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."
And finally... (Score:3, Funny)
A solution to nasty-tasting seawater! Lemonade oceans FTW!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A solution to nasty-tasting seawater! Lemonade oceans FTW!
Yum! Salty lemonade, my favourite!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yum! Salty lemonade, my favourite!
Gatorade Marine will be marketed for its unique patented electrolytes.
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Funny)
Yum! Salty lemonade, my favourite!
Gatorade Marine will be marketed for its unique patented electrolytes.
It's got what plants crave!
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Funny)
But it's got elec-tra-lites.
Definitely an under-appreciated movie.
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Funny)
Add lime? (Score:5, Interesting)
You might not be in Margaritaville - but you might still get plastered. [wikipedia.org]
WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm hoping that next they'll add some gin.
Re:And finally... (Score:4, Informative)
fish don't fuck in the water, whales, dolphins, seals and walruses fuck in the water but not fish; in fact you should be glad you don't know what fish really do in the water, it makes fucking look pretty neat and tidey!
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Informative)
A solution to nasty-tasting seawater! Lemonade oceans FTW!
Except...it's lime.
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Funny)
The only problem is the dolphins are asking for Corona or Tequila....
Screw those stupid dolphins; always laughing at us humans. Just to spite them we should fill the ocean with Bud Light!
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Funny)
>>The only problem is the dolphins are asking for Corona or Tequila....
>Screw those stupid dolphins; always laughing at us humans. Just to spite them we should fill the ocean with Bud Light!
Speaking of pissing in the ocean...
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Funny)
Just to spite them we should fill the ocean with Bud Light!
That would be pointless and redundant. The ocean is already filled with water.
Re:And finally... (Score:4, Funny)
Good. I've missed the flavor of candy cigarettes.
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why we ask people with more than a sophomore chemistry level.
Re:And finally... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nonsense, as anyone with sophomore chemistry and the ability to google up the quantities of CO2 we're talking about could tell you.
That's why we ask people with more than a sophomore chemistry level.
You are kidding... right? But look at that moderation! WOW! What really blows my mind is that all the climate change cultists that read here haven't even bothered to give the article a critical look and instead are content to make jokes about fruit flavoring. The article claims:
Gee, do tell guys. How does reversing CaCO3 -> CaO + CO2 magically use up twice as much CO2 as it releases? No chemical formula, no citation. Nothing. Jack squat. Hmmm, a little digging produces this. [cquestrate.com]
So... CaO + H2O + 2CO2 -> Ca + 2HCO3...
Wait a second!? Doesn't 2H2O + 2CO2 -> 2H + 2HCO3...
So they're really just substituting Ca(2+) for 2H(+) and this is just more cultist sleight of hand. "We can drop CaO in the water and be SAVED! It'll absorb twice as much CO2 as it releases! HEAL mother Earth and REJOICE!! Send your support for our computer modeling efforts in the form of a check to..."
Besides, making lime takes LOTS of energy. Where is this pile of miracle lime going to come from??
Great, the cultists are going to stripmine the F'in desert and haul it all the way to the oceans. I'm sure that process will be "carbon neutral." I'll bet it's really inexpensive and gentle on the desert ecosystem at the same time. <sarcasm />
Mitch said it best (Score:5, Funny)
As long as you keep it our of the coconuts... (Score:4, Funny)
Careful with the lime please!
If you put a lot of lime into the ocean, in places where coconuts might fall into the water, you'll end up poisoning the whole area.
This is a dangerous game.
To wit:
Brother bought a coconut, he bought it for a dime
His sister had another one, she paid it for the lime
She put the lime in the coconut, she drank 'em both up
She put the lime in the coconut, she drank 'em both up
She put the lime in the coconut, she drank 'em both up
Put the lime in the coconut, she called the doctor, woke him up, and said
Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take, I said
Doctor, to relieve this bellyache, I said
Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take, I said
Doctor, to relieve this bellyache
Now let me get this straight
Put the lime in the coconut, you drank 'em both up
Put the lime in the coconut, you drank 'em both up
Put the lime in the coconut, you drank 'em both up
Put the lime in the coconut...
