CO2 breakdown

Guest,

You have pointed out the root of the matter - good answer

Good answer.

Honored sir, in catalitic proceses less energy is neded to achieve same result, so actualy Your statements are not correct! You also missed point that objective here is to get rid of CO2 by transforming it to something usefull, and if we could get some more energy in process, then still better! Then also: we are NOT spending energy to PRODUCE CO2, it is just vaste product of burning fuels, and we do it to GET energy! So in manner of speaking, we get it for free, and if we could produce methane from it, by using electrolysed water, then we could use methane to produce more energy (and more CO2 that could be recycled), or we could use it to produce fertilizers for agricultures and so on........

So I dont really understand why some people think Your answer is good, when You obviously dont even understand question?

As always, one should try to see global picture and global implications of any problem. We would better start using Solar energy instead of burning hydrocarbons in any form, then CO2 would not be a problem, and we have seen that it could be valuable resource :-)) instead, even for growing food directly.......

you are absolutely wrong. the enthaphy energy of the products less the reactants is fixed, catalyst or not. All a catalyst does is lower the hurdle energy required to get the reaction to go in the direction you want it to go. In our CO2 to C + O2, it will take 20,000 BTU/lb minimum to convert CO2 to C + O2 with a pefect catalyst. The reaction will happen at 3000 C in 100 seconds, we will have heat up the CO2 to 3000 C, which costs energy, BUT we can cross exchange the O2 + C as we cool them down to 15C, with a perfect exchnager, the net energy is 20,000 btu/lb.

If we add a catalyst, the reaction can take place at 300 C in 20 seconds, the energy require to heat the CO2 to 300 C is lower than to 3000C, but, again with a a perfect exchanger we get the same net 20,000/lb to complete the reaction.

all the catalyst does is get the reaction and the reaction rate to make the metalugy cheaper and the reaction time shorter (which means smaller equipment).

You managed to contradict Yourself :-)) How do You think same enthalpy energy is required to heat CO2 to 3000 C or to 300 C? You verbatim say that less energy is required, so by this You confirm my statement from previous post.......

Also first case You mention use the >>perfect catalyst<< and other just >>catalyst<<, and by semantic one would think that >>perfect<< is much more effective, while with You it is other way around?

I am truly sorry that I must say how English is not my mother's language, so perhaps I dont know what I wrote that is not coincident with Your words.....or it is case that i cannot properly translate Your answer?

It seems to me that it cannot be that we spend less energy in catalitic process and then get same amount of energy that were used to heat CO2 without catalyst, or shall I congratulate to You on discovery of new source of practically free energy?

read slowly. It takes 20,000 BTU/lb to convert CO2 back to C and O2, not one BTU more, not one less. The laws of thermo dictate this, got it.. To make the reaction go that direction, the CO2 must be heated up to a high temperature, it takes energy to heat it up. simple right? NOW when the CO2 breaks into C and )2, they can be cooled down by heating up the CO2. There will be a loss on entropy and a loss because you can't cool them any cooler than the CO2 entering. The net is 20,000 BTU for conversion and 1,000 BTU lost to entropy, total 21,000 BTU,s

When you add a catalyst, the temperature at which the CO2 converts will be lower and the amount of entropy lost will be 800 btu's for a net loss of 20,800 BTU's.

Please note that the pure Carbon made can only release about 15,000 BTU/lb of energy, so expend over 20,000 BTU's to get 15,000 BTU's you can, I won't.

Dear Vicini, that is not what You wrote first time..

I certainly agree that there would be always loss of energy in process You described, but I mentioned quite different process of synthetizing Methane from CO2 and Hydrogen using electricity produced by Solar power stations, and catalysts mentioned was for breaking water into Hydrogen and O2, and for Bosch process. Even if I mentioned how it could then be used for burning or as fuel for cars, which would temporarily store produced energy and in a way recycle CO2, my intended target product was Bio-plastic (or perhaps I should not call it so since there were no process where agricultural waste is turned to methane in digesters) or fertilizers like Urea, which would store used CO2 (at least in case of C as O2 is released or is byproduct if collected and used otherwise) for longer time...

Anyhow, IF what we need to do is to remove CO2 from atmosphere fast, and would like to produce pure Carbon for nanotubes or other useful products, then heat required could be produced by Solar concentrators, and if they are not expensive then thermal energy produced is cheap, almost free, and so loss You calculated is unimportant. Another question is whether we would heat atmosphere more than removed CO2 would help heat from atmosphere to irradiate back to space during the night :-)

But if it means that we use 20,000 BTU that would heat atmosphere anyway, and lose even 1000 BTU, I would call this also good result in cooling atmosphere!

So it depend really on angle from which one is observing, and we should not lose our aim from sight......... In case of this discussion, breakdown of CO2 is proposed to lessen content of CO2 in atmosphere, right?

Sometimes much more money need to be spent to preserve something then it is economical if You look product alone, like installing expensive filters on coal burning thermocentrals to preserve environment and preclude >>Acid Rains<<, which turns electricity produced much more expensive.

Sorry for digresion........

In case of CO2 removal from air, I would vote for use of plants to produce more food and wood material, as this would address one other problem that is also present Worldwide, and this is hunger..........

Take a close think...C02 is not something we can make more of, in other words we can't eliminate any only change it's state.

I'm not thinking of getting rid of CO2 as such but more along the lines of utilising carbon from it. Would it be possible to utilise CO2 gas as hot gas in power generating turbines? what would happen to CO2 if exposed to high temperature and high pressures?

Compress, solidify, react with water to form superconcentrated carbonic acid (acidity would increase with pressure, but decrease with temperature), accelerate reactions with metals to form carbonates, dissolve organics, etc.. think of CO₂(g) as similar to SO₂(g) in many respects, except much smaller. Also superfluid CO2 is used to extract organic compounds

i believe your question was answered. To get the carbon out of CO2 you'd expend more energy than you would now have in you possesion, why would want to do that when you can pick up a piece of coal for almost no energy?

