Global Warming Stopped By Adding Lime To Sea 899
Antiglobalism writes "Scientists say they have found a workable way of reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere by adding lime to seawater. And they think it has the potential to dramatically reverse CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere, reports Cath O'Driscoll in SCI's Chemistry & Industry magazine published today."
uh oh (Score:3, Interesting)
Natural carbon sequestration via coral? (Score:5, Interesting)
On a chemical level, how does this differ from growing coral?
A coral bred / genetically modified to grow in a wider variety of climates could also scrub CO2 from the air. Though the 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' crowd might be concerned with over scrubbing by the GM coral.
sarcasm (Score:3, Interesting)
yeah that will have a SLIGHT effect on ocean ecosystems /sarcasm
pH (cough) pH
in related news, looks like those guys who were going to seed dead zones with iron and create algal blooms to suck up co2 gave up the ghost:
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0219-planktos.html [mongabay.com]
Re:Ocean of Acid (Score:2, Interesting)
I am also a bit confused about the chemistry here:
If they put "lime" in the ocean, and it absorbed co2, it becomes something else, and even if this has a good effect on the ph of the water, the chemical itself could be harmful right?
Is this a substance common in the water already?
I wish this were discovered 20 years from now, after we had switched our processes to something more green. As it is this might just prolong on the bad habits we have now.
Chemical Description (Score:5, Interesting)
In case anyone was wondering:
Lime = CaO
CaO + H_2O Ca(OH)_2 + 63.7kJ/mol of CaO
Ca(OH)_2 (aq) + CO_2 (g) -> CaCO_3 (s) + H_2O (l)
CaCO3(s) + CO2(g) + H2O(l) -> Ca(HCO3)2(aq)
Some of these compounds are strong bases that may be dangerous for both human consumption and wildlife contact. If this were done in segregated water areas, however, it may be possible to utilize the properties of the first reaction to produce energy via a heat engine.
Real Men of Genius (Score:3, Interesting)
We salute you, Mr. CO2 Reducing Ocean Lime Dumper.
Re:Oh yeah! Interference FTW. (Score:5, Interesting)
My favorite is the coral reef some geniuses made out of... used tires.
Its now considered an ecological disaster.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/18/news/tires.php [iht.com]
"There's a mouse in the house!" (Score:5, Interesting)
You're absolutely correct. There's no end to the number of environmental "solutions" that led to far greater problems down the road. And the sad thing is that they were not unforeseen problems. The people who thought up the solutions figured it was easier to let subsequent generations deal with the mess; they were more interested in a quick fix for political expediency.
Anyone else of a certain age remember the animated bit from The Electric Company [wikipedia.org] (then-unknown Morgan Freeman was one of the cast members) wherein the wife is freaking out about a mouse in the house? To cut a long story short, as the problems cascade, the husband gets a cat, then a dog, then a tiger, then finally an elephant to scare away the tiger. When the wife complains about the elephant, the husband says "Everyone knows elephants are afraid of mice" reintroducing the original problem and losing an entire wall of the house in the process as the panicked elephant stampedes through it. The punch line is the battered husband lying on the ground saying to himself, "You know...maybe I should have just gotten a trap...". I think that little cartoon is one of the great cautionary tales of environmental engineering.
Re:_ WTF?!?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is pretty much it. People who keep trying to come up with stupid ass ideas to fix the environment are almost always dumb asses anyway. First of all there is nothing wrong with the environment that needs fixing. We are not yet at the point of no return. What the environment needs from us is for us to start acting in a more reasonable manner.
Once we start doing that the environment will correct itself. It has gotten along fine without our help for 3.5 billion years. I'm pretty sure if we left it alone and fixed our issues then it will do just fine.
Add lime? (Score:5, Interesting)
You might not be in Margaritaville - but you might still get plastered. [wikipedia.org]
WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
This couldn't possibly have any additional side-effects, right?
It remind me of another idea: to add iron particles to the ocean in order to stimulate algae growth, which absorbs quite a lot of CO2.
But what happens then? Do the oceans get clogged with algae? Do fish eat them so we get to make the fishing industry happy at the same time? Do the algae release the CO2 when they die? Or does it sink to the bottom of the ocean, taking the carbon with it?
Lots of possibilities for side effects, lots of things to research.
This was my favorite part: (Score:3, Interesting)
"All they're doing is a process mother nature already does"
Cuz we all know that doing much (much) more of what mother nature already does never has unintended consequences.
Re:Sure... (Score:3, Interesting)
What I find strange is that the same tree hugging geniuses who come up with "carbon is to blame for global warming" are the idiots who treat symptoms by causing worse symptoms, yet never looking at the cause. For example, they're screaming bloody murder that "trees no longer absorb and store CO2" and blame the heat.
