * *By:* Joseph Hall http://www.thestar.com/authors.hall_joe.html News reporter, Published on Sun Nov 09 2014 As scientific proposals go, these might well be labelled pie in the sky. Indeed, most of the atmosphere-altering techniques that have been suggested to combat carbon-induced global warming are more science fantasy than workable fixes, many climate experts say. “I call them Rube Goldberg http://www.rubegoldberg.com/ ideas,” says James Rodger Fleming, a meteorological historian at Maine’s Colby College, referring to the cartoonist who created designs for gratuitously complex contraptions. “I think it’s a tragic comedy because these people are sincere, but they’re kind of deluded to think that there could be a simple, cheap, technical fix for climate change,” adds Fleming, author of the 2010 book /Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control. / Yet the idea that geoengineering — the use of technology to alter planet-wide systems — could curb global warming has persisted in a world that seems incapable of addressing the root, carbon-spewing causes of the problem. And it
[geo] Guest: How to fight climate change by harvesting wood | Opinion | The Seattle Times
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2025020084_lippkeopedwood14xml.html#.VGjNDgU2DNY.twitter How to fight climate change by harvesting wood Don’t just knock on wood; use it to fight global warming, writes guest columnist Bruce Lippke. THE amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere has increased by 20 percent in the past 50 years. We must make it a global priority to reverse this trend or risk the severe consequences of climate change. To date, our carbon-reduction efforts have been focused on finding more ways to generate energy other than burning coal or natural gas or to, at the very least, reduce the amount of carbon that is emitted when these fossil fuels are burned. Unfortunately, that is not enough. Current data demonstrate that improving the efficiency of using fossil fuels will only slow the rate that carbon emissions are increasing. We need to stop that increase. In fact, the only way to stop the increase of greenhouse-gas emissions is to expand and employ carbon-negative technologies that take carbon out of the air. Relying more upon solar energy to power electric utilities is one carbon negative technology when it displaces the use of fossil fuels. Another employs the sustainable harvest and use of wood from Northwest forests. We’ve long known and accepted that forests absorb and store carbon in the trees. However, peer-reviewed research conducted by a consortium of research institutions over the last 15 years finds that sustainable forest management while using the harvested wood can be even more effective in reducing carbon in the atmosphere. Data show that wood harvested at the right time in the forest lifecycle and used in building products provides a renewable and sustainable carbon-negative resource. As trees mature, like a garden, the carbon they sequester from the atmosphere slows down, and as trees or plants die and decompose they emit the carbon back to the atmosphere. So planting a new forest results in a one-time decrease in atmospheric carbon, but not a sustained reduction year after year. In Pacific Northwest forests, lifecycle models indicate that regeneration and harvest happen every 40 to 50 years, and using the wood for building materials produces the greatest carbon benefit.Using wood products to displace fossil-intensive product emissions while storing the carbon removed from the forest in building products is the kind of carbon-negative technology we need to reduce the risks of global warming. Further efficiencies are captured at the end of a product’s life when the wood is recycled or burned to directly displace fossil energy. Even when disposed in a landfill, wood products sequester carbon for as long as it takes for them to decay. Modern landfills can even capture the emissions during the decay cycle and burn them for energy, displacing fossil fuels. Analysts have often accepted the use of wood to produce ethanol as an alternative to petroleum transportation fuels while leaving out the much higher displacement of emissions from the wood used in building products. Using wood to its highest and best potential is not only good for the environment; it contributes to jobs, especially rural jobs.Just growing trees and setting aside the forest is not enough. Sustainable forest practices and better uses of wood can efficiently reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the long term. Bruce Lippke is a professor emeritus in the School of Environmental and Forest Science, University of Washington, and president emeritus of CORRIM, a 14-university research consortium analyzing the environmental impacts of using wood. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink
