Carbon capture may actually work

[pscot]

No way to tell, at this stage if this is the real deal, or just another scheme to turn turkey entrails into liquid gold, but these guys sound serious. There's no discussion of how the technology works, or of the size and complexity of the "devices". Cost is left to the reader's imagination, but we apparently need a million of them, so figure x times a million. Add to that the problem of finding a million holes to store the stuff. What we really need is a way to turn it back into gasoline. Vroom! Vroom!



http://www.physorg.com/news96732819.html

Global Research Technologies, LLC (GRT), a technology research and development company, and Klaus Lackner from Columbia University have achieved the successful demonstration of a bold new technology to capture carbon from the air. The "air extraction" prototype has successfully demonstrated that indeed carbon dioxide (CO2) can be captured from the atmosphere. This is GRT’s first step toward a commercially viable air capture device...

The carbon capture technology was developed by GRT and Klaus S. Lackner, a professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The Tucson-based technology company began development of the device in 2004 and has recently successfully demonstrated its efficacy. The air extraction device, in which sorbents capture carbon dioxide molecules from free-flowing air and release those molecules as a pure stream of carbon dioxide for sequestration, has met a wide range of performance standards in the GRT research facility.

This significant achievement holds incredible promise in the fight against climate change," said Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute, "and thanks to the ingenuity of GRT and Klaus Lackner, the world may, sooner rather than later, have an important tool in this fight."...

A device with an opening of one square meter can extract about 10 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. If a single device were to measure 10 meters by 10 meters it could extract 1,000 tons each year. On this scale, one million devices would be required to remove one billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. According to the U.K. Treasury’s Stern Review on climate change, the world will need to reduce carbon emissions by 11 billion tons by 2025 in order to maintain a concentration of carbon dioxide at twice pre-industrial levels

Going forward, GRT plans to begin demonstrating its air capture system on a larger scale. Extensive deployment of the GRT air capture system makes it possible to envision an actual reduction of CO2 levels in the atmosphere, perhaps even to pre-industrial levels. That is the exciting promise of air capture and precisely what has just been demonstrated by GRT.

[bluerum]

1. Are we talking about trees and plants here?

[pscot]

5. Air

Air passes through the "device". Carbon is filtered out for storage.

[bluerum]

10. I know - I was thinking that plants can do the filtering and assimilate the

carbon into their structure.

[PATRICK]

2. When it is captured

is it sent to Guantanamo? I thought one of the big ideas was to dump it under the ocean floor. More info on this little detail?

[berni_mccoy]

3. It's a global strength CO2 Scrubber (like what they use in space)

Here is the link to the sight:
http://www.grestech.com/index.php

They won't disclose the chemicals they use (that's their gold), but it's basically the same idea of the sodium-based CO2 scrubbers used in closed environments (like subs and spacecraft).

[Richard D]

4. If they cost a million dollars each . . .

. . . that's a trillion dollars for the million needed. Now what will this disaster in Iraq cost the US?

Plus the cost should be shared by other developed nations. So if it works and is in the million dollar a machine or less range, this could hold promise. But where would all the CO2 be sequestered?

[pscot]

6. As I understand it, polluters would defray the cost

by buying carbon credits, to offset what they dump into the atmosphere. Captured carbon would be stored underground by pumping it down exhausted petroleum bore holes. It could even serve to re-pressurize played out wells, to enable extraction of more oil.

If this really works, we need a big push to get it started, like the early days of the space program.

[kestrel91316]

7. Pumping gaseous CO2 into holes in the ground does not constitute

sequestering. It constitutes "sweeping it under the rug".

CO2 needs to be chemically bound up so that it is NOT gaseous.

[pscot]

8. If sweeping it under the rug provides a temporary respite,

then why not sweep it under the rug 'til we find a more lasting solution?

[Nihil]

15. Because it encourages the short-term "profit now" thinking that got us into this mess!

If they are allowed to "sweep it under the rug" then
1) The mound "under the rug" keeps getting bigger.
2) The moneymakers focus on more of the same instead of looking for innovation.
3) The deniers will get support that "it's not urgent any more".
4) There will be an enormous earth-burp "that no-one could have foreseen".

In an ideal world, I would agree with you that "First Aid" is better than
"no aid" but in the current state, First Aid becomes the health strategy ...

[On the Road]

9. I Saw an Article Several Years Ago

(in Wired IIRC) that claimed that sequestration of agricultural waste could be very effective. Collecting cornstalks and dumping them into the deep ocean would go a surprisingly long way toward removing carbon from the environment.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Interesting. nt

[pscot]

12. This evokes an image

of millions of farm wagons rolling toward the pacific loaded with corn shocks. I have a hard tme believing this would pencil out. The carbon input required to move millions of tons of farm waste would likely overwhelm any positive value. Besides, the stuff floats.

[On the Road]

13. The Possibility They Discussed

involves loading corn waste on oceanbound barges. There were definite net carbon savings. The drawback discussed was the unknown effect on the oceans of dumping large amounts of vegetable matter (even though they could choose large deep ocean areas with few lifeforms).

Iron Fertilization is a less direct way of impounding carbon from plants in the deep ocean. Adding tiny iron pellets to the surface of the ocean speeds the growth of plankton, which then drop to the ocean floor carrying the carbon in their bodies.

