Storing CO2 as Dry Ice?

And prevent it returning to the environment to cause havoc?

Like nuclear waste?

I am now aware of Sir Richard Branson's offer.

However storage of CO2 as Dry Ice is possible only if the temperature of the storage area is low enough to maintain it in that form.

Also transportation in this form may cause a problem because of the low temperature to be maintained. This will make it uneconomical.

Actually, there is a better a more economical way of sequestering CO2 from the athmosphere, It is already being tried in several places. It is an algie that absorbs the CO2 and produces Diesel fuel as a bi-product, they are already developing plans to put this kind of farms in high solar flux places (Deserts).

The algie grows inside circulating liquid (water) that flows through transparent tubes, The CO2 is pumped into the circulating water, the algie grabs the CO2 and the sun,and start multiplying like crazy, when saturation occurs you remove the algie and process it recovering the fuel.

Forget about storing the CO2. The costs would be astronomical. ZAZA4915 seems to have the answer. What is the name of this alge?

To answer the last question first, yes--as anyone who has run for the icecream truck/cart knows. But, the notion of building an insulated container or containers the volume of, say, an ocean is a bit farfetched. Dilettante Branson's so called prize merits no more consideraton than as one might give to other Hollywood types who, for exposure and for adoration by the undiscriminating, espouse causes about which they know little or nothing--except what their agents tell them.. Or, if one charitably grants that the good Sir is better informed and less naive than he seems, one must conclude that the prize is nothing more than a publicity stunt--by one who knows, or whose servants have informed him, that the prize will never need to be paid, in the lifetime of himself, or of his heirs for generations untold.

In other words, having received the title, he evidently now feels he must live up to it--so long as it doesn't cost anything to himself. Call it: immortality on the cheap? Or just another way to get invited to more parties?

Why would you want to store co2 when co2 is good for earth and has little to no effect on temperature at saturation levels we are now at?

This seems to indicate that Gore and Branson are totally incompetent as thinkers in science and cannot tell the difference between h2o and co2 in the absorption spectrum, or the central cause of warming.

Just offering such a prize destroys any ounce of credibility they might have had, as anyone with even a high school education level would know that capturing co2 is a total waste of time and money.

Notice in his "prize" that you have to capture a billion pounds of co2. You might earn more selling the power needed to do this to a utility than the prize is worth! He also will only pay out 20% and you may get the other 80% in ten years, depending on how they "feel" about it. A good rate of return would yield that on 5 million doing land development. In other words the present value of the prize is worth much less than $25 million, as a function of the ROI. This all sounds like snake oil sales, not prize money for cutting edge technology that would be required to do such an impossible task.

co2 can be good and bad for the earth, but it is even more bad for the ozone layer for the cause of putting holes in it. which is now a revelant cause to clobal warming. which in the future climate and storms will indeed increase. we don't need to get rid of the carbon dioxide we just need to reduce it. so what would be a plan for that.

kerry,

"co2 can be good and bad for the earth, but it is even more bad for the ozone layer for the cause of putting holes in it. which is now a revelant cause to clobal warming."

I think you are a bit confused: The holes in the ozone layer are neither the result of CO₂, nor have anything to do with global warming.

"one must conclude that the prize is nothing more than a publicity stunt--by one who knows, or whose servants have informed him, that the prize will never need to be paid, in the lifetime of himself, or of his heirs for generations untold"

Clockmaker John Harrison had a similar problem in devising a scheme for accurate clocks in pursuit of the reduction in devastation of shipping for want of knowing where exactly on this spheroid they were. Eventually, after a lifetime's work, he won the prize.

Read "Longitude" by Dava Sobel for more information.

Thank you for the apparent reproof; but, may I venture to say, it seems to have as its basis a false comparison. The quest to measure longitude--albeit that, arguably, it might have been hastened by the reward offered...was greatly protracted because of the attempts to refine and use pendulum regulated clockworks...until it was found that (at the time) only a spring-driven watch movement could serve the purpose on a pitching, rolling ship. In both cases both the discovery and the invention already existed, and attempts to improve shipboard pendulum clocks only forestalled refinement of the watch movement to the necessary degree of accuracy necessary for pin-point maritime navigation.

The comparison, however, would seem to suggest that there already exists an invention (and the discovery underlying that invention) for permanently "removing" atmospheric CO₂--when, in fact, the underlying discovery might not as yet exist, and the invention does not exist which, as with the chronometer, could be refined to a point at which the CO₂ prize might be won--or even a small share of the prize, for that matter!