What they fail to note is that the idiot tree huggers came up with this idea that they should replant and cut only new trees... old trees are "majestic". Everywhere else, nature kills the OLD... only in "land management" do the idiots kill the young. Old trees have developed root systems. They don't develop at the same speed as young trees. Carbon is stores in the root system. If no new carbon is needed for young roots to grow, why are the tree huggers noticing? Probably because old trees are "majestic" and its all the SUV's fault. Perhaps instead of loving government intervention, they ought to BUY a wooded lot, cut ALL the old dry trees, sell them off or build a nice home on it, and then replant all the trees they cut and CARE for that lot.
It would be FAR more effective than government intervention, and that's why neither government, nor government worshipping tree huggers will go for it. Why not simply intrude upon the lives of others with regulations and majority knee jerk votes instead?
Re:Ocean of Acid (Score:4, Interesting)
Been over thirty years since Chem H101, but doesn't that mean a lot of calcium carbonate when/if the carbon dioxide combines with the calcium oxide? (Fishing for someone who actually knows what they are talking about to speak up to confirm/deny.)
I'm not familiar witht he process you're talking about, but what happens naturally in ocean water is that CO2 from the air binds with H2O from the ocean and forms H2CO3, which is acidic. They want to add CaO, which combines with water to Ca(OH)2, which is a base, which means it makes the ocean less acidic.
The less acidic the ocean is, the more CO2 it can absorb from the atmosphere, is what TFA is saying.
Re:Ph (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about you, but about 10 years ago, in basic chemistry, I learned that acidification, which is currently happening to the oceans, *lowers* the pH of the water (lower pH = more acidic). Adding lime will raise the pH of the oceans (higher pH = more alkaline). In other words... this might actually make the pH of the water *more* friendly to the fish eggs you're so concerned about...
Re:Go for it (Score:3, Interesting)
If you hadn't stopped reading "scientific" literature in February of 2007, you might know that claim has since been retracted. No, "big science" didn't get to him -- it's just that warming due to Solar forcing (which accounts for Martian heating) is already accounted for in terrestrial models.
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
If only CO2 actually was the cause for global warming! Every ice core sample taken shows that CO2's only relation to warming is that as sea water gets warmer, it releases more CO2 into the atmosphere. CO2 rises lag behind temp rises by decades/centuries in all samples taken.
Yes, and then the increased CO2 causes increased warming, resulting in more CO2. It's a feedback cycle, and just because CO2 isn't the initial driver in historical cases does not mean it doesn't cause warming. It's just that in the past, it was always something else that caused the increase in temperature with the CO2 increase following.
If you were to directly introduce CO2 into the atmosphere before any other warming occurred, then it could become the driving force for the feedback cycle.
The ice cores are also unanimous in showing that CO2 levels have not been higher than they are now for hundreds of thousands of years, and that the change has occurred rapidly since the industrial revolution. So while in natural cases of warming, CO2 levels were not the initial impetus, our current situation is anything but natural. The ice cores do not imply in any way that the Greenhouse Effect doesn't work, so unless you have some other reason to think it doesn't, then this is cause for concern.
Re:Sure... (Score:1, Interesting)
Mod parent up insightful. This is the reason why we can't get anything done. The environmentalists (for the most part) are ass backwards on everything.
Let's keep around the old trees and kill the young ones.
You can't clear out any of the underbrush, and we have to stop wild fires right away! (See California)
You can't have nuclear power plants, the waste contaminates the environment. (Breeder reactors anyone?)
Basically, the enviro-hippies are throwing out so much noise which is irritating the hell out of a lot of people, and making it harder to do anything meaningful.
Re:Depends on HOW the Lime is made... AND... (Score:3, Interesting)
I do have an ugly do too, I bet your dog could probably beat my dog also.
I remember many PhD-holding professors (including some environmental scientists) who knew very very little about engineering and how real-world logistics work.
I agree that this Concept and Hypothesis of dumping Lime into the Ocean to increase oceanic CO2 absorption is theoretically possible and chemically sound.
My background and experience and education all tell me that the brains behind it have not fully accounted for *many* of the other factors I have posted here.
This will require MUCH more than the proposed solar power plants in energy requirements when the *actual* quantities of CaO to be produced to have any real actual reduction effects on CO2 levels are considered. We are talking Several Gigawatt-Class Nuclear power plants or large hydroelectric generation stations in the least.
Lime is one of the most energy-consumptive substances Mankind has yet learned to create from raw materials (considering how much we ALL consume yearly). This CO2-Reduction Concept and proposal is dead in the water (pun intended) without some very clean, non-CO2 releasing, method of CaO (Lime) production...
Re:I Am A Chemist (Score:1, Interesting)
The proposal here is to take limestone, heat it to release CO2 and convert it to lime and put that in the ocean to absorb CO2 and become limestone again.