Re: using CO2 as hot-gas power turbines.

This is entirely possible, but putting a turbine in stack gas would create back-pressure and require more air intake flow to keep it moving. The intake fans, blowers, etc needed are of course inefficient. The parasitic load would eat benefits.

Hi Mag,

would you run this hot CO2 gas (hopefully at around 800C to 1000C) over the compressor stage or turbine stage? Could you run it in closed circuit utilising same volume of CO2? What would happen to the CO2 gas after numerous bypasses through turbine at high pressures and high temperature?

"In 2002 a hybrid open solar Brayton cycle was operated for the first time consistently and effectively with relevant papers published, in the frame of the EU SOLGATE program. The air was heated from 570 K to over 1000 K into the combustor chamber"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brayton_cycle

Actually CO₂ is something we can make more of, since it is the molecule formed from the complete oxidation of carbon in the presence of oxygen. We could burn hydrocarbons, organic materials, diamonds, etc.. and make more CO₂. On the other hand it is extremely hard to generate more Carbon atoms (it is possible, since carbon is an extreme end product of nuclear fusion, so supercolliders could be used, but not much product would be generated).

Sir, logic of Your thinking is amusing....... and You perhaps wrote opposite to what You intended to?

Whole problem IS that we ARE producing MORE CO2 than is healty for our planet, and we are producing it by burning fuels, so to produce LESS, we have to burn less fuels and use other energy sources like Sunpower, Windpower, Geothermal power and so on.

Unfortunately I could see it is just pastime for most of people writting here, and even originall poster have written answer to his own question, and got >>good answer<< mark for it, perhaps also by himself?

I have one remark to CR4 team: the way You position answer below comment it is relating to makes very hard to follow discusion, perhaps every new posting should go to the end and contain hyperlink to post it refers or answers to.....?

Hmmm maybe I missed the point.. Was the question related to removing CO2 from the atmosphere and reducing it to carbon and oxygen so that it would no longer be a global warming issue? If so, the answer is again photosynthesis, a plant takes CO2 out of the air, breaks off the oxygen, and stores the carbon in sugars and cellulose. All solar powered by the way...

Actually, I believe he states clearly up front this is different than the questions about global warming and removal of CO₂, but rather he wants to know how to derive molecular carbon from CO₂. Photosythesis is a good method to recover the CO₂ into a reduced form as sugars, but you'd need further refinement to recover the carbon from the Sugar. Basically, carbonize the plant tissue in a by heating in a oxygen free environment. This might be the most efficient way to accomplish the objective. You use a low energy input process, like dry land crop production of a readily grown crop, and harvest the crop, then carbonize it. Unfortunately you will not directly recover the oxygen, just the carbon. The oxygen would be lost to the environment.

I get your flow of logical thought--Sound and simple. I think go back to natural way: By growing more plant then CO2 be moved, man will have food and fuel(steam engine). Everyone can get contribute to hiimself and the world at large. Thanks for your simple thought.

"The oxygen would be lost to the environment." (emphasis added)

Given that we get to breathe it, I'm not sure "lost" would be a good choice of terminology here. Besides, there may be an uninvestigated means of recovery that we just have never found the need to pursue before. Carbon recovery from fossil sources (coal, oil, gas) has become typical, but for centuries, our forebears used renewable sources (wood primarily) as a charcoal precursor.

Charcoal from local wood is the primary energy source for many areas including Madagasgar. There, the deforestation problem, and resulting soil loss, (in addition to mostly dry conditions) which prevents regrowth is legendary. Although wood is renewable, it is not always a sustainable choice. Cooking with solar ovens is catching on, although more difficult to control vs putting on a few more coals on a cloudy day.

Oh my, yes! I didn't mean I was advocating turning all the trees to charcoal! I just meant that we've been making "carbon" out of "hydrocarbons" for milennia. Used to be mainly from "living" sources, but now is mainly from "fossil" sources.

I think the original question was about how to make carbon and oxygen from CO₂. So obviously hydrocarbons are not a very direct solution, since it would take 10s of millions of years of geologic pressure and heat for the buried plant materials to form into hydrocarbon source materials before you could even begin processing them to obtain pure carbon. Also, i don't think he wants waste charcoal fuel, but carbon.

Right you are. I was comparing and contrasting this concept to the "how we've been doing it" methods, and the discussion kind of got out of hand...

Don't you see? That would be to simple... Plant more trees and such in the forests that are being ripped down more and more everyday and whoa, keeping the oceans unpolluted so that the plant life there is unbothered, getting rid of ..... huh? oh no, I am sounding like an environmentalist... Maybe st. gore could stop flying all over the world to impart his message(s) and start looking into using his "formidable" powers to slow down deforestation in the rainforests. Instead of pushing everybody to buy green stuff. But there would'nt be any money in that... for his pocket book that is.

Ferris

Yes that sounds right, we can not plant faster then we consume and if there is no financial motivation to reduce emissions than I'm afraid that we are on loosing end.

Actaully, one of the issues is that global warming and increased CO₂ are promoting the growth of plant life in the oceans, algae is invading coral reefs, etc.. Additionally, i am not necessarily sure that deforestation is an issue exclusively problematic to rain forests. Maybe we trade some deforestation in rain forest for reduced deforestation in the first world (or even re-establishing old world forests removed to make long bows and fuel steel production).

I do agree that Gore should stop flying all over if he is really trying to promote a reduction in CO₂. After all how much CO₂ is generated per mile of travel by flying, and how many trips does he take. I bet his carbon footprint is about 900 times the average americans. I was watching them calculate some TV celebrity's carbon footprint, since she became aware and wanted to demonstrate on TV that she was environmentally active, it turned it was like nearly 100 times the average americans, and she was environmentally friendly (or so she thought).