In a separate vein, the possible difference of motivation between the Royal Prize of sailing days, and the Branson Prize today, has not as yet been mentioned here. Your description of the commercial benefits of precise global position plotting to prevent catastrophe would stand in stark contrast with a possible motivation behind the Branson offer: a motivation to capture, develop, and patent--and thereafter privately profit by--any invention which the prize might attract; even if the prize itself was never awarded, and even if the ostensible objective stated for the prize was never realized. So, since words are cheap, one must ask whom it really is that Sir Branson actually envisions as ultimately funding the prize. A different kind of cunning, it might be said, as between the reasoning behind each of the two prize offers.

Longitude was a great book. Kind of a sad story considering how hard it was for him to collect his prize.

Guest - have you created an airline AND a record company?

I suspect not. Unless you have, I suggest that you grant Sir Richard Branson a little more respect than "if one charitably grants that the good Sir is better informed..."

Did Kennedy know that we could put a man on the moon in 10 years? No. And his advisors said it was impossible. Thirty years ago (1976) the microchip was just evolving - and 1k RAM was huge. Did anybody then know that PCs with 1GB main memory, and 120GB hard drives, could even exist? I very much doubt it.

So please don't go saying that Branson's prize merits "no more consideraton than as one might give to other Hollywood types". And, as for people knowing little or nothing about a subject - how much do you know about what Richard Branson knows? Little or nothing, I suspect.

I recommend that you keep your mouth shut unless you have something to say that might actually make a contribution.

have enough money to start an airline or record company? No, but thank you for making my point so well: Good publcity--as anyone selling recordings knows--only succeeds where there are enough willing to be hoodwinked.

Did Kennedy know? Yes

The advisors part?....made up.

Micro chip just evolving? yes, before and has been ever since.

1kb ram was huge? How about tiny....See what I mean about thinking it through clearly?

Did anyone know...? Try: did everyone know? (more clear thinking don't you see).

Did anyone know that very tiny hard drives...? Yes. Or they would never have been "invented."

You suspect somewhat foolishly: because Sir Branson demonstrates clearly what he does and does not know; and how money compensates for either; or assauges or aggrandizes in their place.

I agree with the whole publicity stunt idea. It is completely ludicrous to even attempt a feat like that, not for the reason that its impossible, but because its not the right way of approaching the problem. That is what has always agitated me about mankind as a whole. We are always creating waste, and instead of finding an economic way to either cut down on the waste or use if for something useful, we figure will just gather it all up and store it in someone's backyard. Why in the world would we filter out the carbon dioxide and store it somewhere (dry ice, underground, etc)??? Let nature handle that... it's a pro! What we need to do is work on alternative fuels for power that do not create economic toxins in the creation and burning of the fuel in question (or at a very minimum). This 25 million dollar prize should be for someone who can cut energy use by x amount while still maintaining efficiency. Additionally, we need to reserve more land for forests. Why would we filter out CO2 when trees will do it for us AND resupply oxygen in its place? Our oxygen levels are low enough as it is, that should be as important if not more than CO2 levels. If Sir Branson and Gore want to filter out 1 billion tons of CO2 each year, then they need to set aside land for roughly 42 billion trees (which can filter roughly 48 lbs of CO2 per year) that wouldn't be touched. Based on each tree being spaced out 12' x 12' from eachother, that would would be roughly 303 trees per acre... or 137.5 million acres... or 214,865 sq. miles... or roughly the size of France. Someone can double check my math if they wish. So those trees would take care of that amount of CO2, but we cannot stop there because we are still producing more than 1 billion tons of CO2 per year. Thats were energy efficiency and alternative fuels come in. Also, its obvious that we have more trees in the world than just the size of France, but we need to keep it that way. We need to minimize the cutting of trees. One of the most effective and efficient ways of doing this is by converting paper production from trees to hemp. Hemp can produce 4 times the amount of paper per acre as trees, and it grows back every year. You can try and agrue with me on that point, but it would really be a waste of your time. But getting back to the overall point, the prize as already mentioned by others is just publicity stunt and it saddens me. Maybe one day in my lifetime, there will be someone in power that actually steps up and TRIES to do something.... Just a thought!

On the dry ice idea, I agree with PW. The energy cost to first solidify the CO2 and then keep it at that temperature would be astronomical. (And would propably cause even more CO2 from the generation of said energy). Doing the sequestration in this form at places with inherent low temperatures introduces a whole bevy of new problems. How do we get it there? How do we build the necessary machinery and keep it in working order for long enough to actually adress the problem.

On the algae... I wonder if Mr. Branson would have offered that prize if he thought this was a workable solution? And I'll bet he knows full well what the idea is and what it entails. (Even if he has only been informed of this by more informed parties, One doesn't offer that amount of money without knowing the details) Also, There are also other problems connected with most biological processes. The microbes might not be usable in all circumstances, making it only an option in specific areas of the world. Also you have the added problems of keeping the microbes alive and happy. What other products are there of this microbial metabolism of CO2? DO you know the name of the organism?

