This page makes it all far clearer. The idea is to "just" pump the CO2 underground, and hope that it stays there. Feasible.

Economical?

Desparate?

Isn't it similar to sweeping the dust underneath the carpet?

We just killed two carbon sequestration plant near where I live. The costs were prohibitive but the coal industry was buying up a lot of politicians. The Governor vetoed the last one. What they do is tout the benefits of sequestering CO2 while they lock in five years of very high electric prices in exchange for getting rid of the demonic CO2.

Thanks, I was confused by the story. I don't think it is economical unless the CO2 is needed nearby. I don't know what additional costs are involved in this system.

What if natural gas has more components than H, C and O?

Would claiming that you can burn it "clean" mean you atomise the other components?

I am thinking of Sulphur. But not only!

I did not read the article because the abstract you give is enough to get around it.

Thanks K for the review!

Ok I went back and read the article. It looks like they put the thought in for getting rid of exactly the other components as "nitrous oxides and mercury" that I kind of referred to.

The high pressure combustion is to completly burn the CO to CO2 and dont have this in the exhaust pipe. Now for some reasons I thought that any other plant is regulated to the degree that CO emissions are reduced or are prevented. Isnt the process to burn the exhaust gases?

It still seems just a "marketing slogan ".

The sequestration of CO2 will not mean it is not produced in the power plant in the first place. It only is not emitted from the plant.

Nice marketing!

Have a day!

You misread the report.

NET Power's goal is to create a super-efficient power plant that burns gas in a pure oxygen chamber and whose only byproducts are water and carbon dioxide, or CO. The carbon dioxide is seen as an added source of revenue, with potential in various markets, such as advanced oil recovery, where oil is dislodged through underground gas injection.

CO2 is produced but then used as a co-generation byproduct in a self sequestration application. In principle I like the concept. As usual though, the devil will be in the details.

Please for give me for bringing this idea up. I honestly hope that this does not hijack your thread. Your posting allows me to bring up a point I wanted to bring to the recent AGW threads before they became a political nightmare with jackals claiming to be open minded while simultaneously refusing to look at any kind of a reference link. So I will not provide any reference links to my initial premise.

A correlation between measured CO2 levels and average global temperature measurements over the past two centuries of industrial expansion. The increased CO2 level has been shown to be due to the added CO2 released by our need to release initially controllable energy. Matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. Virtually all of the energy we've released by burning fossil has remained on this planet in the form of waste heat.

Getting back to your report, I'm not sure that sequestering the CO2 will reduce man-made global warming. I could very easily be wrong in this because the energy dumped daily onto the Earth by the Sun dwarfs our energy production. But I also once thought that we couldn't possibly change the CO2 concentration much either.

I have to agree!

'...Virtually all of the energy we've released by burning fossil has remained on this planet in the form of waste heat...'

This is so wrong! It is saying that none of the energy from fossil fuel has produced anything like work or motion (potential and kinetic energy) or light. It couldn't be further from the truth.

If energy wasn't released in the form of radiation into the cold night sky we would surely perish! And, there wouldn't be any glaciers or water for that matter. Surely the thermal runaway would end when the verbal runaway ended!

Sigh. Clear thinking seems to be rapidly fading at CR4.

The Carnot cycle shows that to produce mechanical energy, energy must be lost in the energy transformation process in the form of waste heat. Electric motors produce waste heat through winding resistance, core eddy currents and windage effects. Batteries heat up during charging and discharging cycles. Every energy transfer process produces waste heat.

Once we finish most processes that use one form of energy or another, we normally safely dissipate that energy by converting it into heat to be released into the environment. The brakes of a vehicle produce heat when stopping. Recently we have been more frugal with the energy we control by storing the energy from one process into a different storage system. But even these improvements just delay the thermodynamic entropy dictating that eventually we loose complete control of this energy.

I never said that we don't temporarily use this energy for a useful purpose along the way. Do not put words into my mouth and then call me a liar for using those words.

I'm just wondering if any analysis of the total energy sequestered but then released in fossil fuel is a significant effect.

I don't think that the discussion was about "waste heat" as in parasitic energy loss through non productive energy transfers. Surely all real world systems have conversion efficiencies less than unity.

Perhaps I fail to understand your meaning. You said, "I never said that we don't temporarily use this energy for a useful purpose along the way." Are you implying that the net result of all work ends up as wasted heat? Perhaps this could be true if everything useful was destroyed at some time "along the way".