-->promoting the growth of plant life in the oceans, algae is invading coral reefs,

I know algae is good for O2 and I know that algae can be deadly, red tide; But how is excess algae bad for for a coral reef that uses algae as food?

Is it by starving the area of other nutrients ?

Prove that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Prove that the tiny concentration of CO2 is enough to affect the climate. Most people, including many so called scientists appear to have "gotten on the bandwagon", but no one has proven it to my satisfaction. Besides, CO2 is a natural airborne fertiliser for plants. I think this "cimate change" zealotry smells too much of politics.

Prove green house?

Okay let's look at Mars.

Mars is not a example of run away green house effects. Mars has almost no atmosphere or magnetic field. Mars is substantially colder than earth (cold enough to freeze carbon dioxide). You are actually making his point about unfounded zealotry. This is why faith without education and evidence is such a bad thing. There is no direct evidence that proves anthropogenic greenhouse effects on our climate. There is actually no direct evidence to prove the link of carbon dioxide to climate change. All the evidence is based on correlations, and is secondary or tertiary in nature. Ice cores depend on a concept of bubbles of atmospheric gases being trapped as they existed in the atmosphere at the time the ice was deposited. Thus no accounting for different absorption and diffusion rates in the ancient water and the ice itself. Also, data sources and collection techniques vary over the period of study, leading to different accuracies/precisions and degrees of eror in correlation. There are also the underlying natural cycles in the climate that we do not really understand. While much of the information seems reasonably founded, it would be sometime before we could provide a scientific proof.

FYI, A good example of the concept of a run-away climate due to an accumulation of green house gases might be Venus.

A simple experiment for those with green thumbs to see what effect CO2 has on temperature.

Use 2 equally sized green houses, window box type are sufficient, be sure the green house is a closed system. You will need to Plexiglas the open side of a window box greenhouse. Provide the greenhouse with cooling and/or heating potential,water, O2 removal as well as a source for CO2. Plant the same plants into the greenhouse, I would suggest edible plants so you can have some reward after you are satisfied with the results.

Start the greenhouses at the same standard air temp. one greenhouse will be the control with no removal of excess O2, the other greenhouse is the experiment with removal of produced O2, or if you prefer lower concentration than the control.

Run the experiment for a full growth cycle of the plants and maintain the temperature in BOTH greenhouses. The expected results for CO2 as a green house gas would be more time spent cooling the high concentration of CO2 greenhouse

A further test would be to capture the produced O2 from both greenhouses and see which one produces more O2 over the duration of the experiment.

I would expect to see more problems cooling the high CO2 greenhouse and less O2 produced from the Control greenhouse. My basic knowledge of chemistry would suggest that the increased CO2 in greenhouse would heat more effectively than a standard concentration because there is just more of it. The lower production of O2 expected is because the plants are good at changing CO2 into O2 and the higher concentration should allow for the maximum conversion in any given day. If one checks the nutrients of then plants from both greenhouses, from what I have read on the net, you could expect less nutritious food from higher CO2 greenhouse.

There most likely are many problems with the above suggested experiment but the basic premise is valid, so if you are more knowledgeable with chemistry and botany and whatever else is needed, adjust as required.

Admittedly, it would be easy to test and prove the effects of CO2 on the atmospheric temperature of a small enclosed structure with relatively simple controlled environmental conditions. However, in a complex system it is much more complicated to demonstrate the effects due solely to anthropogenic sources of CO2. In particular, since we have no extended period continuous source of data collected by a direct measurement, a consistent method, or even very highly correlated methods at the level of precision, accuracy and periodicity, we can not adequately draw sound scientific findings to support or debunk theories.

-->However, in a complex system it is much more complicated to demonstrate the effects due solely to anthropogenic sources of CO2

True enough but the main idea behind the experiment is to show that increased CO2 in the atmosphere is one cause of warming.

To get continuous measurements someone would have to start measuring, as it appears everyone wants to support there own theory with math and thought experiments. If I had the cash I would enjoy doing the basic experiment I outlined above but alas I work to live.

There is an experiment in a west coast University, Cal Tech I think, that is researching the effects of CO2 on plant growth and nutrition content in a semi-closed environment. I thiink this experiment is pretty similar to the one I suggested.

BTW nice comment concise and easily understandable to the points of the original post.

I fully sympathize with You when I see how people don't understand what You want to say..

I agree that we can put aside consideration who or what has generated surplus CO2, but IMHO there need not be any plants in this experiments, and perhaps must not be! They would use it so we would have to replenish it continuously, and this is self regulative process as plants leaves would grow bigger and be more capable to convert CO2 by photosynthesis with increase of CO2 content.

I would say we need just two (or more) hermetically sealed glass houses without any plants inside, and fill one with ordinary air or with at least mountain air, and other with increased content of CO2 (if there are several glass houses, then each can have different CO2 percentage), and set in each one calibrated thermometer.

Under same weather conditions, which are indentical if it is all grouped together, glass house(s) with increased CO2 content should have higher temperature inside, I would say.... at least if theory of increased CO2 content is responsible for heating of atmosphere, no?

Such experiment need not cost much, and perhaps big bellied vine bottles could be used, if that volume is big enough. But then, if air inside glass house is warm, proportional amount of energy is lost by convection, therefore we would have to have double walled bottles with vacuum between walls to prevent losing accumulated energy :-((

But then, I think I have read someplace that someone proposed raising vegetables in glass houses with increased CO2 and that then it would need much less or no heating in winter time......

That would be proof enough to me that CO2 in atmosphere cause preclusion of IR radiation back into space during the night.....

What interest me is how much more CO2 % is necessary to raise temperature for 1 C, and which frequencies of IR radiation are captivated by CO2....

It would be best if all frequencies are usable, as we could use this effect to maximize heat in heat collectors like passive double parabolic troughs that focus sunlight on pipes in focus, as surely some part of collected energy is irradiated as heat into environment........ Of course, double walls and vacuum between would be required too.