It's not just the energy cost. It would classify the substance in the same category as nuclear waste - a substance that needs to be isolated from the environment to avoid the chaos that would ensue should it return to it. The prospect of CO₂ terrorism springs to mind. What a horrible thought...

Biological processes involving photosynthesis are a good bet. Algae, trees, corn and sugar crops, etc. and substitute veggie-fuels for dino-fuels. Help Gaia do her job, that sort of thing...

Clean coal powerplants are not a new technology but are very insteresting when dealing with CO2. CO2 is captured underground and can serve as a displacer for extraction of other resources. This technology isn't widely commercialized because of the up-front costs of the system.

Isn't this sequestration, i.e. sweeping the problem under the carpet?

Dear All,

We discussed this subject just over a week ago on another CR4 discussion at http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/1158?frmtrk=cr4sd#newcomments (I put some messages there and I recommend reading it). So in this discussion we found out that storing CO2 is not what we want.

What we want is just a little less CO2 in the atmosphere to get back to the desired temperatures. Back to the values of about 60-80 years ago would be fine I think but the right level should be put forward by climate experts and not by me.

As a matter of fact, we just found out that CO2 has turned from a waste product into a "valuable raw material". It serves as a raw material to make biofuel, with the photosynthesis process. Biofuel can economically be made with algae, without requiring agricultural land (Who knows how badly we will need that in the future). The algae on top of that also reduce NOx during nighttime.

One of the first big investors in this technology is De Beer Company in South Africa that decided to invest over 370 Million US Dollars in Algae ponds to produce biofuel. They are already producing a lot of biofuel from other biological cultures today.

So the idea of storing CO2 should be swept off the table as non-sense.

Was Richard Branson trying to fool us?
Wasn't he aware what algae can do for us?
Or was he not aware of the changed economy around CO2 with photo-bio-reactors?

In any case it is about time that our leaders, including Sir Richard Branson, stop to make us believe that we need solutions (to store CO2 for example). THE REAL SOLUTIONS ALREADY EXIST. WE JUST HAVE TO APPLY THEM. And then we get rid of our bad fossil fuel burning habits.

Pass on this message to your friends, colleages, family etc please.
Maybe one day it will come into the ears of those who can change the energy politics.

While the trees of bygone eras were far underground, they were stored as carbon - and the oxygen they are now bonded to was free in the air. Now that new ways of producing power are with us, albeit in their infancy, perhaps we should be returning this carbon to its previous home?

"Every energy source is renewable. It's just a matter of timescale. With bio-fuels, it is a few tens of years. With fossil fuels, a few tens of millions."

The real problem with this carbon is its separation from its dioxide. Plants are really good at it. What can one learn from them?

I didn't say we should not be growing plants - they are still the most efficient users of CO2 - and at a higher % than humans find comfortable. Some farmers actually buy CO2 to add to their cloches, as this improves the growth levels of the crop - doing this large scale beneath solar panels in arid areas could help in a multitude of ways. The power would need to be used to purify and pump water to the area, but the panels would give shade to allow the plants to grow.

All good and interesting stuff. Bring it on!

That seems to be the only realistic way of removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing; it is one of natures ways isn't it.

You could grow a fast growing plant such a bamboo or elephant grass, harvest it and tip it into mines (underground or open cast either collapsing the overhead or backfilling). There will always be potential problems of the gases from decay and acidifying the strata if not done correctly and the time it takes backfill and open cast mine, so collapsing deep underground mining would be a better option. But in any case you would have an input of resources to grow harvest and store the bio mass.

When the element one you really want is the carbon is it efficient to store all the other components. What about the other substances and basic elements that we would be removing? How about water and nutrients locked in the bio mass, would these be trapped away and not returned to their current natural cycle?

There is also the debate on growing some bio masses for power generation; that they use as much energy to cultivate, harvest and transport as they give back, I wonder if this is partly due the inefficient use of agricultural equipment in the equation, and the unsuitability of the selected bio mass.

As someone stated in an earlier thread, do we really need to remove CO2 from our atmosphere? CO2 is one of the products of burning hydrocarbons. Is the O2 locked into the hydrocarbon? Does my coal fired burner at home continue to burn if I starve it from outside air? So why lock away the oxygen as well, is this not creating another problem.

I do not believe it is efficient or a requirement to scrub carbon from the atmosphere as Branson has suggested. And how do you figure the geophysical release of carbon or CO2 through plate tectonics and geothermal activity? I hear the ringings of PR stunt and need of attention. In that case we should all back the past post suggestion of exhaling in to used crisp packets, and have Branson front the campaign personally, maybe he can use empty virgin cola bottles. There's another polluter for him, his own soft drinks, this just gets better, and I am just waiting for the government to put a green tax on soft drinks.