But I have a fundamental problem with that sort of statement. Especially when energy is used to produce light. Yes, there will be waste heat as a byproduct, but once the photons have been created, they do not revert back into heat unless they happen to be absorbed by something in the environment. The rest escapes the environment.

Also, the work required to transport some objece is not converted back into heat so I don't see how the Carnot cycle fits your statement. If I transport some object 100 miles in some direction and it stays there then there is an overall increase in entropy with no hope for a Carnot cycle. And the energy I used to get it there is certainly lost in the form of conversion of energy into motion but the net effect is not lost or converted into heat. It comes down to the definition of work. But work does not equal heat.

I am not calling anyone a liar. I may be confused about some concepts but while it may be true that mass and energy can not be created or destroyed, that does not imply that converted energy in the form of heat is cumulative. The environment leaks heat through radiation.

And, no the total energy sequestered in the burning of fossil fuel or forest fires or nuclear detonation is insignificant, just as we are, in the long run. My concern is that we have no realistic idea how close we are to self destruction from the way we live. And when we figure it out, it will probably be too late for most. But a few will survive. Just like a fish kill does not kill all the fish. That is the nature of our denial.

Burning hydrocarbons has no long term future.

The First Law of Thermodynamics is often abbreviated to "heat is work and work is heat". If they were not the same units then subtraction would not be possible without some transformation constant added to this equation. Both the heat and work of a system sum up to the energy change or derivative of the energy.

Transporting your object 100 miles horizontally to the same elevation, stores none of the energy used in this move in the gravitational field (potential energy) so ultimately all of this energy becomes heat.

My point to this thread is that the energy released by combustion is one of the three emissions of complete combustion. Sequestering only the CO2 is releasing emissions.

And the energy I used to get it there is certainly lost in the form of conversion of energy into motion but the net effect is not lost or converted into heat. It comes down to the definition of work. But work does not equal heat.

You've probably heard of work-energy equivalence. The units of work and energy are therefore the same.

So, when you transport an object (say a car) 100 miles on level ground, you accomplish no "work" in the simplest physics sense: the kinetic energy is the same at the beginning end end of the trip, and the potential energy is the same.

Some work is done to accelerate the car (you've temporarily changed its kinetic energy), and that work is converted to heat to stop the car at the end. Along the way, the work done is converted to heat: 75% of the fuel goes directly to obvious waste heat that shows up in the exhaust, radiator, and engine block. The rest goes into:

• warming the air via the stirring that results from aerodynamic drag.
• warming the air via heating the tires from internal friction
• warming the air via heating the transmission
• warming the air via heating the final drive
• warming the air by heating the brakes as they drag against the rotors when released
• warming the air by heating the wheel bearings

Once the car has cooled at its destination to its starting temperature, you have converted all the fuel into heated air. How much of that heat remains in the atmosphere and in the earth's mass depends upon the effectiveness of the greenhouse effect.

The average car, at 25 mpg, will have used 4 gallons of fuel, weighing about 25 lbs. 80 lbs of CO2 will have been created, helping to increase the greenhouse effect.

''...Sigh. Clear thinking seems to be rapidly fading at CR4.

...''

Don't despair! The first step toward recover in acknowledging the problem, so you are already on the road to recovery. Stick with it!

Estimates of current energy production from all hydrocarbons plus nuclear (largest heat sources attributable to civilization) averaged over the entire globe equates to ...

...less than 0.04 W/m^2.

Of course local conditions vary significantly from the global average, with some estimates up to 0.6 W/m^2 in cities with high energy use.

Realize, each square meter actually represents a volume of atmosphere above and water and earth below that m^2 surface....meaning a volume with a huge thermal mass is represented by the area of each square meter.

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You are exactly right when you write that a large portion of energy we generate ends up as waste heat. Almost all the energy we produce is fairly rapidly changed into heat.... the exceptions like the city lights now visible from space are very small compared to the whole.

Pretty much every other use results in a nearly complete conversion to waste heat, usually pretty quickly and certainly within a few months for most uses.

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But don't end thoughts of thermo there.....what happens after that?

With the sun adding somewhere around 1000 Watts per meter of Earths surface for a few billion years now, it would be a little warmer if there wasn't a lot of energy leaving the planet also? In fact, over periods exhibiting conditions not that far from thermal equilibrium, that total heat lost has been pretty close to total heat gained.

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So ....the vacuum of space certainly limits heat transfer by conduction or convection, so that pretty much narrows it down to radiation.

