Comments on: Environment Update: Is Carbon Capture and Storage Viable? https://techsomogro.com/environment-update-carbon-capture-storage-viable/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=environment-update-carbon-capture-storage-viable Science, Technology and the Future Sat, 16 Mar 2013 02:15:31 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 By: Doug White https://techsomogro.com/environment-update-carbon-capture-storage-viable/#comment-8266 Sat, 16 Mar 2013 02:15:31 +0000 http://www.21stcentech.com/?p=9374#comment-8266 Two fundamental problems with CCS designs for which there are estimated costs per ton are that
– they are engineering solutions, foremost; and,
– they can never be more efficient than 27%, since they bury, compress and sink, or pump through processed, quarried rock, twice as much oxygen as carbon.

The formula is C02. Two parts oxygen per part of carbon.

I confess to a personal fondness for oxygen. I suggest that:

Buried hydro-carbon chains
Plus
Free 02 oxygen gas

converted to

Buried Carbon-oxygen compounds,
and
Free H20 gas
is not a sustainable

A few years back, “Scientific American” ran a rather depressing article that summarized the fate of the Earth on geological time scales. Our home is becoming a red, rusting, planet. Free oxygen is binding with the mineral surface (rusting the crust). Free Hydrogen and Nitrogen are boiling into space. Sunlight splits atmospheric H20, the H2 catching the solar breeze toward Pluto. The Oxygen hangs around, finding heavier elements to bind to.

Carbon sequestration in cellulose: long carbon chains with a stingy sprinkling of hydrogen and even less oxygen, seems a more sustainable solution.

Plant forests on non-arable land, irrigated by solar-powered water distillation and pumping installations.

Back of an envelope calculations suggest that a solar panel array the size of the Dominican Republic could replace all the fossil fuel consumption of the world of today. Long term retention of lumber harvested from a brand new forest the size of two Cubas could offset the fossil carbon consumption of a growing world 20 years from now.

So, no, do not pressurize deep oil wells or pump C02 deep in the oceans, as a liquid or solid that you hope never “burps”. Instead, plant a tree, and then repeat millions of times. Plan for water distillation and pumping into continents to grow these forests and their timber, to be sequestered in housing.

]]> By: Niccolo5 https://techsomogro.com/environment-update-carbon-capture-storage-viable/#comment-8263 Fri, 15 Mar 2013 03:33:14 +0000 http://www.21stcentech.com/?p=9374#comment-8263 Give me the Amazon river watershed in the nation of Brazil, get out of my way, and I will photosynthetically permanently sequester all the atmospheric carbon presently emitted from coal-fired power plants for $15/ton. Any other approach will cost more, probably a lot more. As I have commented several times in the past, the basic problem is global overpopulation. If you refuse to confront that issue, all other schemes to abate atmospheric carbon are certain to fail. But you might have a lot of fun searching in vain for the lost keys under the street lamp.

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