I was thinking about something much the same - how do we take CO₂ and separate the Oxygen from the Carbon? More to the point - once we have done so, what can we do with the separate parts?

Letting the Oxygen return to the atmosphere seems like a fine idea - as the previous post suggested; with the Carbon - there are many things we could do with a large supply of pure carbon: make artificial diamonds (and put out of business the black market that in part finances terrorism), make nano-tubes - which have some very promising characteristics - or just make a whole lot of pencils.

I'm unfamiliar with and intrigued with the farming of algae for production of bio fuels. However I have to question whether this results in sequestering of excess CO2 in the atmosphere. It seems to me an excellent recycling process but the only sequestered CO2 would be in the current algae "crop".

Having said that chasing Bransons money looks like a fools errand, perpetual care of a massive CO2 graveyard. I think GM1964 has it right. How do we get that genie back in the bottle?

You have four places to put carbon

In the deep (let oil flow into old coal mines for example) or pumping CO2 or hydrocarbons into geological structures; but there is a cost attached. High cost and why bother spending money to get rid of it if on the other hand you courld earn money with it by converting it with algae...

In the atmosphere (as CO2) and that is what we don't want.

On the surface of the earth and keep it there. You then have to put it in a convenient form. Several convenient forms are Reforestation, houses built from wood that would otherwise be built from stone, storage of bio-hydrocarbons (soak-up the sahara with algae oil sounds ridiculous but is an effective method), produce many products from bio-hydrocarbons (plastics, carbon fibers etc...)

Photosynthesis takes up CO2 from the atmosphere and puts it on the surface of the earth., so let's just do that and bring CO2 levels a bit down. Photosynthesis uses sunlight to transform CO2 back to hydrocarbons, be it in plants or in algae, that is the same. But why choose algae? Because they have very high power of conversion when compared to other organisms. Some scientists even made a selection of powerfull CO2 converters out of 3000 algae. Remember the blue-green algae. It will be mentioned again and again in the coming months, years.

Algae is not the only solution
The most beautiful solution is Reforrestation as it brings life
The Best solution is a combination of many solutions

Take care of yourself and the planet

PS Has anybody got Richard Branson's and Al Gore's email addresses? :-)

how about in the oceans and ocean floors?

The notion of sequestering carbon as organic matter in living plants has its virtue: primarily in that the energy required is essentially free. It seems, however, that this notion--especially that of subterranean storage--is essentially tantamount to attempting to recreate the eons long development of fossil fuels. Only problem...to name just two...it that billions of years are not available; and Earth no longer has the atmosphere that formerly existed in the carboniferous and subsequent periods--when, also, many areas currently producing fossil fuels were situated much nearer the tropics. But, even so, that approach would probably best be a part of the solution.

I would offer that subterranean sequestering need not necessarily be prohibitively expensive, especially if it were done in conjunction with fossil fuel mining as it goes on presently and for the future. Consider, for example, the application of mud injection in petroleum extraction--injection which has as its purpose to force petroleum towards the extraction point, thereby increasing well productivity and/or reclaiming wells as they near depletion--and also lessening the need for new exploration and drilling in existing fields. Suppose that the mud presently used also included a slurry which included dead plant matter--matter which would otherwise rot (or be incinerated) and release it's CO2 directly into the atmosphere--which could be pumped into oil wells as production approaches depletion (or even earlier). You would, in effect, be returning organic matter to replace that which was mined; locking it away from the atmosphere; storing it under immense pressure; and, possibly, renewing the fossil fuel resource--all without requiring (quite) the immense passage of time that the original sedimentation, subsidence, and overburdening processes required. Furthermore, you would already have the technologies and techniques, and equipment, and expertise largely in place. Other benefits might also accrue in terms of lessened land subsidence, halted seawater intrusion into groundwater...and the like. Another idea... each year municipalities in the U.S. spend great amounts and considerable effort disposing of organic waste: citizen- and institutionally-produced plant clippings for the most part. Such waste might prove ideal for use as a component in mud injection of oil wells--and could provide a considerable revenue augmentation for municipalities at the same time.

Any comments?

Hey! Great idea! Lets pump all kinds of things down into the vacancies we create in the earth's crust by the removal of oil, natural gas, minerals, whatever!

After all, for the most part, we can't see what's going on down there anyway.

So what harm could it do? And why throw good money after studies to see what may be going on in an empty old mining site? No profit in that.

We could just start with the concrete and mud currently in favour in oil drilling sites, and just add things like ground-up oil barrels, old radioactive waste, wastewater from sewage treatment plants, toxic chemicals that have been banned and need dumping...the list is endless.

The entire idea is a stroke of genius!

NOT

Mark

What came out of old coal mines was basically plant remains which had been hidden far beneath the surface, and treated (naturally) by heat and pressure to become coal.