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That radiation is why you shouldn't make silly statements about virtually all the energy produced burning fossil fuels remaining here stubbornly refusing to leave.....and be thankful that energy exits without protest, radiating out into the cold dark night sky.

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Here is a bonus question....Since the ultimate mode of heat transfer off the planet is radiation, and not convection, what is the theorized mechanism by which CO2 and other greenhouse gasses cause more heat to be retained on the Earth? Does it represent a one way radiative barrier? If it is reducing heat transfer into the upper atmosphere shouldn't there be a corresponding drop in upper atmosphere temperatures (more tiny ice crystal formation in the upper clouds?

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It's funny, so many people are eager to jump in to discussions with their verdict on AWG, but so few on either side can articulate an understand of, much less persuasive support or rebuttal of the key AGW concept I mention above....

That is an interesting point, but I am sure that the warmists have an answer for us. I like to just look at the sea level from a historic point of view over my lifetime. Now the warmists are saying that the East Coast is rising much faster than the other coasts. They don't want to face the fact that water seeks a common level. The sea has risen and fallen dramatically over aeons, and will continue no matter what we tiny specks do.

First, thank you for a thoughtful reply to my question. Your polite reply is how things should be done here and anywhere.

I do question your numbers though in your reply. I suspect that the numbers you remembered are in error. A reference to where these numbers came from might clarify your point but I suspect that you are off by several orders of magnitude in the human power production estimates.

I'll take New York City as an example of my skepticism. All of my numbers come from Wikipedia. The total area of NYC (land and water) is 1,213.4 km^2→ 1.2134E9 m^2. Your proposed 0.6W/m^2 then correlate to about 728E6 W for all of NYC. NYC has a population of about 8.244E6. This then means that each NYC person is consuming about 88.3W of external power to exist in NYC. This is less power than the 120W a HVAC engineer anticipates a human being produces just for being alive. That comparison might be a red herring since I'm comparing biological function energy production to external power usage. None the less I would expect that considerably more power to be produced than 200W per person within the borders of NYC when one considers vehicles, lighting, heating/cooling, cooking and all of the other activities we do.

Don't get me wrong here. You may still be quite right that the man made power production will be an insignificant fraction compared to the added heat retention of more CO2 in the atmosphere. You could have just remembered the wrong numbers of both solar and man made power production per square meter but the correct conclusion that our production is dwarfed by the sun to the point that it can be ignored. However, the recent Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature results show that a 1.5°C average global temperature rise has happened since the industrial revolution. This is about a 0.5% increase in the average energy of this planet. This is a very small percentage increase in the first place. Careful analysis should be done with many rational people rechecking the numbers along the way to identify why and how we are producing this effect.

My point in this is that sequestering CO2 may do nothing to reduce global warming if most of this planet wide energy rise is the stored solar energy release of burning fossil fuel and not a shift in green house gas levels. The shift in green house gas levels may just be an indicator and not the root cause. If my conjecture is correct then better utilization of the energy provided by the sun will be the way to mitigate global warming. Man made production of energy itself maybe the problem.

The ground is a heat sink too. Also, the latent heat from wet cooling at thermal power plants is another way waste energy gets stored in the atmosphere. All of the fossil sunshine being suddenly released as bozo sapiens prospers can't all be dissipated by radiation into the cold night sky.

Some way to dissipate waste heat by making it do work would be a good thing. Power harvesting from waste heat is possible using the organic Rankine cycle.

I'm pretty sure I remember the numbers for the global average correctly. I will do a calculation little later to make sure.

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I think you are right about the values for local areas. Upon reconsideration, what I quoted is impossibly low for densely populated 1st world cities. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll see if I can get some better numbers based on more than my (slightly less perfect than I sometimes remember) memory.

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You raise an important question about the cost-benefit characteristics of sequestration, even if the heat generated isn't very significant.

CO2 is not the only environmental cost of burning fossil fuels, and the capture, sequestration, and storage of CO2 is likely to be energy intensive. All other things being equal this means more fuel consumed for the same amount of energy. So the cost of CO2 capture and sequestration isn't just the cost of the plant and additional fuel...CO2 capture and sequestration results in an increase in all the other environmental costs that are not CO2.

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I think the accumulation of mercury, cadmium, thorium and uranium from coal power plant fly ash, is a much more serious problem than CO2. Ideas of releasing more heavy metals (a couple of which are strong alpha emitters) as minute particles into the environment, in order to reduce release of a gas that makes plants grow faster is a little misguided.