That way I would propose we use cause of Global warming to collect more energy from Sun and indirectly lessen production of CO2 by burning less fossil fuels :-))

I hope nobody has think about it before, so perhaps I could patent it or at least get Nobel prize :-))

Umm, the capacity of a variety of gases to absorb energy and translate it a portion of the energy to heat rather than reradiating it is already well studied and well understood (it is a simple experiment). Why would you bother repeating decades old work. Additionally, the study of plants in CO2 enriched environments is well known also, even the eficiencies of the different CO2 absorption metabolic pathways are pretty well known, they can identify the CO2 concentrations at which each pathways dominantes, such that we know older species such as grasses using a C3 pathway perform better in higher CO2 environments, while modern broad leaf plants with C4 perform better in lower CO2 environments. I would be surprised to find Cal Tech doing any plant studies, Maybe Cal Poly or Davis, or even Berkeley as they were the leading ag research university in california before Cal Poly and Davis.

Then, if this is all known, I guess there is no doubt that surplus CO2 causes Global warming? I tried to find such data on WEB, but without success......

I used plant absorption of CO2 as argument against their use in proposed greenhouse experiment that were conceived as test for influence of higher CO2 content on warming air....

Last of all, I referred to use of plants to remove CO2 by photosynthesis to produce more food...... I invented cheap Solar power plants that can work 24/7 and therefore produce cheap electricity. With another invention of water condensation devices, that use electricity only, water could be supplied in quantity sufficient to irrigate fields with crops, which would surely make lot of land with insufficient rainfall fertile, and so much more plants could be raised and grown. Plants would turn CO2 into sugars and cellulose using Sunlight and water, and even common grass could be used for grazing of cattle that would feed people indirectly.......

But, we are going astray from question asked by original poster, and I think that Mr. Vicini knows of process how to break CO2 into C an O2, so he has to explain this in more detail, even if it cause loss of energy :-)

To answer your remarks, plant metabolism, much like animal metabolism at a cellular level is very well understood. As are plants cpapacity to absorb CO2. The issues arise when you drift out of the closed environment studies and the scientific endeavors in biochemistry, into things like ecological/ecosystem biology. Consider we know very well how a specific animal cell behaves and functions, but this does not extrapolate out to the to provide a good understanding of the behaviors, activities and functions of all animal life on the planet. With plants we do not accurate understand the numbers and sizes of specific plant species, let alone the proportions of CO2 active tissues (like some cells of leaves). This is the complexity of the system. Additionally, plants only represent a short term sequestration that recycles CO2 and methane in to the atmosphere as tissues die and decompose, not a long term sink like limestone or dolomite. We can not accurately measure the environment senstive formation of these long term sinks like the formation of limestone/dolostone/calcareous claystone/etc. Then there is the measurement of the heat sensitive sequestration of CO2 in the oceans and waters of the planet. So while we have a very good understanding of the reaction of calcium (aq) and CO2(g), in relation to temperatures, ionic strength, partial pressures, etc., we do not have a accurate measure of all these variables at every point on the planet,or even a significant number of points (at a scientific level of confidence) on the planet.

Regarding scubbing CO2 to produce food, this is an accelerated decay that must be considered. By eating plants, we accelerate the decay and many times the decay gases produce have a higher CO2 equivalence for global warming than CO2 (e.g. methane). Also, since i work with the design of water treatment systems, I can tell you almost all water treatment devices work on electricity (no other energy source used directly). These devices tend to use a lot of electricity to overcome thermodynamics. They are really expensive. Not only are they not worth using for cattle, frequently the electricity and maintenance cost alone make them too expensive to justify using for production of human comsumable water resources.

Hi, RCE!

I am sorry to say English is not my native language so perhaps that is why I write one thing and You understand something different.

I hope we agree that plants use CO2, some more and some less.......Therefore, more plants is better than no plants, specially if they are food plants, as this would feed more hungry people, OK?

In countries with insufficient rainfall, and unfortunately there is day by day more of such because of Global warming, all we need to grow plants is watering crops as there is land and sunshine.... I hope You agree?

For reclaiming drinkable water from scrubbed waste water we could use passive Solar Stills, for which we need no electricity. Cleaned waste water could be used to water crops trough some system that would distribute it on large area.

My water condensation devices are different from other such devices because they don't use compressors and refrigeration gases, nor they need ventilators to force air trough coils for cooling. That is why I told they use just electricity, and not much of it compared to 65 KWh that for instance 5000 l units from WATEREX spend.

If we cannot be sure which plants to grow in some area, then we use Occam's razor and find plants that are native crops there, no?

In regard to waste water cleaning devices, I have seen some in my country, and they advertise very low power consumption. See at www.menkbeton.hr

A couple of things to note. 1) for most people, much like all animals, more avaiable food and resources just means population explosion, a good example of this are the black rats in east india where the population explodes every 48 uears when the bamboo forest start fruiting en masse. So more plants is not necessarily a good thing, nor is it necessarily prudent in places where the environmental is sensitive to added water, like deserts. You can actually severely exacerbate a environmental condition into becoming more unsuitable, and severely disrupt a very delicate and sensitive environment.

2)Global warming doesn't actually mean a decline in rainfall necessarily, what it means is a decline in rainfall in some areas and and increase in rainfall in other areas. The deserts fringes of tropical rainforest could become revegetated, while the more moderate temperate zones above 30 degrees could become drier. snow would fall at high elevations and latitudes, but rainfall would occur instead. Flash flooding in the early spring would occur in some areas, and less major flooding do to snow melt in the early summer would occur in other areas. A shotage of water has leess to do with climate change than overpopulation of those areas where there are limited resources, climate change could just exacerbate those conditions in some areas (or alternately it could also improve conditions).