The suggestion that plant matter would be a much better substitute than gas, concrete, toxic waste, etc. would seem to have merit, as the oxygen from CO₂ could be returned to the atmosphere, and the plant matter would be in an ideal place to be naturally turned to coal - even if it would take many thousands of years.

OK. Just think about all the ramifications of stocking putrifaction material in old mines, and overcome each one of them before trying it out.

Mark

What I was thinking, is not to recycle things at or above the aquifers, but far below it...where putrifaction is not such an onerous word for spent fossil fuel, or decaying organic matter...which, after all, is what came from those spaces originally, anyway.

Perhaps the only suitable punishment for Richard Branson is to immortalize him:

Definition...(with apologies to all other Richard Bransons)

Richard Branson CO2 Prize, compound noun

A reward offered by a scientifically uninformed person for an worthless or unattainable scientific goal, usually made as a self-aggrandizement ploy by the donor. Often shortened to "RB CO2 Prize". Usage: "That sounds like an RB CO2 prize to me!"

Mark

Branson is an idiot publicity seeker who knows he will not have to pay up. Want to scrub CO2. Cover the milions of acres of city roof tops with plants. Plants scrub CO2 for a living, Hey! does that mean I get the prize? yeah right! I got news for you kids ------ GLOBAL WARMING IS A GOOD THING!------ Compare it to an ice age. If half the planet is covered in ice what do you think happens to the sustainable population? Never ever trust 50 year projections made on 10 years of data.

All the proposed methods for reducing Carbon Dioxide are either energy intensive (which usually costs more in CO2), or land intensive (which strains our agriculture, animal habitats, housing space, and pristine reserves).

The potentially largest-impact on reducing CO2 is to STOP BURNING COAL. Let's leave the Carbon sequestered as Nature has done.

We need to get over the "proliferation" hang-up and GO Nuclear. Specifically we need a fast-track development of Fast-Neutron" type Nuclear Reactors. They will take up little space, require very little additional ore mining, and have the ability to actually burn up most of our current radioactive waste. Use some of the copious energy output to generate hydrogen, distill Ethanol, and perhaps even make a liquid fuel like gasoline or diesel for our cars.

While nuclear maybe be a cleaner power producer, I still feel nervous about having a potential catastrophic bomb in my backyard, or even 30 miles away for that matter. I would only suggest that kind of idea of terrorism and war no longer existed, but I doubt we'll ever see that day.

I think the Plutonium proliferation issue is outdated. Consider that it is no small feat (dare I say Fantasy") to "Steal" the charge from a Nuclear reactor. It also requires a large high-tech facility to extract Plutonium from the spent fuel. Additionally, the Fast-Neutron Nuclear Reactors can actually DESTROY plutonium instead of producing it.

If you want to be paranoid about a real Nuclear proliferation issue consider this. Pakistan has about 50 Nukes and the missiles to deliver them. They are located in the heartland of terrorism, and their border is a thousand-mile long haven for terrorist planners. How can they maintain security over their arsenal in such a radicalized environment? Israel also has about that many Nukes, and they are very bold and unafraid of provocative attacks. Israel is also located within the core region of social instability. Therefore odds are that if a Nuclear exchange happens it will be from this region, not from some clandestine techno-demons raiding the local Nuclear Reactor.

I'm not worried about terrorists stealing or harvesting nuclear reactors... I'm worried about them destroying it kamakaze style. This would be either draining a cooling pond, causing spontaneous ignition of the spent rods, or of course ramming the plant with a 747. Even GE, one of the leading builders of nuclear plants, admitted that were a "heavy" airliner to hit a reactor building in the right place, it would almost certainly rip it apart. They defined "heavy" as weighing more than 6 tons. Consider that a fully loaded 747 weighs over 200 tons.

All I'm saying is that we can do better... safer.

The idea that nuclear energy is clean is completely false. You have been brainwashed by the media/advertising campaign to proliferate nuclear power plants. Of all the man-made methods of energy conversion, Nuclear is the clearly and unquestionably the filthiest.

Atomic facilities represent the creation of dangerous end products for which no satisfactory waste disposal method has yet been found. To a lesser extent, but of historical importance, they are susceptible to seismic disturbance and human and/or machine error, causing coolant leakage and ultimately, nuclear accident. Certain types of reactors produce byproducts that may be used for manufacturing radioactive bomb components.

I think we have to let nuclear fission energy production die the natural death of no-longer-useful things as an interesting piece of history from which valuable lessons were (and still are, in accelerators and quantum mechanics experimentation) learned. To continue to pursue this Neanderthal (with apologies to those Neanderthal guys on the TV ads) approach to energy production is flat earth stuff. Get with it. We are now in the 21st century.