Greg and Olaf,What might be the minimum inputs such that we could grow and sequester seashells while rapidly recycling most of the nutrients to grow more shellfish? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/can-seashells-save-the-world-813915.html discusses "Not so, it seems, with the coccolithophore, or at least with the most abundant species, called Emiliania huxleyi. The latest study into this species shows that it appears to thrive on high levels of carbon dioxide. Instead of finding it difficult to make its calcium carbonate plates, as some scientists had expected, the organism can, in fact, make bigger and bigger plates as carbon dioxide concentrations are increased artificially, according to a study published in the current issue of the journal Science."Perhaps a more complex model of Ocean Forest would work with the carbon dioxide from the energy separation process (likely either anaerobic digestion or hydrothermal liquifaction) being sequestered as sea shells. In this case, we may have to sell the shellfish meat as food (people, pets, livestock, aquaculture fish) and import more basic nutrients or silicate minerals or calcium from a few 100-1,000 kilometers distant.MarkMark E. Capron, PEVentura, Californiawww.PODenergy.org Original Message Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink From: "Rau, Greg" r...@llnl.gov Date: Fri, November 14, 2014 11:54 am To: "gh...@sbcglobal.net" gh...@sbcglobal.net, "Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)" r.d.schuil...@uu.nl, "voglerl...@gmail.com" voglerl...@gmail.com, "geoengineering@googlegroups.com" geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sorry, I meant "is biology affected?" From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Greg Rau [gh...@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 10:46 AM To: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf); voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Olaf, My preference is to make ocean alkalinity, dissolved Ca(HCO3)2 (and some CaCO3aq via equilibrium reactions), rather than solid CaCO3. Yes, you can use silicates to do this, but if you have elevated CO2 (FF or BE flue gas) and limestone/waste shell, the kinetics are faster. As for just putting minerals directly into the ocean for CDR, it would be interesting add equal equivalences (2x and 1x respectively) of equal sized CaCO3 and Mg2SiO4 particles to separate beakers of sterilized seawater, agitate for a week in the dark, and then compare the resulting SW alkalinity to each other and to initial (and to agitated seawater without added minerals). Repeat without sterilization and in full light. Which treatments make the most alkalinity and does biology matter and/or is biology effected? ;-) BTW congrats on the NYT spread. Let's hope some balance, sanity and open mindedness can be injected into the CDR debate. Greg From: "Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)" r.d.schuil...@uu.nl To: "'gh...@sbcglobal.net'" gh...@sbcglobal.net; "voglerl...@gmail.com" voglerl...@gmail.com; "geoengineering@googlegroups.com" geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 1:05 AM Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Why first destroy CaCO3 and then remake it. Just add fine-grained olivine to add sufficient alkalinity, Olaf SchuilingFrom: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Rau Sent: donderdag 13 november 2014 18:07 To: voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink As I mentioned on Oct 7, in looking for large scale uses of CO2, how about environmental applications? By my reconning, the mean 0.1 decline in surface ocean pH translates into a calcium carbonate saturation state decline of 1 unit. To return this to pre-industrial levels we'd need to use 250 - 300 GT of CO2 to make enough dissolved calcium bicarbonate/carbonate which when added to the ocean would return saturation to pre-industrial levels. There may be analogies for countering soil and freshwater acidity. Anyway, plenty of need for inorganic carbonaceous materials and relatively easy to make from CO2, but paying customer demand/ government policy would obviously have to be developed. How much do we value shellfish, corals and the other biota being impacted? Greg From: Michael Hayes voglerl...@gmail.com To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 1:57 PM Subject: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink [ND1] The concept of CO2 utilization goes something like this: instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere through industrial processes, we could instead
[geo] Audi is creating synthetic diesel from air, water and green energy