3)You do not have to reclaim waste water through distillation to utilize it on crops. In many places for non human consumption crops primary treatment is all you would do, and maybe limited tertiary treatment to remove bacteria (disinfection) for human consumable crops in the strictest first world countries.

4) distillation is not a sole solution to reclaiming potable water from wastewater, as many organic waste water components will just distill out with the water, and possibly even concentrate more than in the wastewater stream. However, admittedly this level of treatment above distillation or RO is primarily associated with 1st world societies.

The idea of solar distilation seems like a good idea, but i would look at something else where you could recover a other high value resource from the process. I have always considered desalination, since we currently use solar energy to evaporate water from the salt for table salt, and why not recover the evaporated water and use it. This is a industry where they have vast amounts of shoreline they must acquire and devote to the recovery of salt from sea water already, so there is not much additional land acquisition or impacts due to also recovering the water we separated out from the salt. The question is rally how do we do this effectively.

Dear RCE,

Living in US perhaps make You unable to even imagine that people are starving to death in poorer countries of the world, specially in Africa, and mostly because there is lack of water for growing food.... Same in Mexico, India, and many other countries.

Even in my country dry season means poor harvest and therefore little and expensive food.

Yes, I am aware of ecological implications but first step should be to return state that was before global warming start, and there should be use of native fruits and other food plants in each area, as even with my devices there would not be floods of water suddenly, but systems for watering >>drop by drop<< should be used.

In regard to Golbal Warming, please wisit WEB Pages of US former Vice President Al Gore and see evidence of dryups. Biggest lake in Africa has shrink to 1/3 or less of its former size, so tribes living around has to migrate somewhere else, but deserts are spreading and steppas and savanas are mostly dry grass. Australia has also recently suffered one of greatest fires ever known there, because of dry vegetation that burn like gunpowder. I agree that because of Global warming there could be more snowfall and rainfall in areas where it falls normaly, but too much rainfall brings floods and mudslids, too much snow avalanches, as recently happened in Switzerland where two whole vilages were wipe off ground......

Therefore IMHO, it is past time to do all we can to stop and reverse Global Warming process, as for instance in India sea has risen 3 times faster than predicted, and salty water during tide mix with water of Ganges far inland, threatening to spill salty water into rice fields, and rice cannot grow in salty water so their basic food production is threatened.....

I agree that for watering crops there is no need to scrub too much waste water, if watering would go underground, but this same water would go deeper into ground and spoil water wells that are still used in many places, even for big cities like my home town and capitol of my country........

As Englisman say: >>One ounce of prevention is more valuable than pound of cure<< so we had to do our best to return as clean water to environment.

In regard to Salt farms or factories, You are right, and I allready proposed system for production of potable water using Solar stills that could has as byproduct salt, if sea water is used as water resource. Process could also be continous as series of basins could be used where gradually more concentrated salt water is produced, to be dried in the final stages dry. If glass domes are installed over basins, allmost all water could be catched, and vater vapour could be cooled in deeper sea water as there is difference of 13 degrees or more just few meters under sea surface... Using >>Law of connected vessels<< where water tend to seek same level in two vessels conected by pipe full of water even if this pipe go high up from one vessel and end in another, process can be made automatic in naturall way, all is nedeed is vacuum pump on highest point of conecting pipe, and this pump need to work seldom or just once if water level is maintained above ends of pipe and there is good ventil preventing air to come into pipes.......

It probablly is poly or davis, being a Canuck, I'm not very familiar with US universities but I was on thre right coast.

What I do recall from the tv show, daily planet many months ago, was the person was experimenting with the effects of high CO2 concentrations on plant nutrients with a side research for food production on manned space flights.

RCE could you post the web site(s) that have the absorption paths please ? I have been looking for CO2 absorption by plant and have only found by forest and large groups of varied plants.

Thanks.

Actually these are CO2 photosythesis metabolic pathways. It would be in almost any plant metabolism text.

-->It would be in almost any plant metabolism text.

Now that figures, I didn't look for the easy answer. Thanks.

I see you saw the show about the black rats, I enjoyed it myself. Like Global warming, until you have picture proof there are more nay sayers than yea sayers.

Wouldn't the size of the container need to be much larger, on the order of house sized, to get an easily measurable heat change with minimal, acceptable, error limits?

This depend on how strong effect is actually. I would say that this depend on precision of thermometer, as same percentage of CO2 should have same effect on raising temperature, provided that it is kind of thermos bottle, so outside temperature cannot reach air inside. But then, same quantity of external heat would reach both bottles or houses if they are identical, so this also should not be important..... It is more likely that one house would get sunshine while other can be under shadow of cloud then if it is two bottles in question, but this are random and fast passing events. But if we use IR lamp, that is ruled out also. So, question is only, can we measure it or not. Remember that we don't measure quantity of heat retained, just difference in temperature, therefore volume of air under observation is not relevant, IMHO...

Some time ago I have spoken to a group of people who have claimed that they have secured rights to the all of the CO2 produced by one coal fired power plant for the exclusive use in green algae production process. At that time I was impressed by that novel way of utilisation of CO2 for industrial process from business (not environmental) perspective. I believe that the best way of reducing CO2 emissions is to find a industrial process that uses CO2, in that way economic/business principles will result in positive environmental impact (instead other way around). I'm not sure what is the cost of converting coal into pure carbon but i doubt that it is as simple as burning coal.

There are microPLANTs and MICROanimals --microbes, using CO2 for food ,i.e carbohydrate and in the process liberate PLENTY of CO2. in the category of ANAROBIC microorganism involving BIOTECH. Commercial and environmental can both benefit.

There are microPLANTs and MICROanimals --microbes, using CO2 for food ,i.e carbohydrate and in the process liberate PLENTY of OXYGEN (rectified). in the category of ANAROBIC microorganism involving BIOTECH. Commercial and environmental can both benefit.