But I suppose that, given the topic at hand, there must be those who will still try to champion it. Atomic fission is like that too. At first, those in favour of pursuing some sort of nuclear power plant technology will represent half the number of folks who used to think nukes was a good idea. In the following generation, probably half that number will try to propose that it is still useful. Two generations hence, half the number of its previous generation will still be saying unthought-out things like "Nuclear energy is clean energy", while the rest of us move on to more useful and ecologically friendly ways to produce power, and so-on until the silly idea just goes away.

Mark.

So the nuclear fuel idea has a half-life of about 20 yrs?

(Note: I know this same comment is stated earlier... I replied to someone instead of the forum discussion).

I agree with the whole publicity stunt idea. It is completely ludicrous to even attempt a feat like that, not for the reason that its impossible, but because its not the right way of approaching the problem. That is what has always agitated me about mankind as a whole. We are always creating waste, and instead of finding an economic way to either cut down on the waste or use if for something useful, we figure will just gather it all up and store it in someone's backyard. Why in the world would we filter out the carbon dioxide and store it somewhere (dry ice, underground, etc)??? Let nature handle that... it's a pro! What we need to do is work on alternative fuels for power that do not create economic toxins in the creation and burning of the fuel in question (or at a very minimum). This 25 million dollar prize should be for someone who can cut energy use by x amount while still maintaining efficiency. Additionally, we need to reserve more land for forests. Why would we filter out CO2 when trees will do it for us AND resupply oxygen in its place? Our oxygen levels are low enough as it is, that should be as important if not more than CO2 levels. If Sir Branson and Gore want to filter out 1 billion tons of CO2 each year, then they need to set aside land for roughly 42 billion trees (which can filter roughly 48 lbs of CO2 per year) that wouldn't be touched. Based on each tree being spaced out 12' x 12' from eachother, that would would be roughly 303 trees per acre... or 137.5 million acres... or 214,865 sq. miles... or roughly the size of France. Someone can double check my math if they wish. So those trees would take care of that amount of CO2, but we cannot stop there because we are still producing more than 1 billion tons of CO2 per year. Thats were energy efficiency and alternative fuels come in. Also, its obvious that we have more trees in the world than just the size of France, but we need to keep it that way. We need to minimize the cutting of trees. One of the most effective and efficient ways of doing this is by converting paper production from trees to hemp. Hemp can produce 4 times the amount of paper per acre as trees, and it grows back every year. You can try and agrue with me on that point, but it would really be a waste of your time. But getting back to the overall point, the prize as already mentioned by others is just publicity stunt and it saddens me. Maybe one day in my lifetime, there will be someone in power that actually steps up and TRIES to do something.... Just a thought!

Storing CO2 as Dry Ice?

As has been stated by several people, storing CO2 is not the answer. locking up the carbon is. according to the US Census Bureao the population of the US is now 301 + million people. if everybody were to plant one tree and if each tree were to remove 48 lbs of carbon, as stated earlier, 1.446 million lbs would be removed. wouldn't that go a long way toward solving the problem?

The best solution is a multitude of solutions

If you don't start now, when do you plan to start?

What will you do when waiting to start?

Try limiting the use of fossil fuel to the max.

Change your habits of fossil fuel burning to burning carbon you just extracted from the atmosphere. That means using bio-fuel.

Find ways to use less energy for getting the same result (I know, it is not a familiar notion in american culture)

Plant trees whereever you can. I don't care where you do it but DO IT.

Think of solar as well for replacing coal consuming electricity from the grid. Solar units are getting cheaper and cheaper.

And most important : JUST DO IT - DONT SIT THERE DOING NOTHING

O yes, and just one more thing.

TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO DO IT AS WELL

...

Agreed that locking up the carbon is the idea, either by not mining and burning it, or by a sequestion process that is permanent (chemically bound).

Regarding your question

1.446 million lbs * 0.4536 kg/lb * 0.001 metric tonnes / kg =

655.9 metric tonnes CO2

per http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/pdf/chapter2.pdf US Human caused Carbon Dioxide Emissions in 2005:

6,008,600,000 metric tonnes.

The original; question is about storing dry ice. Yes it can be stored easily and at no cost on the bottom of the sea floor. Ever heard of Methane ice deposits??

Storing CO2 in the sea makes us run the risk it gets absorbed by the seawater. Then you lower the pH of the seawater. Marine life is very sensitive to pH changes and I would certainly not mess around with that. It would simply kill marine life for the next thousands of years. Extinct races don't come back as easily can lower CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Check http://gcep.stanford.edu/pdfs/seminars/Rau_10_21_04.pdf

It contains comprehensive information about this subject.

Please erssk? Tell me more.