There are ecological concerns about anything that disrupts the balance of organisms in an environment, but given the temporary nature of the process and the ability to locate it in barren parts of the ocean, it's worth testing and might be part of a solution. Personally, I think a number of things will have to be done in parallel to make a serious effort to reduce carbon.

[pscot]

18. I agree heartily with that last

Given the number of people working the problem in different countries, various strategies are bound to emerge. The advantages of the system described in the original post are scalability and flexibility.

[tinrobot]

14. But what would that do to the ocean?

Hopefully nothing, but I doubt it because everything has consequences.

[LSK]

17. and what damage does corn stalks do to the deep ocean?

[AlecBGreen]

16. look at the math

"a single device were to measure 10 meters by 10 meters it could extract 1,000 tons each year"

a 30 foot square and we need a MILLION of these to take out one billion tons. We need to take out 11 billion tons, so that means we need ten million of these contraptions. Even then, it would reduce CO2 levels to TWICE that of pre-industrial times. Carbon sequestration is for real, but this particular way doesnt seem viable.

[riverdeep]

19. There are some inherent problems with sequestration.

I'm glad industry is finally starting to take this seriously, but sequestering comes with it's own problems. Here's an entry that deals with it. I've included the author's summarization points.

"Here are the problems in order:

So about 25% of the energy they make is used just to keep them operating, they are more expensive and it will take decades (an amount of time we don't have) before they make a significant contribution. Meanwhile, old coal power plants have an average lifetime of 60 years.

Okay, so even more energy is lost by compressing the CO2 to liquid form and we must monitor for leaks. What else?

Okay, so burying it in the ground is not so simple or safe - as the oil industry likes to remind us, drilling is expensive - and it's not a long-term solution since we will run out of convenient places to sequester the liquid CO2. Anything else?

So it'll take decades which we don't have, be extremely expensive, probably won't work that well, and we'll run out of good burying sites before long."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/07/carbon_sequestration.php

The author believes that sequestration is basically a delaying tactic used by the coal industry to promote fanciful 'clean' coal.

[pscot]

20. There's nothing easier

than second guessing speculative schemes. I'm from Seattle, where process is king and every piddling interest group, no matter how small, has the power to derail a major project. Our monorail project died the death of a thousand kvetches, the earthquake damaged Alaskan way viaduct has been held together for the last 6 years, with scotch tape and clarinet reeds, while politicians and citizens squabble over how and whether to fix it. A $16 billion bridge building and transit initiative just failed at the ballot box because it pleased no one and pissed off everyone. WE need to find a way to get something done, not argue about why we can't. Time is short, failure is not an option, and money is no object. We need to throw shit against the wall until something sticks. Anything we attempt is going to be expensive. Whether pumping co2 down an exhausted oil well can work has yet to to be determined. We won't know for sure until we try.

[Nihil]

24. So, it's better to f-up straight away than think things through?

> WE need to find a way to get something done, not argue about why we can't.
> Time is short, failure is not an option, and money is no object.

Your second sentence negates your first one.
Time is indeed short but money obviously *is* an object and failure most
certainly *is* an option - the less thought expended, the more certain
that option becomes.

> We need to throw shit against the wall until something sticks.

Until that point (when "something sticks"), all you have achieved is the
expenditure of much effort to build a pile of shit at the bottom of the
wall.

> Anything we attempt is going to be expensive.

True and the challenge of persuading people to fund *any* of the possible
solutions is not made any easier when the deniers can point to failures
with a "well *that* didn't work did it?" sneer.

> Whether pumping co2 down an exhausted oil well can work has yet to be
> determined. We won't know for sure until we try.

No, it has been tried and is known to give certain results. Those results
range from additional oil extraction (very dubious as a "benefit") to
"no known leakage so far". The tests have also shown the expense (both in
terms of money and in terms of energy wasted) of taking CO2 (from any
source) and stuffing it down a hole in the ground. When you consider
scaling this up to the levels of CO2 required to be stored, you start
to notice the problem locating suitable storage holes, the cost of
transporting the "somehow-extracted" CO2 to those "suitable storage holes",
the additional CO2 generated by the transportation, the additional CO2
generated to power the storage process and, eventually, the sheer stupidity
of ADDING more CO2 into the atmosphere in a vain attempt to TEMPORARILY
REMOVE CO2 from the atmosphere!

This is just a big shell game that detracts from the real issues and
provides a fig-leaf for the coal industry to hide behind while it goes
along on its merry way, polluting the planet for profit.
:grr:

[philb]

21. The most cost effective applications of carbon capture use value of the CO2

The CO2 can provide value to offset the cost of capture in several ways:

1. use in extending life or extra recovery from oil or gas wells
2. use in growing algae for use in producing biofuels
3. use for fertilizer/soil amendment applications
4. extract the carbon for use as carbon black, or filament carbon in high strength low weight applications like car and airplane bodies.

all have been successfully demonstrated to some degree.

[losthills]

22. More smoke and miirors,

like ethanol, to get us to believe that it's okay to keep burning fossil fuels...

[NNadir]

23. Carbon dioxide capture has worked for many, many, many, many, many years.

The problem is that it costs <em>energy</em> to do it.

There a many, many, many known compounds, in particular alkanol amines that accomplish this task.

Oh. It also costs <em>money</em> to do it.

As it happens, we are out of time to sit around fantasizing about systems that "could" work. At this point, such fantasies are just more in the game of denial.

Time's up.