Poster's note : useful for stranded renewables, and supply overcapacity http://www.worldcarfans.com/114111484333/audi-is-creating-synthetic-diesel-from-air-water-and-green Audi is creating synthetic diesel from air, water and green energy Audi e-diesel sunfire plant By Michael Gauthier Audi is moving forward with the development of synthetic fuels as the company has announced they have begun producing e-diesel from air, water and green electricity. According to the automaker, the company's new Sunfire plant creates e-diesel according to the power-to-liquid principle and only requires carbon dioxide, water and electricity as raw materials. The process is rather complex but Audi says carbon dioxide is extracted from the air using a direct air capture method developed by Climeworks. In another part of the plant, an electrolysis unit - powered by green electricity - splits the water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen then reacts with the carbon dioxide in a two chemical processes conducted at 220 degrees Celsius (428 degrees Fahrenheit) and a pressure of 25 bar to produce an energetic liquid, made up of hydrocarbon compounds, which is called Blue Crude. The plant can produce approximately 160 liters (42.2 gallons) of Blue Crude per day and nearly 80 percent of it can be converted into synthetic diesel known as e-diesel. Audi says the resulting fuel is sulfur free and ignites very easily thanks to its high cetane number. The company goes on to say Its chemical properties allow it to be blended in any ratio with fossil diesel. This means that it can be used as a drop-in fuel. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[geo] Alien Life Could Thrive on 'Supercritical' CO2 Instead of Water
Poster's note : the biological consequences of CO2 storage do not seem to have been addressed. This article may shed some light on the issue http://m.space.com/2-alien-life-supercritical-carbon-dioxide.html?cmpid=514648 Alien Life Could Thrive on 'Supercritical' CO2 Instead of Water by Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor Date: 16 November 2014 Time: 09:50 AM ET Scientists suspect that alien life could potentially thrive on an alien planet by subsisting on supercritical carbon dioxide instead of water. Alien life might flourish on an exotic kind of carbon dioxide, researchers say. This supercritical carbon dioxide, which has features of both liquids and gases, could be key to extraterrestrial organisms much as water is to biology on Earth.Most familiar as a greenhouse gas that traps heat, helping warm the planet, carbon dioxide is exhaled by animals and used by plants in photosynthesis. While it can exist as a solid, liquid and gas, past a critical point of combined temperature and pressure, carbon dioxide can enter asupercritical state. Such a supercritical fluid has properties of both liquids and gases. For example, it can dissolve materials like a liquid, but flow like a gas.The critical point for carbon dioxide is about 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31 degrees Celsius) and about 73 times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level. This is about equal in pressure to that found nearly a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) under the ocean's surface. Supercritical carbon dioxide is increasingly used in a variety of applications, such as decaffeinating coffee beans and dry cleaning. Strange possibility for life Ordinarily, carbon dioxide is not considered a viable solvent to host the chemical reactions for life, but the properties ofsupercritical fluids can differ quite significantly from the regular versions of those fluids — for instance, while regular water is not acid, supercritical water is acidic. Given how substantially different supercritical carbon dioxide is from regular carbon dioxide in terms of physical and chemical properties, scientists explored whether it could be suitable for life. I always have been interested in possibly exotic life and creative adaptations of organisms to extreme environments, said study co-author Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Washington StateUniversity in Pullman. Supercritical CO2 is often overlooked, so I felt that someone had to put together something on its biological potential.The researchers noted that enzymes can be more stable in supercritical carbon dioxide than in water. In addition, supercritical carbon dioxide makes enzymes more specific about the molecules they bind to, leading to fewer unnecessary side reactions. Surprisingly, a number of species of bacteria are tolerant of supercritical carbon dioxide. Prior research found that several different microbial species and their enzymes are active in the fluid.In addition, exotic locales on Earth support the idea that life can survive in environmentsrich in carbon dioxide. Previous studies showed that microbes can live near pockets of liquid carbon dioxide trapped under Earth's oceans.This liquid carbon dioxide in the seafloor gets denser with greater depth, as the weight of the seas and rock above it increases. As that happens, the fluid could become supercritical, and microbes might use at least some of the biologically advantageous properties of this supercritical carbon dioxide to survive, Schulze-Makuch said. Indeed, there may be many reservoirs of supercritical carbon dioxide under the oceans, he added.It would be great to drill into areas with supercritical carbon dioxide on Earth and investigate those environments in detail, but this is obviously difficult because of practical limitations and huge expenses, Schulze-Makuch said. Was Venus a supercritical haven? Since carbon dioxide is a very common molecule in planetary atmospheres, the researchers suggest