There exists a theory about the Bermuda Triangle that says, in effect, the changing SG of seawater and atmospheric interference by the occasional release of massive amounts of subsea methane boiling up through the depths to the surface and into private and commercial flyways causes sudden disappearances of ocean-going vessels that are suddenly no longer buoyed up by an ocean that is mostly gas, and similarly of air traffic that ignites a cloud of the stuff and instantly disintegrates in an explosion, leaving no trace; and that the general area of the Bermuda Triangle is where this takes place. Hence its voluntary avoidance by great numbers of both types of traffic.

Mark

Dear Mark,

Funny that you mention this theory of boiling methane hydrides. Actually, I had imagined exactly the same theory about three months ago and was not aware of such a theory elsewhere, until now.

In this approach it could well be that the methane hydrides are not so stable when ocean temperature reaches a certain point. From then on the ice can locally start to boil and release some gaz which in turn creates a column of lighter water above the ice, making the pressure on the floor drop and more ice comes to ebulition... I had imagined a kind of chain reaction until the ice is consumed locally. I don't know what to think about exploding airplanes, as they fly though a cloud of methane as some plane have come back after an experience. The reports often talk about visibility problems and compass cq navigation problems. I still have to figure out how to correlate this with the theory.

Now there are two things I would like to know:

1 - How much methane hydride is there in the Bermuda triangle on the seafloor?

2 - Can this kind of "eruption" be measured by surface radar scanning from space and is there any data available that makes this theory plausible?

Any ideas about this, anyone?

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I thought adding this article would bring some additional understanding :

CO2 being pushed deep into the oceans
a.. 22:00 12 February 2007
b.. NewScientist.com news service
c.. Catherine Brahic
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is being pushed deeper into the oceans than previously thought, according to researchers.
The findings mean the oceans may continue to absorb human emissions of the greenhouse gas more rapidly and for longer, they say, reducing their impact on global warming. But the research is bad news for the marine organisms that are already suffering from ocean acidification.

Higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, caused largely by industrial activities, push the greenhouse gas into ocean waters. Although this process is fairly well understood, scientists have only estimates of the depth at which CO2 from human activities is stored in the oceans.

"Previous estimates, based on educated assumptions about what the pre-industrial oceans looked like, suggested that in the high latitudes of the North Atlantic, anthropogenic CO2 was not found below 2500 metres," says Douglas Wallace of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Germany.

Wallace and colleagues have now published the first measurements showing the location of CO2 from human activities in the North Atlantic. They used data collected during a research cruise in 1981 as a baseline, and then returned to exactly the same sampling locations in 2004.

"This revealed quite large changes in the CO2 in very deep water, between 3000 m and 5000 m," Wallace told New Scientist.

Dissolving depth
If their findings are replicated in the much bigger southern oceans, it could mean that the oceans' capacity to take up CO2 is greater than previously thought.

While this may soak up some of the CO2 that would otherwise warm the atmosphere, the flipside is that the new findings give further evidence that human activities are rapidly changing the chemistry of the deep oceans.

"There is a depth in the ocean above which calcium carbonate shells don't dissolve, and below which they do," says Wallace. The findings suggest that the CO2 pumped into the oceans has pushed up this boundary by 400 m, compared to its level before the industrial age. And the researchers predict that it will be 700 m shallower by 2050 if CO2 emissions continue their fast growth.

Wallace says that whether the findings are replicated in the southern oceans remains to be seen, and he is encouraging colleagues to replicate his study there. There may be differences. For example, much of the southern ocean's water sinks to the bottom off the coast of Antarctica. There, sea ice may prevent CO2 entering the water from the atmosphere to the same extent as in the north.

The scientist who first coined the phrase "ocean acidification", Ken Caldeira, at the Carnegie Institution, California, US, says the extent to which the rising boundary will affect deep-sea corals and shelled organisms remains uncertain. But when human activities start impacting remote parts of planet, it's a wake-up call that we are interfering in our planet�s functioning on a very large scale," he says.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0606574104

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Richard Branson's 25 Million Dollar Show is live on http://www.virginearth.com/

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Dear erssk

I have heard about Methane hydrides that represent huge quantities frozen carbon sequestration. A lot of that is in the permafrost in Siberia and Canada. The problem with these reserves is that the permafrost is melting for the first time since ages. The methane is thus released. Russian scientists discovered this recently and are very worried because methane has a far bigger green house gas effect than CO2. I don't know if the specialists in Paris discussed this problem last week but it sounds serious to me.

And you are right : there are also huge quantities of methane hydride on the ocean floors. Oil companies are now exploring ways to bring this up to the surface.

But coming back to CO2...