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BTW, I also appreciate your response. It is nice to know that civil discussion can still be had without the participants being in total agreement.

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There is one part of your reply that I am uncertain about. You wrote,'.... This is about a 0.5% increase in the average energy of this planet...' referring to, '...a 1.5C average global temperature rise...'

Can you elaborate a little on how you arrived at this number? I think 0.5% is overstating the change in average energy of this planet by many orders of magnitude, even assuming we are strictly speaking about thermal energy.

I'll be happy to explain my calculation.

First, allow me a minor linguistic correction of what I should have stated instead of what I implied. A 1.5°C rise in surface temperature is about a 0.5% increase in the average thermal energy of the planet surface. (Not the total energy of the planet.) Now assuming that a solid does not go through a phase change to gas or liquid, the thermal energy is proportional to the temperature of the object in an absolute temperature scale (Kelvin or Rankine). So for the ease of convenient number choice only, taking the reference temperature of 300K (aka 26.85°C) the math is fairly simple. (1.5/300)*100%=0.5% Now as you should notice I made a simplification and a plausible conditional are part of my calculation. So the now added bold conditional "about" is needed but my point is still valid.

OK, I understand where you are coming from, and while your math is correct, the assumptions involved in arriving at '0.5% increase in average thermal energy' diminish the representativeness and utility of the statement so far below what the statement implies on its surface, that it really isn't appropriate to make the statement. Give me a moment to explain, and I bet you will agree.

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OK, lets begin with defining exactly what we are talking about. The trade off here is simplicity versus meaningfulness. If what we are describing is too limited, anything gleaned from analysis cannot translate meaningfully to the whole. While as it becomes less limited it becomes exceedingly complex.

While a wide range exists of workable meaningfulness/complexity points exist, defining the system as a surface simplifies the analysis far below the point of any utility.

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A surface has only two dimensions. Since the system we are attempting to model is limited to finite density, the lack of a third dimension precludes mass from the model. Without mass, analysis concerning total energy and temperature don't mean much.

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So I'm going to assume when you wrote 'surface, you meant it in the sense of being a thin shell. Perhaps from a meter below the surface of either the land or water (which ever is on top) to a plane in the air perhaps 2 meters above the ground or water.

...I'm including the meter below the surface because I think many measurements have been of surface water temperature in the oceans...

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But even with this shell, we cannot apply the temperature/energy proportionality you describe because the shell is neither homogenous in makeup nor homogenous in temperature. Because materials with different thermal properties comprise the shell and the temperature is non-homogenous, an increase in average temperature does not guarantee a proportional increase in the average thermal energy of the shell. In fact with varying composition and non-homogenous temperature, an increase in average temperature is possible even with a decrease in the average thermal energy of the shell.

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Moreover, if the non-homogeneous temperature and composition problems are resolved, the portion of the system represented by the shell is so miniscule compared to the remainder of the system with which it strongly and dynamically interacts, that making meaningfully useful claims relating some measurement as a percentage of that sliver, provides no insight.

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Even with the use of the conditional 'about', making use of a percent change in thermal energy of a small arbitrary portion of a system relatively undefined in its relation to the whole system, does not facilitate insight or communicate fundamentals. as such it really can't be called a valid point.

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I hope you understand I am not attacking you. You make some insightful well reasoned points. I am only saying that the 0.5% increase statement isn't really appropriate.

The selection of surface temperatures for global warming comparison was I thought an obvious choice because the biosphere we live in resides in this surface temperature. While the temperature of the Earths core and ionosphere will impart or remove thermal energy from the surface temperature, the surface temperature will be the easiest to measure and record for an indication of the average global temperature. The BEST results that I cited earlier are actual weather station temperature measurements from around the globe instead of indirect measurements. This study also includes recent satellite measurements to compare with historical measurements. The study also includes a well thought out uncertainty band of the earliest data results.

You're correct that to know the actual average thermal energy (Q) of an object one must know the heat capacity (C) of that object along with the absolute temperature (T). To know the actual change in thermal energy applied to or from that object one must also know that no chemical reaction or change of phase state has occurred during that temperature change. It is an assumption on my part that a 1.5K temperature change at around 300K across the planet will not cause a net change in the thermal energy of the planet. There will certainly be locations that release or absorb thermal energy at parts of the planet with this temperature difference. Storms will be created making rain, snow and ice at all times on our planet. Similarly ice will melt and water vapour will reach the atmosphere at all times on our planet. For the sake of having some data to progress with an analysis I make my assumption that globally the added and subtracted thermal energy likely match each other around the globe. In more concise terms, the enthalpy properties of the biosphere increase the uncertainty of the thermal analysis but they do not change the expected result.