Actually only plants and cyanobacteria can utilize carbon dioxide as a carbon source in their photosynthesis processes, no animals.

I suspect that "pure carbon" would be powder and quite explosive compared to coal. Might be difficult to feed as well. Could compress to feedable pellets for handling.

I suspect it would be either graphite or diamond.

Wouldn't it be COKE as used in the production of steel?

Coke is not pure carbon.

I saw that show as well and they admitted that once the algae has produced it's biofuel it is then used for fertilizer or heating and releases the majority of the CO2 it removed. The process is good for short term capture and creation of cleaner fuels but it needs to do more with the waste algae to utilize the captured CO2 better.

I aggree with mikespike, We have to work on a process that takes the co2 from atmosphere makes something else, which in turn used for business purposes. This way everybody will jumop into this and environmental issue also is solved.

I was just wondering if there is any plant that grows only by using co2, and maybe that plant could be in trn utilized for business purposes. Even if it does not make sense for businesses, I am sure governments, charities, etc. will chip in the process.

All plants use CO2 like every human use oxygen. It is the rate, the amount used (by the plant) and O2 thus produced proportionately. PLANTS. PLANTS: imagine the world cooling,fresh air, beautiful leaves and flowers, sweet fragrant fruits ....

I'm imagining world as described by yourself and it is looking great.

However photosynthesis is not the only way to get rid of CO2, it might be most natural way but it is painstakingly slow at it.

The biggest producers of CO2 worldwide is industry, especially power generation and mineral processing industries. Therefore lets use CO2 at the production source as a input commodity for a different process and if along the way we can gain some pure carbon/graphite for use in carbon fibers, carbon nanotubes, carbon black paint materials etc. so then so be it.

it can not be done that way. the energy level of CO2 is at it lowest. The universe is seeking the lowest energy level and the most random state, thats all there is.

Actually plant respire just like humans do, using oxgen in the same metabolic pathways. Plant just have an additional pathway that generated oxygen from CO2 and captures the carbon for use in carbohydrate production that is driven by solar energy. So at night plant are still respiring (using oxygen for aerobic energy), but not photosythesizing oxygen. Plants need oxygen to breathe, they are not anaerobic species. They just also need CO2 + Solar energy to create energy stores. Also, plants do not actually cool theworld, they burn carbohydrate like all higher life forms, and this always generates heat (exothermic reaction). The net reduction in stored thermal energy trapped in the atmosphere comes from a reduction of the CO2 in the atmosphere (or other molecules that more efficiently trap the heat than that would normally radiate to space our current mixture of gases).

How about starting tomorrow? What better way to declare your INDEPENDENCE than by helping yourself to some fresher air?!?

28 billion new trees in China and India, who pays for this venture I wonder (fully productive sized trees are not cheap) the sierra club, the chinese government? How do you stop all the poor starving people from just cutting them down to burn for fire wood? Also i am not sure how much fresher the air would be with the pollen from those 28 billion new trees. How do you count the trees that already exist in a country? Do you count each tree in a country and subtract it from the total that country owes. What if trees have not existed in that area for a very long time ( e.g. Mali)? How about places that have harvested much of the trees they did have a growing historically? much of the east coast of US was solid forest, now Cities, or italy, or even France, England, Germany and India. So i guess it also depends on how long the time line is to look back at the historical tree population of a country. Maybe there are tree credits that you can transfer, such that you do not have the capability of growing additional trees, so you sponsor trees in another contry that does have extra capacity, "buy a tree". Actually, I like that idea, much of the west coast have the environment to grow trees and land still available, relatively low population densities, we could have india sponsor the redwood forests of northern california. I would assume of course that the tree allocations would be on a state basis in the US, so each state is responsible for its own trees (not so good for the east coast and midwest states). I wonder how much you charge the indians, italians, or sudanese to manage and protect the trees they sponsor? this could be hugely profitable for Brazil, the US, Canada, Russia and Congo. I wonder what species and growth stage would we use as the standard measure?and under what environmental conditions (as we all obviously know, temperature, available sunlight and weather all effect photosythesis)? Would it be like we equate various plants to say net oxygen production the typical 50 year old valley live oak in may in sacramento as the standard, and call these Oxygen Equivalent Units.

How about agriculture, could you sponsor a field of broccoli, that produces a net gain of oxygen and food also? Could you get oxygen credits for agricultural crop production? of course then you need to adjust the credits for the number of days per year you have a field in oxygen production. Of course i guess this would probably be viewed as unfair to the overpopulated and/or poorer countries and states, where they don't have the land, environment, finances, or other factors needed to produce enough oxygen to offset their populations. I suspect it would be popular with Brazil though. It could lead another world war maybe, the plant to population ratio wealthy countries like US, Canada, Brazil, Congo, Sweden, Norway, Finland,and Russia, in defense against the countries of western and southern Europe, saharan Africa, India, Pakistan and the middle east. I don't know where China would weigh in the fray, they have a lot of plants and agriculture, but also have a enormous population

This is a fine notion.

Now, how much will it cost to place a security gaurd in front of every tree to keep them upright?

Hmm, after seing what they have to do in the Congo just to stop tree poachers from harvesting trees to make charcoal, they use military armed forces of park rangers, i suspect security guards might not be sufficient. I tmight be something for the armed forces to do rather than policing the rest of the world, or fighting , they guard trees from tree poachers.

ooh I like it. WE could put opposing armies on each end of the forest. 2 birds with one stone....

This is exactlt what biotechnology is doing. Biosynthesis of organic waste like corn/wheat/wood.etc after harvest and factory processing . Plently of microorganism are anaerobic(great affininity for CO2) in the process of making CARBOHYDRAE for their own survival and produce plenty of OXYGEN. Those who are interested , just browse the internet for topic BIOSYNTESIS.