The longer you think about it :

With today's knowledge about changing climate
Digging up carbon (crude oil & gaz) from the deep

to sell it to people who have the bad habit to burn it
and then throw it into the atmosphere as CO2

I S . . . C R I M I N A L

( I guess nobody, including me, never saw it like that before today)

Oil companies should switch to surface generated bio-fuels immediately to supply us with what makes our cars run. They should stop digging up fossil fuel. They have the money to develop the new fuel technologies. That is where they should put the billions they earned the last two years. (yes they got really rich with that "oil crisis")

Mr. Toom:

CO2 is good for the greening of the planet. Concentrations need to be 2-3 times higher than they are now. CO2 does not cause warming because the data clearly shows NO correlation or causation to temperature variation by co2. It is in spectral saturation and a doubling will have near zero greenhouse effect. When considerered next to H2O, co2 is zero as a "greenhouse" gas.

What IS CRIMINAL is what you just said. Crying "fire" in a theater when there is no fire is a crime, not to mention highly unscientific, especially when your "cry" causes death and loss (kyoto). You can talk all you want about fires in buildings or theaters, but when you enlist the government and cry "fire" you then become liable for ALL damages. I think you are trying, as is Gore and Branson, to cash checks you cannot pay or afford in a million lifetimes.

A person who burns something that creates useful work is doing the planet a good service, not causing harm. When you drive a well designed clean IC engine that has only h2O and water as products, you have a positive effect on the environment.

As you should know, or should know, the global warming "scare" was started by the nuclear power industry to drive up the cost of coal and to undermine (pun intended) the miner's union of GB and their support for liberals. This entire scare is poilitical and stands to destroy a lot of the greening of planet earth that will happen in the next century if we continue on the correct path we are now on...increasing co2 concentrations.

Randolph Toom,

Your state that digging up Carbon from the deep to sell ... "IS CRIMINAL".

Might I expand on that by adding IT'S IRRESPONSIBLE.

Speaking about responsibility, with all this chatter about ways to sequester carbon or to develop renewable resources, where is the mention of what is by far the most significant "resource" we have; one that is also immediately available?

I'm talking about CONSERVATION. How many of us actually practice energy conserving measures. For example, how many of us:

Drive fuel efficient cars. Move closer to their workplace to reduce the distance driven. Heavily insulate our homes. Turn the thermostat down in the winter and dress warmly. Use air conditioning sparingly in hot weather and dress lightly. Install energy efficient appliances. Recycle plastics, metals and paper. Turn off the lights, computers and televisions when they are not in use (at work as well as at home). Grow some of their food at home (average transport of commercial foods is about 1,500 miles).

Or how many think that any effort along these lines is an affront to their "freedom" to live as extravagantly as possible?

May I suggest that another form of CO2 is light metal carbonates formed

by exposing light metal hydroxides to gasseous CO2.

It's called limestone, the way Gaia sequesters CO2.

Not at all temperature sensitive BTW.

Simply remove the earth's atmosphere. The temperature will drop low enough to instantly solidify all CO₂.

oh, wait...

bhankiii

Your spending too much time in Kemah..............it's affecting your thought process.

You assume too much. There's no thought process involved. We're getting a roller coaster!

Dear bhankiii,

You can not simply remove the earth's atmosphere. And what do roller coasters have to do with this subject?

Do you have a serious proposal?

Kind regards,

You've obviously never been to Kemah.

bhankiii

Are we in concurrence that life is to short to be taken too seriously?

Indeed!

locking up CO2 in plants could actually be practicable,..I thought planting bamboo/elephant grass/hemp as really great, workable ideas, besides, we do have figures to work with(by harrb). Don't forget - area as calculated is meant for the globe, so when you break it down to 'national qouta', the area involved isn't really that big at all!

I feel the important catalyst for this to work is- commercial viability. Plant types listed above is good for paper, and this brings in money, and more importantly, it's highly scaleable..(This is very relevant in South/SE asian countries).

Surprisingly, I found out that there are many bamboo species that could be grown well in the desert heat!

Harrb,...'hoping that someone in power would do something......' ....it's you and I Harrb! ..the CR4 network!..something that belongs to everyone belongs to no-one!

The major problem with solar power panels/water heaters is the first cost. In many places, such application is more experimental(status!) than functional. If such investment would pay for itself in the long run, that in itself in a big question mark.

I thought pre-packaging such panels/solar heaters with regular consumer electric/electronic goods(even houses) would be more workable in introducing wider acceptance. As in most other applications, the consumer would take over after that ! It's the breaking-in which poses the major hurdle.

Perhaps, Sir Richard should start a subsidiary that capitalises on this-Richard Branson Paper Mills! ..don't really how far 25 mil would tahe this project, but hey, it could very well sustain itself.

Interesting info here

It is done all the time. You get it as variable size "rocks" from the factory and use polystyrene-foam containers to keep it intact. you can see it in labs (used for cooling) and even in novelty shops to be used as a party trick accessory.

Maintained as a usual activity on a global scale, it has indeed an ecological factor...