Where is the extra CO2 going? It seems to me everything is conserved, except that it takes lots of heat to make lime and the CO2 produced by that would be added to the atmosphere.
Just a small problem of off by a million (Score:3, Interesting)
Er, Um, there seems to be a wide gulch here.
World production of CaO ( white lime powder, not the fruit ), is around 200 megatons/yr
World CO2 is about 40 billion tons/yr.
That's a mismatch of about 200 times.
Also making lime is not free, it now costs about $60/ton. That's $240 buillion per year just for the lime, never mind the cost of moving it to the oceans.
Re:This scares the hell out of me (Score:2, Interesting)
Wise move, since it's an incorrect statement.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533290/Climate-chaos-Don%27t-believe-it.html
Re:Ocean of Acid (Score:3, Interesting)
The only way this process would have a net reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide would be to sequester the carbon at the factory producing the calcium hydroxide. If we were to develop the technology to sequester carbon dioxide on this huge industrial scale, it would make more sense to simply apply it to our current carbon dioxide releasing processes.
Additionally, making the calcium hydroxide in the Australian desert as suggested in the article would have a huge limiting factor. The hydroxide group will have to come from water on any large enough scale to have an effect on worldwide atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. This simply is not present in adequate quantities in the desert. Simply performing this step by dumping the calcium oxide straight into the oceans would be a no-go as the chemical reaction releases large amounts of heat which would significantly impact the oceans if done on a scale large enough to have a significant environmental impact. So the operation of making calcium hydroxide on a level large enough for eco-engineering would use vast amounts of fresh water in a desert, and likely need even more water to cool the plant down. It may be possible to pump some of the heat released from this stage of the reaction to earlier stages in which the calcium carbonate is heated to form calcium oxide, however heat pumps require energy to run. This may end up being slightly more energy efficient than using the original energy to heat the calcium carbonate, but I doubt it would be that much more efficient.
Unless someone shows me some hard numbers on this process that account for all of the needs (transportation, water, heating, cooling, mining, crushing, purification, lighting, secondary services required for the employees running the vast industrial complexes that would be needing for this level of eco-engineering and so on) my guess is that using the water and energy needed for this process would be better spent irrigating the Australian desert to grow trees, grasses (or the perennial favorite - hemp, which would actually be a good choice due to its high growth rate and low fertilization needs) which are simply buried in a big pit which is cut off from the atmosphere to sequester the carbon, eventually turning into coal. I'm not saying that this large scale irrigation project would have no environmental consequences, just that I am highly skeptical that it would be any worse than the process as offered in the article.
It ain't gonna work (Score:1, Interesting)
From the article:
The process of making lime generates CO2, but adding the lime to seawater absorbs almost twice as much CO2. The overall process is therefore 'carbon negative'.
1. To absorb 1 mole of CO2, you need 2 moles of CaO (one mole of CaCO is used to negate the effect of the production of CaCO), that gives is a ratio of 2:1
2. We are producing almost 30 million metric tons of CO2 per year from fossil fuels (and accelerating).
http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/carbon.html [doe.gov]
These numbers look suspicious, but remember that the weight of CO2 is huge due to the fact that burning fuel (which almost only made of carbon) adds 2 atoms of oxygen to carbon, therefore quadrupling the weight:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/co2.shtml [fueleconomy.gov].
3. Divide the weight of CO2 by atomic weight of 44g/mol, multiply by CaCO atomic weight of 84g/mol, and then multiply by the ratio of 2:1, you get:
115 million tons of lime per year (roughly 4 times the weight of CO2)!
Thus is huge: in comparison, the world is producing just under 1 billion tons of mineral ore per year, which means that we would have to divert the equivalent of 12% of that effort to the task of producing and transporting lime. Imagine the cost!
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/iron_ore/340302.pdf [usgs.gov]
In comparison, saving one pound of oil which produces 4 pounds of CO2 would save 16 pounds of lime.
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why we ask people with more than a sophomore chemistry level.
Re:And finally... (Score:3, Interesting)
A solution to nasty-tasting seawater! Lemonade oceans FTW!
Yum! Salty lemonade, my favourite!
It's not that bad. In Guatemala, that is called "cimarrona", and it's supposed to get rid of your hangover.
If you add beer, it becomes a chelada.
This is insanity (Score:5, Interesting)
Its takes energy to make lime (CaO). You need to start with limestone (CaCO3) and drive off the CO2. Eventually the CaO added to the water will become limestone and precipitate out. There is no magic here.
So where will this energy come from? Ans: Presumably the great new oil finds that Shell has been announcing on a regular basis for the last 30 years. Folks - oil prices might be down a little bit now but they won't stay down. And if you actually check the numbers you'll find that Shell has NOT been making much progress in replacing the oil we burn. So how about Natural Gas? More insanity.