(repeat until you're out of CO2)
Re:Mitch said it best (Score:5, Informative)
I'm kind of surprised you know enough to know that it sounds like him but haven't heard it. It's from his CD, Mitch All Together, on the track titled, oddly enough, Saved By The Buoyancy Of Citrus.
Re:Mitch said it best (Score:5, Funny)
You either loved him, or hated him... or thought he was OK.
Sure... (Score:5, Funny)
This couldn't possibly have any additional side-effects, right?
Next they'll want to add tequila and filter the salt to the coasts.
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I guess, but we've really swallowed the cow already. Our best available science predicts dire consequences from current and future CO2 levels, so it's reasonable to look for potential fixes that may have other consequences that will need to be studied carefully.
It's certainly good to address the problem at its cause, by releasing less CO2 in the first place, but there are practical limits to reductions and many methods used to reduce CO2 will have their own side effects. Even wind/solar would have SOME negative effects, some of which would likely be unanticipated.
Re:Sure... (Score:4, Informative)
A budding GW denier eh? Well don't give up! Learn more and get right back to us with your next poorly-researched knee-jerk conclusion!
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/ [realclimate.org]
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't GW denying, it's that CO2 probably accounts for less than 25% of the greenhouse effect. If we're looking to manage the greenhouse effect ("manage" because if we overdo it we get a global cooling problem) then it's no good just looking at CO2. The fact that the effects of greenhouse gasses are often quoted in CO2 equivalent tends to mislead people into thinking that CO2 is the only gas that matters.
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but of the gases released by human activity CO2 is the main culprit, and the main one that needs to be "managed." To deny its role in global warming is just wrong.
You have to be specific (Score:4, Informative)
It isn't GW denying, it's that CO2 probably accounts for less than 25% of the greenhouse effect.
Less than 25% over what period of time? What is the incremental effect of ongoing CO2 emissions, vs. other gases? What are the chemical sources for all the gases?
In a short snapshot of time, CO2 does not contribute much to the greenhouse effect. Water vapor and methane produce a greater percentage of warming. HOWEVER, the global balance of water vapor is not significantly changing, and imbalances cycle out of the atmosphere within a week or two (as rain). So while water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, it does not contribute to long-term climate trends very much. Methane lasts a lot longer than water vapor, but still quite a bit less time than CO2. That is because methane is not stable in the atmosphere; it breaks down into water, ozone, and...CO2. CO2 lasts a long time in the atmosphere. It is chemically stable and the carbon cycle moves slowly.
We have a situation where mankind produces a lot of water vapor, methane, and CO2. The water vapor washes out of the atmosphere so quickly that no matter how much extra we produce, the balance is back a week later. Plus the amount we produce is tiny compared to say, ocean evaporation.
Methane and CO2 are produced from living plant matter and from fossil fuels. Plant matter is made of CO2 that used to be in the atmosphere, so every plant we convert to CO2 will eventually be plant again, etc--keeping the system in balance. But methane and CO2 coming from fossil fuels are not part of our ongoing balance. And since CO2 lasts a long time, the aggregate effect of increases over decades will actually be the greatest due to CO2.
A metaphor for this is a comparison of growing your money at 20% compounded for 2 years or 7% compounded for 10 years. Yes the former has a "larger effect," i.e. a bigger instantaneous interest rate. But even though the percentage is smaller, the latter produces the larger final effect. This is a metaphor for why scientists are most concerned about CO2 among the greenhouse gases. Whatever we do now with CO2, we're going to be stuck with the results for a long time.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
it is good to try to treat everything with a modicum of respect. The dividing line you draw in the sand between what you will show respect for, and what you won't, is subjective, and specific to only you. Someone else may come along and think that what you have decided not to show respect for, deserves respect. Who is right? While applying respect unilaterally gives you closer to a true moral high ground to work from.