As for not knowing the heat capacity of the planet, this will be a constant for all of the materials that make up the planet. So:

Q%=100%*ΔQ/Q₀=100%*C*ΔT/(C*T₀)

The unknown heat capacity (C) can be cancelled out of the equation for the only thing that is known of this constant is that it is non-zero.

This is why I stand by my statement that the observed temperature change correlates to only a 0.5% change in thermal energy of the surface of the planet.

The fact that heat capacity and change in temperature for each area is different the average change in temperature can not be assumed to be proportional to the change in energy.

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Consider a system made up of three different parts.

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The first part is 1 Kg or dry soil with a specific heat capacity of 0.8 J/gK that experiences a change in temperature from 295K to 300K.

Thermal energy increases from ~236,000 J to ~240,000 J

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The second is 1 Kg of a dry mixture of sand and gypsum with a specific heat capacity of 0.9 J/gK that experiences a change in temperature from 300K to 303K

Thermal energy increases from ~270,000 J to ~272,700 J

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The third is 1Kg of mud and detritus with a specific heat capacity 2.4 J/gK that experiences a change in temperature from 305K to 306K.

Thermal energy increases from ~732,000 J to ~734,400 J

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Average temperature for the system would be 300K initial and 303K final

Average change is then 3K which is a 1% increase in average absolute temperature

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But this does not equate to a 1% increase in the thermal energy of the system.....

~1,238,000 J to 1,246,400 J is just an 8,400 J increase

Which equates to 0.6785%.

not 1%

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It needs to be more than 47% larger to be 1%. That is a pretty significant departure, don't you think? It can be attributed to the non-homogenous nature of the heat capacity and temperature change.

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The material just below and above the surface of the earth also has non-homogenous specific heat capacity and non-homogenous temperature and change in temperature.

Beyond that , as I mentioned earlier talking about the thermal energy of a surface doesn't really make sense and converting it to an arbitrarily small portion of the effective whole system doesn't really provide anything useful.

The three materials are at different temperatures and exhibit different temperature changes. If you equalize their temperatures and temperature differences you will find that the energy difference does track the temperature difference. The global warming measurements span greater than a century of time. All substances in contact with each other should be considered to be in thermal equilibrium and thus will have only one temperature and one change in temperature over this time period. Clearly these three substances are never in thermal equilibrium at any time in your two proposed conditions.

Regardless of this deliberate skewing of temperature differences to make a point, your difference in a result is less than an order in magnitude different. I expect that this will just simply be well within measurement errors. My earlier point that a 0.5% energy difference for a 1.5° delta in average global temperatures is still valid.

'...If you equalize their temperatures and temperature differences you will find that the energy difference does track the temperature difference....'

You seem to be implying that no such variations exist in the real system.

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Certainly the earth exhibits variations in temperature over different areas far in excess of 8K.

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It should be equally obvious that the change in temperature from place to place is certain to be far in excess of twice the change in average temperature in many cases.

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The land surface exhibits nowhere near homogenous temperature nor did it exhibit anywhere near homogenous change in temperature.

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Suggesting that your approximation of a 0.5% change is valid because it must be within an order of magnitude of a correct figure...and 'well within measurement errors' suggests you when you say 0.5% you are specifying a range from 0.05% to 5% and that measurement error for change in surface temperature places the actual figure somewhere between 0.15 to 15 degrees C, right?

...if that is the case, you ought to at least round to the nearest whole percent, as the broad spread you are claiming doesn't deserve tenth percent denomination.

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Unless of course you really do believe the surface of the earth really if all at the same temperature, is made of material with uniform specific heat, and all experienced the exact same change in temperature..

...in which case, what would one more misunderstanding matter

I don't understand why you refuse to accept that a relative change in the value of the thermal energy added to this planet can be extrapolated from the measured average change in temperature of the planet. Did the average heat capacity of the Earth change during that time? I don't think so.

Yes, there certainly are local temperature differences and local differences in heat capacity across this planet. However, by using the results of a large enough set of data and by measuring the same locations the differences average out and the standard deviation and variance will be expected to be very low. I hope you remember that from your statistical analysis. Did you notice the set size of the BEST data. By the way the uncertainty envelope of the graphs presented there indicate the set size of the data over the years.

OK so I did some quick calculations using total energy from use of nuclear and non-renewable hydrocarbons (2008 numbers).

