DoE Considers Artificial Trees To Remove CO2 418
Posted
by
timothy
from the putting-the-artifice-in-artificial dept.
from the putting-the-artifice-in-artificial dept.
eldavojohn writes "CNN is running an article on a new angle of attack to reducing greenhouse gases. After meeting with the US Department of Energy on the concept, the researchers revealed the details that each 'tree' (really a small building structure in the concept design) would cost about as much as a Toyota and remove 1 ton of CO2 from the air per day. Don't worry, they're accounting for the energy the 'tree' uses to operate: 'By the time we make liquid C02 we have spent approximately 50 kilojoules [of electricity] per mole of C02. Compare that to the average power plant in the US, which produces one mole of C02 with every 230 kilojoules of electricity. In other words, if we simply plugged our device in to the power grid to satisfy its energy needs, for every roughly 1,000 kilograms [of carbon dioxide] we collected we would re-emit 200, so 800 we can chalk up as having been successful.' Each unit would remove 20 automobiles' worth of CO2 from the air and cost about as much as a Toyota... so the plan might be a five percent surcharge on automobiles to fund these synthetic tree farms."
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:3, Interesting)
Dry ice stays solid if you drop it down the bottom of as little as few hundred feet (maybe less) under ocean water.
transport it all out to the Marianas Trench and drop it. not going to hypercarbonate the water because it'll stay solid below the right depth [which is reached rapidly if you put them on something that decreases hydrodynamic drag]
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:2, Interesting)
as long as the gas is pure, it can be used for carbonating drinks.
These things are nothing like a tree (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:5, Interesting)
As for CFLs, Recyclers aren't too hard to find [epa.gov]. (More generally, mercury containing florescent lamps(mostly the conventional long-tube type) have been used in commercial and industrial applications for decades; because they are cheap and last a long time. Somehow, nobody worried at all about that, until they became associated with the evil environmental movement, at which point their mercury content became a talking point. Funny how that works...)
It is truly amazing... (Score:2, Interesting)
When I read stories like this, I combine swear words in combinations I never thought possible.
So when they build one or two of these "Farms" and find out....whoops, we underestimated their effectiveness and costs...then what?
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:5, Interesting)
The only way to curb CO2 in the atmosphere is to stop burning fuel and let natural vegetation grow. This also means letting forests GROW and not clear cutting for land development, wood, and paper.
Algae Need This (Score:3, Interesting)
Algae farms which could produce fuel need large quantities of concentrated CO2 to function. They would be a perfect match with these artificial trees.
Re:How about 'non synth'? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know where to begin.
Do you know how many species of trees are native to the more arid parts of California? The problem with most of Los Angeles, is exactly what you propose. A decades-long successful but misguided effort to cut down trees in order to save a few dollars in maintenance costs. Dunno about you, but the endless miles sun-bleached concrete and asphalt is hardly a hospitable environment, to say nothing of the problem with everyone needing an airconditioner to get through the summer because no one's thought to actually plant a frigging tree.
Seriously, you have a problem with trees? I'd suggest that if everyone started planting new ones and did so for the next decade, we (and our planet) would be better off.
Re:How about 'non synth'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Charcoal is very stable and won't re-enter the atmosphere for millions of years.
Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Could it work? Now where to put all that liquid CO2?
Re:Why not real trees? (Score:3, Interesting)
Trees work in places trees work. Trees don't work in many places, such as the urban areas where cars are more likely to be concentrated at.
Trees are not a fire and forget tech, they require a good bit of maintence if you are attempting to use them for a purpose they require water, protection from pests and diseases, and room.
If you check the article, the device is the size of a small trailer, and pulls out a ton of CO2 a day. Compare that with trees packed into the equivalent amount of space (even assuming infinite vertical room) and trees suddenly become a laugh.
Additionally, while trees do actually convert the CO2 into something else, liquid CO2 is actually a in and of itself. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Why not real trees? (Score:4, Interesting)
Trees work in places trees work. Trees don't work in many places, such as the urban areas where cars are more likely to be concentrated at.
What's your point? It doesn't matter where you put the trees; there's no reason to put them in the same place where the cars are concentrated.
Carbon dioxide is a global problem, not a local one. Put the trees wherever it makes most sense to put them.
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:3, Interesting)
It might stop sublimating at that pressure, but it still dissolves, and it does so slowly.
A few decades from now the problem would be "OMG WE HAVE TO DIG UP ALL THE CHUNKS OF CO2 OR THE OCEAN WILL DIE!"
The guy above you explained it very well.
But how about a simpler example?
Fish tank + CO2.
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't we turn it into biodiesel with algae farms? That would be win-win.
Or, build a glasshouse near your power plant. Pipe the CO2 from the power plant into the glasshouse. In winter (and summer, if needed) heat the glasshouse using waste hot water from the power plant. Grow tomatoes.
This is already done in lots of places.
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:4, Interesting)
No, more like because in the commercial and industrial areas, people were far more aware of the bulbs, and the dangers they presented, and were more prepared for any potential problems.
Which turn out to be basically nothing, which is why there are florescent lights up everywhere in every office building and store you walk into and no HAZMAT teams on call to deal with broken bulbs. Yes, that's right, Wal-Mart is endangering you with the horrible danger of their dangerous lights with no regard for your safety! You should sue! :P
I, like many people, just want to have a choice and I am getting sick of being branded as some "earth murderer" because I'm not interested in having little mercury bombs all over the place.
Odds are that you have more mercury than 1000 CFLs in your face.