I respect those of a religious persuasion enough to actually take a look at their Big Book of Holiness, to attempt to point out to them where they are making their mistakes (if we are to disregard the old testament for the new testament, why follow the ten commandments.. and if we are to follow the ten commandments, why ignore the rest of the rules laid out in the old testament?)
There is science to back up the probability that we are adding to global warming, but there is also science that shows that the Earth goes through normal periods of heating up and cooling down. I mean... who caused the global warming that brought us back from the last Ice Age?
Understanding an issue is leading someone from ignorance to knowledge. One cannot condemn another for their ignorance. One can only condemn another for their lack of desire to leave their ignorance behind. All you can hope to do is educate and allow people to see the reason and logic behind the presented evidence. You cannot say that you are sick of dealing with thick-headed people and therefore you see no point in explaining yourself. If you can't be bothered to make an honest attempt at improving the situation, you are only making it worse.
Personally, I think playing with our Ocean's chemistry is playing with fire... so to speak. I'd rather see a manmade increase in Plankton and Forests, and gain the benefit of the additional oxygen.
But then, people would have to give up on living on their 4 acres of grass.
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah.. okay. Propose a controlled experiment that we could perform. God knows hundreds, probably THOUSANDS of said experiments have already been done, but obviously since we can't build a viable climate model in the laboratory, we've turned to very, very complex computer models which do the same thing.
You think it's rational to disregard hundreds of thousands of man-hours of research by climate scientists because "you've done computer programming?" What makes you an expert in this field? have you even read the research you're disputing? (hint: you couldn't read it all in a single human lifetime, so no you haven't).
I understand why the OP is so frusterated... if you aren't an expert in the field, freaking defer to those who are! Quantum mechanics sounds pretty wacky too, but I don't question it because I defer to the experts. Anyone who doesn't in this day and age has a serious god complex.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure... (Score:4, Funny)
What do you have against Canada [state.gov]?
Cause and effect (Score:5, Insightful)
What you're saying is that the release of carbon dioxide was not the cause of past global warming. It does not follow that the release of carbon dioxide cannot be the cause of global warming this time. If you show up to work late ten times in a row because of bad traffic, it does not mean that the eleventh time you're late it cannot be because your car didn't start. It looks like you could benefit from learning more about science.
Re:Cause and effect (Score:5, Funny)
He's too busy running an array of air conditioners outside trying to combat this warming trend to be bothered with any of that science crap.
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:5, Funny)
Yeah, but who would do something as brain-dead as that?
Re: Ice Cores (Score:4, Informative)
Chris,
What you say about ice cores and CO2 levels is accurate but incomplete. THe story isn't so simple. In point of fact, ice cores have shown that the atmospheric CO2 levels have been dropping steadily over time, essentially until the bottom of the last ice age, aboujt 11,000 years ago. Since that time, the CO2 levels have slowly risen until about 1800 AD or so, at which time human CO2 production became a significant additional planetary burden,
Prior to the ice ages, in the carboniferous period, planetary levels of CO2 were as high as 1500 parts per million, five times what they are today. One must consider that all that limestone and fossil fuel in the ground (or what used to be in the ground) came from this atmospheric carbon dioxide, over hundreds of millions of years. The CO2 levels reached a planetary minimum during the last series of ice ages. Whether the cooling was due to low CO2 levels, or the low CO2 levels were due to cooling is unresolved.
What is not arguable is that humans are adding to the atmospheric CO2 levels, and that during this microscopic period of geological time, global warming has become very fast indeed.
What is also not arguable is that prior to the ice ages, the planet was very much warmer than it is now, and very much warmer than ecological models predict for tne forseeable future. We're not treading on new ground here, we're retracing steps that occurred half a million years ago. The world is not coming to an end, at least, not yet.
Having said that, going back to a Permian climate would be exceptionally inconvenient to a few billion humans. At those times, the entire interior of the United states was a warm tropical inland sea. Somehow, I think the future residents of St. Louis might object to that. Siberia could become the rice bowl of civilization. From today's point of view, it would be bad, no doubt.