Methane is a chemical source of hydrogen. Alkanes are C(n)H(2n+2) and for octane n=8. For methane n=1. The issue is that our liquid fuels have n>=7 so they are much closer to a 2:1 ratio of hydrogen to carbon. Now consider that coal is C(0.6n)H(n) so coal is hydrogen poor. Bitumin is about C(n)H(n). Its actually a little hydrogen rich but the issue is that if we want to produce liquid fuels via coal->liquids or via bitumin->liquids or for that matter from oil shales then we are desperately short of hydrogen and without it we leave about 1/2 the carbon we mine sitting around in piles which we call COKE. And the only other option is if we try to get energy from it and create copious amounts of CO2.
This would have to be the most INSANE use of our non-renewable natural resources that I can possibly imagine. It will result in more carbon in the atmosphere and not less.
Its a very good thing that CO2 is not responsible for global warming. It hasn't been responsible in the geological record other than back in the precambrian when CO2 concentrations reached 130,000 PPM. The levels are now about 370-380 PPM which is a rise of about 100 PPM over the last 100 years or so. Meanwhile water vapour is anywhere from under 1% (10,000 PPM) to over 10% (100,000 PPM). The issue is that water vapour acts closer to the surface of the planet and that its a stronger green house gas than CO2 and we have no idea if there has been a net positive change or a net negative change in average water vapour levels over the planet in the last say 100 years. We don't know the sign and we certainly don't know the magnitude but a 100 PPM change gets swallowed up very quickly when one considers the uncertainties involved here.
Read this: http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar [sciencebits.com]
There is a high correlation between climate and sun spot activities. CERN is undertaking experiments soon to confirm this linkage. We are fortunate that solar cycle #24 is looking to be about 2 years late and if so will probably be very weak and this will provide us with the opportunity to actually do some measurement.
Rather than go berzerk with crazy ideas it will probably make more sense to see what influence solar cycle #24 has.
More global warming nonsense. (Score:2, Interesting)
It just floors me. In 1974 "they" were predicting an ice age. Now "they" say it is global warming. Here is a well thought out examination of the climate and "they" says its another ice age... http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html [time.com]
Fool me once, same on you...
Re:This scares the hell out of me (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, I love NASA.
Especially when they pull shit like this.
FYI, the temperatures in that chart are in comparaison to 1940-1970, the coldest period in recorded times.
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Sahara.
Seriously; several thousand years ago (15,000ish, I think), the Sahara was a tropical jungle, with rivers, lakes, and gazillions of plants.
What happens is the earth warms up to the point that there's so much moisture in the air off of the Atlantic and Mediterranean that it starts raining in the desert. Essentially, global warming eventually *cools* the sahara, which blooms, and absorbs the carbon dioxide. As the earth cools off, it becomes a desert (very rapidly). The last time this happened, it went from lush jungle to desert within 200 years, possibly within a human lifetime. Must have been quite a shock.
~Wx
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in NL they had this marvellous idea ten years ago to fence off a large piece of land and do nothing to it, just to see what happened. Now they are complaining that nature doesn't develop there as they expected. In their opinion there are too many blueberries growing, and that is not good for the development of nature. I wonder where the brains of these people went to, because they're certainly not in their heads.
Re:Sure... (Score:2, Interesting)
So, out of 80+ chemicals that contribute, you want to ignore the largest, consisting of over 25% of the effect?
Um....
So, if we cut 50% of Methane (2%) we loose 1% of the greenhouse effect, but if we cut the same in CO2, we would loose 12.5% of greenhouse.
To me, looks like they're on the right track.
Re:Sure... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think this is what it's talking about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Pump_Theory [wikipedia.org]
But, I saw it on discovery or something once.
~W
Lime sucks compared to iron fertilization (Score:2, Interesting)
Iron Fertilization [wikipedia.org] is a far more effective way to sequester carbon.
According to wikipedia, worst case, 16 supertanker loads of iron costing 27 billion dollars total dumpped in low iron areas of the ocean would sequester the 3 gigatons of CO2. At that rate, to nullify human carbon emmissions by sequestering it all would mean fertilizing the ocean with enough iron to sequester 30 gigatons [wikipedia.org] of CO2 per year at a cost of 270 billion dollars per year.
This would actually be quite affordable when you consider that "the annual value of the global carbon credit market is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2012 "
Of course there is the law of unintended consequences to deal with, and also it's possible that only the first 3 gigatons of sequestration would be possible to so efficiently bring about. It might be that after fertilizing the ocean to sequester the first 3 gigatons, that the next 27 gigatons would require dumping iron where it would less efficiently sequester CO2, or perhaps not.