Posted on 04/11/2002 9:01:33 AM PDT by cogitator
Researchers Look to Mop Carbon Dioxide from Air
ORLANDO, Florida, April 10, 2002 (ENS) - A process under development at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) could extract carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air to help reduce the impact of fossil fuels.
The researchers at the Energy Department lab say the simple, inexpensive technique they are studying could allow for the sustained use of fossil fuels without causing global warming.
The method would allow researchers to harvest CO2 from the air, reducing buildup of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and allowing it to be converted into fuel. A Los Alamos led research team presented the research on Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Orlando.
"Fossil fuel supplies are plentiful, and what will limit the usage of fossil fuels is the potential climatic and ecosystem changes you may see as a result of rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere," said Los Alamos researcher Manvendra Dubey. "If you can capture atmospheric carbon dioxide, then you limit the environmental impact of fossil fuels and you can continue to use them."
"We have come up with a way to capture and sequester the carbon dioxide that we are putting in the atmosphere," Dubey continued. "Our approach is particularly well suited to capturing CO2 from numerous small sources such as automobiles that are largely being ignored."
The LANL method works on ordinary air, with an average CO2 concentration of about 370 parts per million, rather than capturing the more concentrated emissions found in power plant exhausts. It is believed to be the only available means of capturing the CO2 generated by vehicles, ships and other small sources that account for almost half of all CO2 emissions.
The air is passed over an extraction agent, such as a solution of quicklime, the active agent in some cement. The CO2 in the air reacts with the quicklime and becomes converted to calcium carbonate, or limestone.
Heating the calcium carbonate produces pure carbon dioxide and quicklime, which is recycled back into the extractor. The purified carbon dioxide can be stored or used in industrial applications such as the petrochemical industry, which uses large quantities of it to extract fossil fuels.
"The carbon dioxide comes to the facility on its own," Dubey said. "And because treated air is discharged, the overall concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gradually decreases over time. Using this method on a large enough scale, it may be possible to return atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to pre-Industrial Age concentrations. Given the possibility our climate system can change abruptly, this possibility is very exciting."
But one question: you have to pass the air over the extraction agent. Don't you have to use fans or pumps to do that? That uses energy. Do you extract more CO2 than you produce from the energy used to force the air?
No, simple diffusion would work just fine. To make the quicklime though, lots of heat needs to be applied. They'll have to go nuclear if they want to avoid generating more CO2 than they collect.
Do you have calculations to back up your statement?
We already have this "device."
Its called a "tree."
It is well established that recently planted trees remove much more CO2 from the atmosphere than "old growth" trees. However, the "green" liberals prohibit the harvesting of old growth forests (to be replaced with new trees) even though this will help remove the CO2 which allegedly causes the "greenhouse effect."
That's a pretty large scale he's talking about! Human activities generate roughly one billion tons of CO2 per year.
Whereupon, the calcium carbonate is regenerated back into lime, releasing the CO2..Where? And it is regenerated back into CO2, How? Well, by heating it. And how is it heated? Umm. Well. By (Mumble) burning fossil fuels.
Soda/Lime sorbents go back at least to the turn of the last century.
Are my tax dollars funding these _stupid_ quacks?!
I rant all the time regarding the decline of the basic Sciences, but for this fraud to have gotten any press at all has proven all my points.
And a National Lab, too.
I think he's an engineer. "All that's required to scale up from the pilot project is a modest investment..."
I meant "It is regenerated back into lime", but was shaking with rage when I typed it.
I expect most Freepers to know that, anyway, so this post is a matter of form!
Bah.
heat of formation for CaO => 152 kcal/mole
heat of form. for CaCO3 => 288 kcal/mole.
So at least 136 kcal will be needed to regenerate(1/8 lb CaO) the quicklime, or make it initialy. That's w/o losses.
136 kcal ~ 544 BTU, or 569k joules, or 220V * 1Amp * 43 min,
or 220V*8A*43min/lb CaO.
I wonder what they are really funding with this tax money. UFO's? Time Travel?
The good thing about it is that it constitutes an oblique attack on the Kyoto Treaty. I've seen other proposed methods for sequestering CO2, and the more ideas that keep popping up, the harder it is for the enviro-socialists to justify radical government controls on energy production and consumption. Their politicized computer models of CO2 increases causing global warming over the next 50-100 years are meaningless if technological advances within the next decade offer the potential of painlessly reducing those CO2 concentrations.
How about geothermal? Convection (heat rising, cooling descending) is your pump, at no energy cost.
I have no idea if global warming is occurring. But, if it is, there is a easily seen culprit:
The Sun.
These environmentalist wackos can't see the Sun in front of their face because there is no political gain from Sun-caused Global Warming. Whereas man-made Global Warming given the the "right" to control the activities of all those who support freedom and fight their plan for total state control.
Another task will be to go around and pick up all the fallen leaves and lawn clippings and bury them before they rot and generate more CO2 and methane (another greenhouse gas). Perhaps Greenpeace will volunteer?
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