For better or worse, we (humanity) don't really have the option to go back to a small population of agrarians. I might point out that agriculture itself is very recent, only about 6,000 years old. We don't really get to "go back to nature" -- if you doubt this, take a trip to Cambodia.
The only option we have left is to take over engineeing of our planet. This will include finding ways to stop dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, but also includes things like building seawalls around New Orleans, and in the quite near future, a lot of other urban places, or relocating the entire place to higher locations. Ocean levels have varied by a thousand meters throughout history, and we aren't (yet) in a position to stop them.
The important thing to remember is that our planet is a "complex system" and that on such systems, one never, ever, gets to adjust just one knob. Everything interacts, and we must proceed cautiously so that our "fixes" don't end up causing more damage than leaving things alone.
There is a lot to be done, and predicting that the sky is falling isn't helpful. Pointing out that when a suburb of Los Angeles floods, it is due to increased oceanic evaporation caused by global warming is a lot more truthful, and in my opinion, more effective, than painting pictures of the end of the world.
-- Norm Reitzel
Revisionist history (Score:4, Informative)
Callendar [wikipedia.org] proposed the effect of increased carbon dioxide levels causing global warming in the 1930s. Keeling [wikipedia.org] started monitoring carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere in the 1950s. If some "environmentalists" were predicting an ice age in the 1970s, it sounds like they were quite ignorant of the scientific research.
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:4, Insightful)
So your contentions are that these thousands-of-years-old trees only exist because of man, and nature would have taken care of them long ago, despite their having living thousands of years without "land management" and only "nature." Ok, do you see the logical fallacy here?
And if you think CO2 regulation is the only function that trees fulfill, well that's just wrong.
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:5, Insightful)
Somehow you manage to draw you enemies all together under the banner of tree hugging geniuses. Then, you ingeniously lump disparate environmental issues together. Next you demonstrate profound insight into the mind of nature. You follow all this up by advocating what, to the untrained eye, would seem like some random course of action unfettered with the burden of proof. But you're not done! Somehow you still manage to finish this sweeping literary tour de force by utterly decapitating that nebulous group of government worshiping tree-huggers doubtlessly responsible for countless environmental and economical catastrophes going back untold millennia!
Rest easy tonight sir, secure in the knowledge that the world is better place you in it.
Re:Sure... (Score:4, Informative)
Huh?
I hate to parse, but I don't recognize any of those statements as having come from environmentalists.
Let's keep around the old trees and kill the young ones.
This overstatement is soooo very hyperbolic, it'd be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic. Old growth forests just don't exist anymore in the US, at least not to any appreciable degree. We've already cut down all the old trees. As a rule, environmentalists are against clearcuts and for sustainable forestry (more expensive to log, but keeps trees of various ages in a given acreage, offers a diverse understory, allows for some logs to lie where they fall and includes fire as part of the natural cycle). That said, it's recognized even by the environmentalist groups that Boise Cascade and other wood & pulp products producers either own or lease their lands outright and can ultimately tree-farm and clearcut to the extent they desire.
You can't clear out any of the underbrush, and we have to stop wild fires right away! (See California)
Wow. What a broad brush you've got there. Brush clearing has always been okay, even on public lands. Some states contract out for it, and others use -=gasp=- FIRE to clear it out. It's taken as a given that any property owner needs to clear brush from their houses. Did it every occur to you that natural wet-dry cycles can leave a lot of dry scrub when drought eventually sets in? In CO, we've got millions and millions of dead trees from pine bark beetle. Do you think those dead trees are all going to sit there? Hell no, the state's already permitting for logging most of it out, on millions of acres, as they should.
You can't have nuclear power plants, the waste contaminates the environment. (Breeder reactors anyone?)
I'm pretty sure that one of the founders of the Sierra club has come to endorse nuclear energy. Regardless, the main environmetalist objection to nuclear energy hasn't been in waste disposal anyway (almost all nuclear waste from power plants is held on-site) -- it's been with the way uranium is mined and what the tailings and ore processing leachfields do to rivers & the water table. Think this is whining? It's not. My state (Colorado) already has a superfund site to show for it... Uravan [state.co.us]. Breeder reactor development got squashed 25 years ago, and it's only now being talked about again. Maybe the discussion is ready to re-open. I dunno.