Anyway, "earth murderer" is indeed over the top. I'm sure you wish the earth no ill. "Uninformed reactionary" is a much better term. Relax. How often do you break lightbulbs? If you aren't doing it every single day, you're safe. Worried your kids or pets will knock over a table lamp on a regular basis? Use an incandescent there. Recessed can lights? Why on earth wouldn't you use a CFL there? Cus it might spontaneously explode and give you mercury-induced brain damage?
Re:Why not real trees? (Score:5, Interesting)
If we could cover all the land area in the world with bamboo (heh) then we could sequester basically all excess carbon in 15 years or less. We can't, but anyway.
There's plants other than trees which are applicable.
Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. (Score:2, Interesting)
That means we're going to burn 20% more fuel to deal with a problem that comes from burning too much fuel.
To make things worse, it doesn't even really deal with the problem, it just converts the CO2 to a liquid which has to be stored somehow, forever. There's no easy answers there. Dropping it to the bottom of the ocean won't work, at least not permanently.
The ocean is already a huge CO2 sink. why wouldn't that CO2 solidify, covering the bottom of the ocean with dry ice, if the pressure is high enough, and the temperature low enough?
Simple answer. There's not enough pressure to keep it as a solid, and at those low temperatures and high pressures, it dissolves easily into the water. So, while you don't get bubbles coming up, the problem still hasn't gone away.
When the fuck did "TOYOTA" become a monetary unit? (Score:2, Interesting)
As much as a toyota manufactured heavy mining dump truck?
As much as a toyota forklift?
A prius? A corolla?
I smell more nonsense wrapped in a 'save the babies' cloak.
Re:Why not real trees? (Score:3, Interesting)
Trees aren't as much trouble as you think. Here in Atlanta, there are several abandoned buildings where trees have sprouted ON THE ROOF of their own accord. I have no idea what they're using for soil, but they certainly managed.
Your point about the amount of CO2 captured is fair enough.
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally, my M.S. on the deep-ocean sequestration of carbon dioxide becomes relevant!
CO2 is a supercritical liquid at depth, denser than water. Here's the stuff at 3300 meters (courtesy of MBARI) [youtube.com]
Here's your phase diagram. [mbari.org]
Here's some pictures [mbari.org] that show CO2 at depth.
Once at depth, the CO2 will slowly dissolve into the seawater, lowering the pH. Of course, we're doing this at the ocean surface as-is, so one can make the argument that it's less bad to acidify the deep ocean slowly vs. surface waters quickly.
If you drop dry ice overboard, a goodly amount of it will dissolve before reaching bottom. There's research on this; I leave finding the reference as an exercise.
Re:These things are nothing like a tree (Score:3, Interesting)
Trees have a finite lifespan, and, as noted, when they die they (barring very rare circumstances) release the carbon back into the atmosphere.
If the median tree carbon content is 5 tons and life is 50 years, each tree sequesters 250 ton-years of carbon.
Now we can start comparing opportunity costs. What do we lose by planting the tree, as compared to other actions or inaction? Potential land-use costs? Labor costs? Could the carbon sequestration and other benefits of the tree be achieved more cheaply in other ways?
...including conservation? Multiply the kilowatt savings of a more-efficient refrigerator by its expected lifespan and carbon-per-kilowatt-hour and it may turn out to be a better use of resources to build refrigerators than plant trees. What resources are required to build a wind farm that produces carbon-free energy for 50 years?
I'm not an expert but the numbers are so large that I doubt tree-planting will accomplish much. Humans add about 5 gigatons of carbon a year to the atmosphere. Let's say an average tree masses 10 tons, half of which is carbon, in 1000 square feet, for 50 years. Sequestering 5% of our carbon emissions would mean planting 100,000 square kilometers of forest every year -- the entire state of Virginia. For years 1-50. In year 51, now that you've covered an area half the size of the U.S. in trees, you need to redouble your efforts because the first year's are dead and decaying.
That's a lot of work to cut net emissions by five percent. I'll bet there are much more effective ways.
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:2, Interesting)
Biofuel availability is orders of magnitude less than what is needed to replace fossil sources.
Indeed right. This idea that we can "grow" our way into energy independence has been debunked many times before.
*However*, with a large source of CO2 (that has already been emitted, so we don't have to worry about it "building up") like this, it might well be feasible to create a synthetic, instead of bionic, fuels industry.
All we need to go with the CO2 is a large source of Hydrogen (which can be abstracted from Seawater).
This until we find some mobile source of energy that can rival intense chemical compactness of gasoline, diesel, etc.
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:3, Interesting)
The SimCity Bulldozer Effect (Score:2, Interesting)
It would be nice if each new development didn't use the SimCity Bulldozer on everything when building new streets/homes. Of course, those homes each get one nursery tree and a driveway with two SUVs, which I'm sure doesn't balance out.
Here's an idea to take to your local Town Meeting and propose: Each home with an SUV must have 5 trees (of a certain diameter) on the lot, 10 for two, etc. It'd stop the SimCity Bulldozer, and the random folks who suddenly get the urge to cut down all their trees.
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:1, Interesting)
Can't we turn it into biodiesel with algae farms? That would be win-win.
This time around the point is to reduce, not break even. Personally, I would prefer some sort of direct separation of (gaseous or liquid) oxygen and (solid, or various nanostructure material) carbon, because we would be needing both in industrial amounts in the future, LOX for space launches, designer carbon structures (preferably some sort of microscopic universal reusable construction elements) to replace most technical materials we use today. The new era would become known as The Age of Carbon.