that supercritical carbon dioxide may be present on many worlds. This is especially true for Venus, whose atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide.In its early history, Venus was located in the sun's habitable zone, the area where liquid water can form on a planet's surface. Life as it is currently known could have developed there before Venus heated up enough to lose all its water. Although Schulze-Makuch said it was unlikely that any such life could have switched from water to supercritical carbon dioxide, perhaps some organic remnants of such life, if it existed, could have been preserved in that fluid.Beyond the solar system, Schulze-Makuch noted that many newfound planets orbiting distant stars are so-called super-Earths, worlds up to 10 or more times the mass of Earth. Under the stronger gravitational pulls and correspondingly higher atmospheric pressures of those planets, supercritical carbon dioxide might be common, he said.Although Schulze-Makuch noted there is no proof that life that does not depend on water is possible, there are
[geo] CDR nomenclature question
List: I should like to have some list discussion on continuation/discontinuation of the term “BECS”. This is prompted by an off-list conversation on the use of “BECS to include Biochar (and other bio forms of CDR), which I was trying to avoid on 13 Nov. Reason #1: “BECS” has been used to mean the same thing as BECCS “Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Sequestration”. BECCS has only the single meaning of liquefaction of CO2 and (either storage or sequestration) deep underground or in the ocean. BECCS is easily found in Googling or Wiki - with only this liquid/pressure/deep meaning. The “BECCS” wiki is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage. The term BECCS doesn’t seem about to change meaning.BECS to mean BECCS occurred in a 2004 paper by Peter Read and Jonathon Lermit; they were referring to what we now call BECCS (http://www.iea-etsap.org/web/Workshop/worksh_6_2003/2003P_read.pdf. ) This was also the way BECS was used by the Royal Academy (see the definitions in Section 18 of http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/221/22105.htm. The BECCS entry in Wiki also refers to Laurens Rademacher using BECS in 2007 (see http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1106-carbon-negative_becs.html) I have seen other uses of BECS to mean BECCS, but BECS is hard to find via Googling (see below), so I can’t tell how many other uses there are. I conclude from this considerable prior use of BECS” that it would be wise to not try to change this “BECS” = “shorthand of BECCS” meaning of “BECS” to include biochar and other bio-oriented CDR approaches. Reason #2: “BECS” has also appeared in the above Wiki on BECCS as part of the term IMBECS, often written about on this list by Michael Hayes (see July 9, 2014). His BECS includes more than the term BECCS (although MIT mislabeled his proposal that way). I wish he had used a term other than BECS, but the I and M in his work perhaps significantly modifies the BECS. IMBECS is quite prominent in the Wiki on BECCS, but I don’t think Michael wants “BECS” to include afforestation and burial. I am interested in where other ocean CDR approach proponents stand on the term “BECS”. I conclude that Wiki’s description of BECCS is not recommending BECS to mean something different (but is [?] mostly saying that BECS = BECCS). My “mostly” refers to IMBECS and the Reason #1 examples. I will try to clarify at the wiki site, depending on responses to this message. Reason #3: Google comes up with something CDR-related only once in its first 10 pages (100 entries). That is on its page 3 recognizing the above 2004 paper by Peter Read and Jonathon Lermit. As noted for Reason #1, RL used BECS to mean what we all (?) understand now by BECCS, with their C meaning carbon (not capture), and their “S” was for storage. I conclude that Google is not trying to help with defining BECS. Reason #4: I can’t find one place where the biochar community talks of BECS - much less that biochar is a subset of BECS. I think this is also true for researchers in BECCS, afforestation, and burial areas. I should think “BECS” especially awkward for BECCS proponents. I conclude few CDR proponents would advocate being part of BECS. Reason #5: I can find the idea that “BECS” should include all the biomass parts of CDR only on this list (see 13 Nov.) and the Wiki working page associated with the BECCS entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storageaction=edit I conclude from the wiki dialog that BECS is not now “officially” recognized by wiki to include biochar and similar bio approaches. I am sympathetic to the advantages of having an acronym that distinguishes the biological from the geological, chemical, and other CDR types. Maybe CDR-B, CDR-G, etc? So here’s hoping we can talk more about using the term “BECS”. Ron -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[geo] Re: GEOENGINEERING: Are record salmon runs in the Northwest the result of a controversial CO2 reduction scheme?