USELESS SHOULD NOT BE THE WORD IN DICTIONARY, NO THING IS USELESS SHOW ME WHICH IS USELESS AND I CAN TELL YOU I HAS STILL SOME USE--mY ENGLISH TEACHER TOLD THE CLASS.

I do not know of any anaerobes that produce carbohydrates from CO₂. Methanogenisis uses carbohydrates and other biological carbon compounds to produce methane, same for alcohol production. Photosythesis, is a side metabolic pathway conducted in aerobic species. Also, Anaerobes don't actually have an affinity for CO2, they just do not necessarily need O2 as a component in their metabolism. thuis they survive in O2 depleted environments.

>I was just wondering if there is any plant that grows only by using co2<

It's not a plant but there is a bacteria that does use CO2 and Light to make O2. I believe it is called a cyanobacteria and is the genetic relative of photosynthesis plants and organisms on this world.

I think Discovery Channel had a show on this and they mentioned this bacteria is what made the earth habitable for various micro organisms which in turn ended up being what exists today.

Cyanobacteria are the predecessors of all plants, they are aerobic also. Thus they must have oxygen to live also, photosythesis for them is a side metabolic process that only functions when they have available light (however, they must always use oxygen to survive). Additionally, cyanobacteria need many of the same nutrients for growth and survival that plants need. Chemotropic bacteria and archaea survive by redox reactions of various higher energy minerals that the obtain energy through tthe redox process by transforming the mineral to a lower energy state.

Mr. Mikespike, First of all, You should state problem clearly! It seems to me that here our coleagues are not sure what You want....... It is easier to find good use for CO2 then to get Carbon and Oxigen from it, which is expensive and ask for more energy than somebody get from burning something and producing it. On the other hand, we have lot of still unused Solar energy comming our way for free, and as several answers show is way that plants break CO2 and use water to form hydrocarbonates such as sugars and celulose (which is sugar of another kind). Plants grow aboundantly in high CO2 environment, but there is allways balance: more CO2 is transformed (with release of Oxigen), less remains for plants to use, more Oxigen in the air, more easyly things burn and this produces new CO2. Animals and people eat plants and oxidize sugars, >>burning<< it in muscles and exhale CO2. I dont know what You would do with pure Carbon and Oxigen, short of burning it and so geting energy and new CO2? Plan to make diamonds? Anyway, since Algas also use CO2 like any other plant, just dont need ground to grow, it would be possible to make food for grass eating animals like cattle, pigs or others...... Problem with Algas is that most of them are producing poisons also, to defend themself from animals that would ate them, but with Genetic Engineering it should be simple enough to make Alga without poison production, even such that would grow faster.... Then all we would need is to have long glass pipes half filled with water and open to sunlight, with CO2 chaneled from some source where it is man made, and system of harvesting Algas to serve them to animals in addition to grass, for instance :-) With little more imagination we could make food for people directly by procesing algas (like Chlorella) and making cakes. Algae was used on Nuclear Submarines to produce oxigen and remove CO2, and I read that they got over 4 kg of algae per day in 200l tank, using UV lightbulbs. If this glass cilinders are made with micropores, then gases could go in and out from surounding atmosphere while water remains inside. That would not be so CO2 rich atmosphere, but pure CO2 is deadly and anyone working in there would have to wear breathing equipment, so this would be one problem less........ However, plants need some microelements also if they are supposed to produce vitamins and fats also, but this could be artificially supplied.

I planned such devices that would come handy for emergency food production, and they would condensate water from air so they could work even in desert places, and with Solar Power Plants there is all one need to make food, even 24 hours per day as UV lamps could be put inside to promote growth even in the night..... Unfortunately, I did not find anybody interested in my ideas enough to finance making of prototypes, so I cannot show it is doable on large scale. Even my water condensation devices, powered by Solar Power Plants could bring life to arid and desert places, thus turning them into meadows and forrests at least or orchards and agriculturall land at best, and thus get rid of surplus CO2 from atmosphere while feeding about bilion chronicaly hungry and periodically starwing people of our world.......

Otherwise, we could USE CO2 to get more electricity from Sunlight, as if it keeps IR radiation from escaping from hot surfaces, then this way heating would be augumented and surfaces on which light is concentrated would be also protected from oxidation, unless lot of UV could break CO2, and then You would get pure Carbon and Oxigen :-))

Mikespike:

About 40 years ago, I did an electronics study for a manned Mars mission. The environmental people were working with a whole different approach. Check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosch_reaction

The mission was never flown, but the ideas are still around.

Best regards.

DickL

Right!

If it is that You want to get carbon and oxigen, AND have some methan to burn, too!

WHAT U MENTIONED ABOUT THE SYSTHESIS OF FOOD AND ENVIRNMENT UPKEEPING IS very GOOD AND FEASIBLE AS I LOOK AT IT, IT IS BECAUSE SOME HAVE CAUTHT THE IDEA AND already MARKETTING IT AS HEALTH SUPPLEMENT.

By the way, it is my suggestion: you need a continuous mixer, some nutrient as you mentioned microfood(it can be non toxic waste contains sulfate, nitrate and chloride compound) and remove/exhaust the OXYGEN (the poison gas or rather obnoxious gas is likely ammnonia and sulfhur dioxide also present in the waste), this will INHIBIT the growth of such bacteria(having affinity for CO2 and less for OXYGEN which is also required for its own normal respiration). Monitor the pH of nurtient medium.The final part is FILTRATION AND PURIFICATION of the algae.

A wONDERFUL PROJECT!

Anyway we are deliberating on the CHEMICAL METHOD OF USING CO2 for CARBON . As to derive CARBON(probably just to make diamond, then it is thought exhausting ) ,I think just for graphite and carbon black, a better and easier substitute may not be too hard to arrive at., which will revolutionise the independent of such substance IN CASE the world is short of it. Nevertheless we are aware this is A COMMERCIAL interest, no harm get into academic interest,; may not be viable now yet one day somebody can make miracle out the idea.