Yep, it's those annoying enviro-hippies. They only exist to make things difficult. They just don't have any other reason for what they do other than being annoying. Oooooh, and they're sooooo annoying. Sooooo annoying that the entire US government has been able to ignore them for eight years. Ooooooh, they're soooooo powerful. Soooo scary! Like martians! Like clowns! BooogaBoogaBooogaBoogaBoooga!
Scared yet? Didn't think so. If you look closely at the issues you'll see that there's a balance to be struck between competing goals. The best outcomes are the ones that nobody's entirely satisfied with, but let things go forward. We can't achieve those outcomes if folks sit back, re-enforce their stereotypes, point fingers and blame blame blame, as you do.
Jeezus, what bunch of hand-wringing whiny pussies conservatives have become.
Your account should be banned. (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno what the hell you're trying to babble about. The proper reference for /. readers goes like this:
Skinner: Ahh, but as it turns out the lizards were a godsend since they've eaten all the pigeons.
Lisa: Isn't that a little short-sighted? What happens when we're up to our ears with lizards?
Skinner: Ah, well we shall simply release wave after wave of Chinese needlesnakes.
Lisa: Then what about the snakes?
Skinner: We simply import gorillas who will eat all the snakes.
Lisa: Well what happens when we're up to our ears in gorillas?!
Skinner: Ah that's the beauty of the thing, come winter the gorillas will freeze to death.
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Funny)
At least she swallows.
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.
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Informative)
It's a way of hardening the water, which in turn increases its ability to absorb CO2 without increasing the acidity of the water. The basic chemistry is used by aquarium hobbyists to keep their acidity stable.
Many fish keepers go to great lengths to keep their water in a tight range to mimic their fish's natural environment as close as possible, but empirical evidence suggests that fish can tolerate a wide range of hardness and acidity provided that changes are made slowly. Additionally, it should increase the growth rate of coral.
However, many types of fish may only breed within a given hardness range, so this may end up being a big problem.
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
You give away your bias too easily...
If you really think global warming will kill you all, then any side effects are of secondary concern - go nuclear, kill all the dolphins be damned.
Not necessarily. Imagine you had a black-widow spider crawling on your forehead, and your friend sees it, pulls out his gun, and prepares to shoot the spider. Would you say that, if you really believed the spider was going to kill you, you'd let him shoot, because side effects are a secondary concern? Or would you encourage your friend to consider the consequences before he pulled the trigger?
There are times when the cure is worse than the disease, and lots of problems were begun with good intentions. Even the current ecological problems were caused by someone trying to fix an economic problem without considering (or else ignoring) the ramifications. If you're setting out to change the chemistry of our oceans, I'd say it's worth looking at all the angles.
uh oh (Score:3, Interesting)
A slight correction... (Score:5, Informative)
Quick Lime = Calcium Oxide
Andy
A source of limestone (Score:3, Informative)
Here in Bloomington, Indiana, we have a huge number of limestone blocks that were left over from building larger blocks.
Obligatory Futurama quote (Score:5, Funny)
Adding lime to sea water.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yeah! Interference FTW. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know...
Based on the success of introducing the cane toad, tamarisk, the bark beetle, the banana slug, the mongoose, or the brown tree snake!
Any time humans screw something up, the best bet is for humans to go double-or-nothing.
Sure beats efficiency, responsible building practices, responsible reproduction rates, or simply riding a bike to work! Surely, changing the pH, salinity, disolved o2, and turbidity of the oceans will have no unwanted effect.
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:Oh yeah! Interference FTW. (Score:5, Informative)
You actually need both things... Because all of it has an impact.
That bicycle? It produced as much or more pollution as the car burning the gasoline to produce it unless you're making it entirely out of wood. The same goes for most of the other ones you brought up.
