Posted on 08/15/2006 3:12:37 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
BOSTON (Reuters) - Climate change could be slowed by burying greenhouse gases blamed for global warming deep below the ocean floor under thick, cold sediment that would trap it for thousands of years, said a team of Harvard-led scientists.
The seafloor along the U.S. east and west coast is vast enough to store almost unlimited carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. coal-fired plants, said Daniel Schrag, director of Harvard's Center for the Environment.
"It would make coal a green fuel," he said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
Carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels is the main gas blamed for pushing up world temperatures. Many scientists say the buildup could trigger more floods, droughts, powerful storms, heat waves and rising world sea levels.
Schrag's team at Harvard and researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University propose capturing carbon dioxide from power plants, liquefying the gas, pumping it about 2 miles under water and then injecting it below the sea floor.
Many governments and firms are already exploring ways to pump carbon dioxide under land or directly into the sea -- a process known as carbon sequestration -- to meet emissions caps set by the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol for 35 industrial nations.
But such schemes will only help if the gas stays below the ground or the sea for hundreds of years, and studies and experiments to date indicate it may eventually leak.
Schrag said burying the gas under seafloor sediments of sand, silt and clay hundreds of meters (feet) thick at depths of 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) and very low temperatures would guarantee it would stay denser than the water above.
"The only place it can leak is deeper down," he said.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS SKEPTICAL
The cold temperatures and high pressures found deep below the ocean's surface would transform carbon dioxide into a solid that is stable enough to withstand even the most severe earthquakes, the researchers said in the August 7 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Environmental group Greenpeace said it was skeptical of the benefits and urged the development of less expensive and swifter solutions to global warming such as renewable energy and conservation.
"We have real questions about this technology. It is not something that currently works or is tested," said Chris Miller, a senior Greenpeace campaigner. "We have a relatively short amount of time to begin making pretty dramatic reductions in global warming pollutants."
Managing a carbon dioxide sequestration program could also cost hundreds of billions a year, scientists say.
A 2005 U.N. report said carbon dioxide storage may provide 15-55 percent of all the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions needed until 2100 -- probably a bigger contribution than from renewable energies or from any revival of nuclear power.
But it would also likely raise the cost of generating electricity from a coal-fired power plant by at least 50 percent to $0.06-$0.10 per kilowatt hour from $0.04-$0.05 on a power plant with no filters.
"The downsides are that nobody has ever injected into those kinds of formations at those kinds of depths," said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at Stanford University. "There are engineering hurdles to overcome and it might not be that cheap," he said.
A cloud of waste gas billows out of chimney stacks at a factory in the eastern German village of Heiligengrabe in this June 2, 2004 file photo. Climate change could be slowed by burying greenhouse gases blamed for global warming deep below the ocean floor under thick, cold sediment that would trap it for thousands of years, said a team of Harvard-led scientists. REUTERS/Christian Charisius
These people are freaking out!
It's a wonder they can function at all.
Well, that could be construed as a downside ...
"It's a wonder they can function at all."
They don't, they just burn tax dollars fabricating lies, and then request more funding to do it all over again.
Can we bury our forest fires and volcanoes under the sea bed too? Never seen any of these reports that take these into account.
LOL.. I can see the bumper stickers in the not too distant future,
Gas people , not the sea floor.
Just kidding, folks.
This whole global warming movement may well be right that the climate may be getting warmer, however, their strident beliefs that it is man made is not in step with facts.
But these days, it's much more convenient to blame people and their evil byproducts than solar cycles , volcanos, and good old Mother Nature changing her stride for a bit.
Oh well.
How much of that cloud is water vapor?
Who would ever have thought of putting water vapor in an ocean???
Agreed
Exactly!
Some scientists. The gas would escape, just like it does from..................drumroll please.............those polluting bastard volcanoes!
Idioten.
This is the biggest bunch of bull, on so many points that it's impossible to respond. I'm not a scientist, but sometimes the BS beeber just goes off.
Scientists my ass.
I am no scientist thats for sure, but can i just ask what type of machine they will use to separate the Carbon Dioxide from the air an how will they put it under the ocean.? What will power this operation? I can see it now a big plant running night and day and large tubes funneling this gas into the ocean floor. Its sounds like a pipe dream to me. The only thing I would bet on is that someone will get rich off it.
They'd better hurry up and get started so they can claim credit before the next (inevitable) cooling cycle begins.
This might be an opportunity to give moonbats something constructive to do- we can send them out armed with a jeweler's loupe, a pair of fine tweezers and a mason jar apiece- along with instructions to 'collect carbon dioxide molecules for burial at sea'.
Unfortunately the idiots at happy hour appear to be swinging the policy bat lately on this debate.
The other articles I've seen today shout "Man-Induced" which is so much crap it's pathetic. We're gonna' get a shaft over this if we're not careful and it's not going to be pleasant...
I say we bury ALGORE and all his cook friend under the sea floor. Heck I will settle for under a lake.
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