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The global average comes out to about 0.03 W/m² Pretty close to what I stated above as <0.04 W/m²

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My statement about cities with dense populations was definitely off by several orders of magnitude. My figure was even low for the most densely populated US state when the higher consumption per capita is taken into account.

Assuming all the non renewable energy needed to produce the energy used in New Jersey was also confined to the state, about 4.6 W/m² is my calculation.

And when I use the numbers provided for area and population of NYC, the figure is almost 70W/m² .

So.... I apologize for stating the erroneous original figure for heat contribution in local areas from non-renewable sources. I appreciate being given the opportunity to correct the mistake.

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Now that corrections have been made, I want to note two things:

first, the measurement of W/m² is not a great metric, since it doesn't relate easily to temperature change. It has some value as comparison with average solar energy per surface area (~1300W/m² ) and with some estimates of the global aveerage contribution due to anthropogenic greenhouse gasses (4 - 6 W/m² )...

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second, the concentration in local areas is somewhat of a red herring since it makes the value higher and more scary, when it is far less meaningful than the global average. If anything higher local concentrations and therefore temperature will lead to more rapid radiative losses into space.

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Another thing people tend not to consider is that there is another large source of heat introduction other than currently from the sun or those that people establish.

..There is a massive amount of thermal energy generated by the decay chains of radioactive elements within the earth. It makes sense to remember that the solid crust is pretty thin when compared to the molten material it floats on. Using only the solar component for comparison makes other contributions look relatively much larger than they actually are.

His reactions have been to refer to people with whom he disagrees as being less compassionate than Wade Michael Page or Luddites. I can't wait to see how he responds to this attack.

The basic chemical equation has CO2 and H2O as byproducts of combustion. On ratio and ideally, there we are. Practically, using atmospheric air introduces a significant parasitic loss (Sankey diagram - flue losses and heat of non involved combustion process participants). Or some such high falutin speak (most 'conventional' burners can achieve 80% efficiency, or thereabouts). Using O2 is done and has exactly those advantages, plus some 'clean' applications favor it. Some burners intentionally run rich, leaving unburnt fuel. Mostly though, the cost / benefit isn't there. Indeed, many common 'burners' use excess air (burn lean) which is both less efficient and favorable to reliability / safety. Much is and has been done to bring commonplace combustion to approach stochiometric ("on-ratio") because both environmental and cost pressures.

Just my opinion, but I'd keep my money away from this opportunity (good to keep an open mind though).

Like others here, don't get 'high pressure'.

Sequestration of CO2 is a separate matter, but as others have pointed out - not a fuel but a good & common fire extinguisher.

Here is how CO2 sequestration economics work in the real world:http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/09/05/shell-and-chevron-to-green-oil-sands-with-carbon-capture-project/ The whole population pays the costs. Is it worth it? You decide.

The purpose seems to be producing lots of CO2 for oil companies to use for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Combustion of natural gas produces CO2, which is air pollution. They don't say how to get the pure oxygen for combustion, instead of air, so I presume it is by a conventional air separation unit used for oxyfuel combustion. Oxyfuel combustion would have the same prohibitive energy penalty as post-combustion capture. Getting the pure oxygen would impact plant efficiency, so the absence of this information -- whether intentional or not -- is disturbing. And it's depressing to hear this handout to the oil companies being touted as a breakthrough in the fight against global warming.

Scavenging depleted reservoirs by dissolving CO2 into the petroleum (EOR) is where injecting CO2 underground makes sense. But EOR demand is tiny compared to the enormous volumes produced by power generation -- billions of tons of CO2 each year. Therefore global warming won't be solved because the underground storage of CO2 has not been worked out and has been condemned by petroleum engineering professors as "profoundly nonfeasible" because of the importance of the difference between open systems (like EOR) and closed systems like deep saline formations, full tanks and empty tanks http://twodoctors.org/manual/economides.pdf.

I just wanted to say "Thank You" to Red Fred and Truth for the rather interesting information. I had forgotten more than I realized and I do appreciate the discussion even if I happen to get bashed around a little bit.

While this topic seems to have wandered around a little bit, it was useful because of how much mis-information seems to permeate public understanding in general. CR4 seems to be a good place to restimulate those dusty old brain cells.

What happens with the emitted water vapour?

That is a very good question! Some people estimate water vapor has 8 times the radiative forcing effect of CO2....

What happens if we stop believing?

(see post #34 )

Clearly a statment like this is an expression of believe.