By themselves, they don't accomplish much of anything- and actually in some cases are worse than the "fixes" we've done in the past (Something else you mentioned...).
You've got to take in an even bigger picture than you're doing- otherwise you're no better than the people you're tarring with that brush of yours.
Uhm no?
Making a bike produces a negligible amount of CO2 compared to driving a car, your statement is downright false.
Re:Oh yeah! Interference FTW. (Score:5, Insightful)
The bicycle production uses the same amount of energy to produce as driving the car how far? If the bicycle's parts used that much energy to mine, smelt, cast, assemble, and transport then how much more did the parts of the 1,200 kg car take?
Calcium hydroxide, not the fruit (Score:5, Informative)
You'd think it'd be obvious, but at slashdot, you actually do need to point that out to people.
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.
Re:Natural carbon sequestration via coral? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, coral (and shellfish) can sequester carbon, but this only works as long as the water is sufficiently non-acidic. The problem is that as atmospheric CO2 is absorbed into the oceans, some of it becomes carbonic acid -- and the acidification of the water means that corals, and shellfish shells, dissolve.
One nice effect of adding lime is that it lowers the acidity of the water, thereby allowing coral and shellfish to continue sequestering carbon.
Whoa there... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more sensible and cost effective for mankind to use technology to adapt to climate change rather than to try to change the climate. After all, some climate change isn't caused by man and can't be stopped. Witness the last little ice age, and the last ice age before that that glaciated much of the northern hemisphere.
Eventually some idiotic scheme like dumping X in the oceans is going to cause a truly great disaster. We need to stop screwing around with the Earth. Climate science is still in its infancy.
Nevermind the obvious unknowns here (Score:5, Insightful)
But what happens when one nation decides this is a great idea while another fervently disagrees? Water doesn't obey boundaries.
Re:Nevermind the obvious unknowns here (Score:4, Informative)
I Am A Chemist (Score:5, Informative)
And this appears to work. I'm sure some not-rtfa'ing people above me will have got in with a quick "making lime generates carbon dioxide hur hur" but the process already takes this into account. By increasing the pH of the seawater, they claim that it will absorb two moles of CO2 for every mole released in the manufacture of lime. I'm not an environmental chemist so I can't comment on the adsorption gradient of seawater, but if they think it'll work then it'll work.
Carbon dioxide dissolves in water:
CO2 + H2O H(+) + HCO3(-)
As does Calcium Oxide (lime)
CaO + H2O Ca(2+) + 2 * OH(-)
Hydroxide and protons naturally combine to form water - it's another equilibrium but the constant is something like 10**-7 (that 7 is the pH of water)
H(+) + OH(-) H2O
i.e. at pH 7, there will be ten million times as much water as either of the other two.
I'd imagine that various equilibrium constants shift around to prove that there's a net increase in the absorption of carbon dioxide from air. It's pretty elementary science - so elementary, I've forgotten how to do it. by simply ascribing a token amount of competence to the scientific background of the people in TFA, it can be shown that they probably know what the hell they're talking about.
Also, there's no doomsday scenario where a drop of lime juice makes the ocean boil pure CO2 and kill us all. As far as I can see.
Re:I Am A Chemist (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot seems to have eaten the arrows in your equations, so here's a try using HTML entities:
CO2 + H2O -> H(+) + HCO3(-)
CaO + H2O -> Ca(2+) + 2 * OH(-)
H(+) + OH(-) -> H2O
Seems Slashdot has something against implementing some form of Unicode (and HTML 4 entity codes), so putting in → (right arrow) or pasting the equivalent character don't work. You'd think they would pass it onto the browser rather than simply deleting them...
Re:I Am A Chemist (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a chemist too, and read the article, but there were no technical details upon which to judge it. However, I'm pretty leery of screwing with the pH of the ocean, since ecosystems need a pretty stable pH range to thrive. The problems I'd see involve ocean current circulation - namely, how fast can you put the CaO in locally such that it disperses worldwide and generates pH advantages without screwing the pH locally such that it creates ecosystem problems?