To the extent that an increased salmon catch was due to OIF, the Haida experiment turns the usual CDR issue on its head. Instead of a CDR idea looking for any possible economic justification to bring it over the line into financial feasibility, this would be a financially feasible aquaculture technique with a potential add-on subsidy from carbon pricing. Has anyone compared what the Haida spent vs. what the salmon industry got out of it, to calculate a rough ROI? (Allowing for a range of estimates of how much was due to OIF*). I can easily imagine a bunch of fishermen in a Ketchikan bar swapping stories about what a great season they had because of the Haida project, then talking about subsidizing this money-maker with carbon credits. ‘Slippery slope’ arguments are usually used to warn against GE research (e.g. Hamilton’s ‘No, Let’s Not “Just Do The Research”) but there is a slippery slope in carbon pricing too. The carbon prices cited by environmental advocates as sufficient to change the energy system quickly would be far higher than those required to get many CDR schemes into action, including ones like OIF that are anathema to many of the most vocal supporters of carbon pricing. And if an OIFapproach can already make money unsubsidized for existing, and influential, economic interests then investment will flow to it. If you support a strong carbon price - and that’s the organizing principle of climate change advocacy across the board - you may already pulling an oar in this particular rowboat, even if you hate the idea. Which is OK by me. But perhaps the people who so annoy Tulip say the things they do because they figured this out too. Any suggestions of other fisheries that might be amenable to this approach? Clearly most species do not gather at as convenient a feeding-trough as a Haida Eddy, but surely there are some. *Of course how effective the Haida OIF was as CDR is a separate issue. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink
The article asks Can Seashells Save the World. My answer is no if you mean saving the world from excess atmospheric CO2. The article initially states that coccolithophores convert carbon dioxide to chalk (CaCO3), while later we are told that seashells are common because they are very effective at converting dissolved calcium carbonate which is abundant in seawater. Actually neither is the case. Shell is formed from dissolved calcium bicarbonate, not CO2 or carbonate ion, and bicarbonate ion is by far the more abundant form of carbon in the water column. Calcification removes carbon from seawater, generating additional atmospheric CO2 and additional sedimentary carbonate: Ca(HCO3)aq --- CO2g + H2O + CaCO3s, so unclear how this is an atmospheric CO2 sink. Admittedly, if the organism doing the calcifying is a photosynthesizer like coccos, then certainly CO2 will be converted to biomass. Whether this organism then forms a net CO2 sink will very much depend on the photosynthesis/calcification ratio as well as how much if any biomass escapes respiration and sinks from surface waters of the ocean. Or am I missing something? Certainly interesting that some organisms thrive in acidic water, but then there will also be losers, meaning ecosystems will change, but not necessarily to our benefit or to other marine species. Greg From: markcap...@podenergy.org [markcap...@podenergy.org] Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2014 8:35 AM To: Rau, Greg; gh...@sbcglobal.net; Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf); voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Greg and Olaf, What might be the minimum inputs such that we could grow and sequester seashells while rapidly recycling most of the nutrients to grow more shellfish? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/can-seashells-save-the-world-813915.html discusses Not so, it seems, with the coccolithophore, or at least with the most abundant species, called Emiliania huxleyi. The latest study into this species shows that it appears to thrive on high levels of carbon dioxide. Instead of finding it difficult to make its calcium carbonate plates, as some scientists had expected, the organism can, in fact, make bigger and bigger plates as carbon dioxide concentrations are increased artificially, according to a study published in the current issue of the journal Science. Perhaps a more complex model of Ocean Forest would work with the carbon dioxide from the energy separation process (likely either anaerobic digestion or hydrothermal liquifaction) being sequestered as sea shells. In this case, we may have to sell the shellfish meat as food (people, pets, livestock, aquaculture fish) and import more basic nutrients or silicate minerals or calcium from a few 100-1,000 kilometers distant. Mark Mark E. Capron, PE Ventura, California www.PODenergy.orghttp://www.PODenergy.org Original Message Subject: RE: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink From: Rau, Greg r...@llnl.govmailto:r...@llnl.gov Date: Fri, November 14, 2014 11:54 am To: gh...@sbcglobal.netmailto:gh...@sbcglobal.net gh...@sbcglobal.netmailto:gh...@sbcglobal.net, Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nlmailto:r.d.schuil...@uu.nl, voglerl...@gmail.commailto:voglerl...@gmail.com voglerl...@gmail.commailto:voglerl...@gmail.com, geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sorry, I meant is biology affected? From: geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Greg Rau [gh...@sbcglobal.netmailto:gh...@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 10:46 AM To: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf); voglerl...@gmail.commailto:voglerl...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Re: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of CO2 Utilization | Everything and the Carbon Sink Olaf, My preference is to make ocean alkalinity, dissolved Ca(HCO3)2 (and some CaCO3aq via equilibrium reactions), rather than solid CaCO3. Yes, you can use silicates to do this, but if you have elevated CO2 (FF or BE flue gas) and limestone/waste shell, the kinetics are faster. As for just putting minerals directly into the ocean for CDR, it would be interesting add equal equivalences (2x and 1x respectively) of equal sized CaCO3 and Mg2SiO4 particles to separate beakers of sterilized seawater, agitate for a week in the dark, and then compare the resulting SW alkalinity to each other and to initial (and to agitated seawater without added minerals). Repeat without sterilization and in full light. Which treatments make the most alkalinity and does biology matter