I find a lot of talented and kind people here. Thank to the webmaster for putting all of us together(to open the mind). log off now.

ammonia is a direct source of nitrogen for protein sythesis in cells. It is only toxic because cells can uptake so much of it and it is very reactive. You can actually inject ammonia directly into plant roots zones as fertilizer. As with all fertilizers you need to control the concentrations, or you create a nutritional imbalance, or poison the organism. While chloride is not particularly necessary, you will want a lot of phosphates, and some metals like calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron, etc. Though most of these agents are available in the environment in abundance, including natural waters (though iron is limited in sea water and phosphates are limited in most natural fresh waters). The toxic agents that are problematic are heavy metals, like lead and mercury.

With out stretching to much from 1942 technology , the European guys during a fuel shortage were driving their cars and trucks on "wood gas".

http://www.windward.org/notes/notes63/wal63_b.htm. I will save the typing time and let you guys read and understand. I just hope y'all don't get any crazy ideas and smash my stills to get parts for your gasifier.

Thanks for the link, I have been in favor of utilizing wood and low grade coals this way for a long time, but never taken the effort to look for such a site. Shame on me.

Kudos indeed. Links like that are what keep me coming back!

Damnit....it's your fault. You and those like you that I am STILL here!

Here's a web site of a scientist that invented a artificial tree that collect co2 the same way a real tree does.

http://www.nae.edu/nae/pubundcom.nsf/weblinks/CGOZ-6YVSPP?OpenDocument

Or we could just maybe plant more trees?

That man is not thinking properly! Disposing captured CO2 underground or on sea bottom? If by adding water and using Sabatier reaction in catalyst process we can get Methane, then we could run cars on it, too! Perhaps also in the cars CO2 could be captured and turned into Methane, and perhaps water reused, too? That would be not small unit so perehaps fit only for big wehicles, but nevertheless it would recycle even CO2........

you think incorrectly, the sabatier process uses H2, where do we get H2, from methane, the process then makes methane we burn to get H2 to add to CO2 to get methane. If you set the machine up, it would stop in 8 cycles with no net output of energy.

According to Wikipedia,

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2H₂O → O₂ + 2H₂ → (respiration) → CO₂ + 2H₂ + 2H₂ (added) → 2H₂O + CH₄ (discarded)

The loop could be completely closed if the waste methane was simply pyrolyzed into its component parts:

CH₄ + heat → C + 2H₂

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Therefore, process start with water that could be electroliticaly broken to O2 and 2H2, where Oxigen could be used to sustain fuel burning, with produced methane added to fuel by piping it back, and if car is working on gas anyway, methane could be compresed and put back in reservoir for fuel. Resulting water and CO2 should ce recycled (as CO2 is processed anyway, this is not an adition to process).......

So where is mistake in logic of my explanation, please? There are some ways to electrolyse water by using catalists, but electricity is also produced in a car anyway so this is existing to be used allready, question is just how fast it could be done, and it could be fastened by using bigger or more numerous electrodes, no?

Now, I did not tell it would be 100% recycling, so some water would be lost as well as some CO2, and fuel would be spent, of course, but with some savings and most importantly with much less CO2 going to environment.......

You did not think I proposed Perpetum Mobile?

Of course, waste CO2 could also be used for producing of electricity, and in some cases system could be setup to produce pure Carbon, as originally intended in this question.........

That would be specially practicall in steel production where big quantities of coal is burned, as heat for necesary pirolyse is allready present, and we could reuse 2H2 released to process more CO2 while getting pure Carbon as end product........

Anyhow, methane produced could be used in fertilizer production, too!

I would however vote for producing food from vaste CO2, as in my previous answers!

you have the mass balaance equations, but you need the energy balance. The enegy balance would require twice as much input as you get out. There is NO FREE ELECTRICITY in a car, the gasoline engine makes all the electricity. To get enough H2 out of water to make 10 HP of H2 as fuel would require you runa 22 HP engine driving a generator.

And thus a net (approximate) loss of 12 HP. So this would make sense only if there was a sufficient reason (or "making good things happen") to the removal of CO₂ and generation of H₂ for the investment to, shall we say, "pale in insignificance" from the added energy requirements. I remain to be convinced that enough good things would/could happen. I AM convinced, though, that we need to stop using petroleum as fuel. It's far too valuable for other things for that to be sensible. Unfortunately, it is the only practical offer on the table of energy density and portability today. Sad, but true. O fuel cell, wherefore art thou?

take your beliefs and then push for Nuclear and greater use of electricity. Solar in VERY limited places and wind in others. Kick out the groups that won't allow Nuclear and/or building powerlines across the desert to get the wind/solar to the people.

Fuel cells work great in outer space, on earth, just use the energy directly and not go throught the H2 phase which wastes energy.

Ah, you're preaching to the choir here! Yeah, direct utilization of solar input works for me!

umm, actually i think he is promoting nuclear predominantly with limited solar and wind power supporting the nuclear power.

How do You reccon that Solar energy could be produce in very LIMITED places? Do You know that about 20% of this planet groundmass has deserts and at least 10% more sub desert climate? So, surely there is lot of sunshine out there, waiting to be used...... Also, somebody calculated that common house roof receive enough energy from sun to enable house inhabitants to have more electricity then they could use?

So, I would say that Sunpower should be PRIMARY source of energy, and there is more than enough to substitute all gasoline used by electric cars.....

Of course there are Thorium reactors that would reuse Plutonium produced in ordinary Atomic power plants, then there is project Tokamak for controled fusion and so on....

But atomics have their own hazards and waste products, while Sunpower has none...

Don't forget the land of the midnight sun. Ok so six months of the year they are in night but six months they are not.

In the long night one could always use a Sterling Engine to generate some electricity. ( a Sterling Engine is a differential heat engine ).