I still have this niggling fear that they're just setting up a feedback loop, because they're not looking at the whole picture. They're making CaO by sticking CO2 into the atmosphere, putting CaO into the ocean, which drops the pH and sucks up some CO2. My thinking is that they've probably used the existing amount of CO2 in the air to determine the rate of CO2 absorption (which they can't do), and that the pH decrease in the rainwater will balance the pH increase of the ocean - which works only until it rains and they re-mix. In other words, when this reaction cycle completes, the pH of the ocean is ultimately the same.
My intuition is that this won't work, since in the end every mole of CaO they create will ultimately recombine and be re-sequestered as CaCO3 in the ocean. The question is where we want the sequestered CaCO3 - on land or in water? It seems to me if the CaCO3 is in an arid environment as it currently is, that's better than in the ocean where it could actually retard further carbon sequestration through reverse-reaction with acid.
I give them points for trying, and I don't have enough details to prove it won't work, but I think this is an example best illustrated in the Simpsons, where Homer makes his money by selling grease...that he gets from bacon he cooks...that Marge buys at a higher price.
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.
Unintended Consequences (Score:5, Funny)
There are two forces in this world keeping the pirates in check: ninjas and scurvy. If the seas were suddenly full of lime, scurvy would be vanquished. The balance of power would be horribly altered, and no one's booty would be safe.
Please, everybody, write your congressman about this!
So this is stage three, "bargaining"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on the speed at which the we are progressing through the Kubler-Ross model of grief, the world governments should hit "acceptance" sometime around 2025. Then maybe we'll start hearing some sense out of people.
Do this with my reef tank at home already (Score:4, Informative)
Oddly enough this has been done in the Reef hobby world for decades. You add what is called "Kalkwasser" which is nothing more then a solution of water and lime. Course I would think to have similar effect on the ocean you are going to need to add MASSIVE amounts.
So.. lemme get this straight... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Anonymouns Coward (Score:5, Informative)
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'.
RTFA. FTW. My acronyms are more powerful than your anonymity.
Re:Anonymouns Coward (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Anonymouns Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
Science ignorance on the rise
I love it when people think they know everything and don't even see if these scientists even considered the issue.
So, correction:
Reader ignorance on the rise.
Re:Ocean of Acid (Score:5, Informative)
And then all these fish die because of too much acid in the water! Epic Fale.
Uh, not really - Calcium Oxide reduces the acidity of water: Calcium Oxide [wikipedia.org]
Re:Ocean of Acid (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh... Because of the CO2 we already have in the atmosphere, it's too acid right now. All they're doing is a process mother nature already does (Much like Thermal Depolymerization does with biomass and plastics to break it down into natural gas and sweet crude...). Strange as it seems, it might actually do some good- but it's a bold thing they're proposing.
The Wisdom of the Simpsons (Score:5, Funny)
This sounds a lot like that episode of the Simpsons where Bart unleashes some lizards that spread all over and end up killing off the pigeons which annoyed the town:
Skinner: Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Re:The Wisdom of the Simpsons (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately doing nothing isn't the answer either. Nor is anything that I've seen most of the people suggesting (Suggested alternatives to the polluting vehicles, etc. end up producing their own global warming inducing pollution, either at only a slightly LESS rate than we are now or at the same or higher levels- you just don't have it happening locally...) including the seeding of the oceans with iron filings to produce algal blooms, etc.
While I'm not 100% on board with this, on the first reading, it's the first relatively "sane" thing that someone's suggested so far about the "global warming problem"- which is not to say I think we need to do it right away or that this is the sole answer.
And, for the record, we've been doing the old saw about the lady or the Simpson's gag since the earlier days of man. Just being on this earth, we cause a disruption like no other... I don't see us doing any less anytime soon, I'm afraid.
Re:Ocean of Acid (Score:5, Informative)
TFA says they did think of this years ago but the problem was back then they wanted to do it on a truly global scale and, with the exception of a few places, getting the lime out of limestone and to the ocean generally puts more CO2 into the atmosphere than the lime would help the ocean take back out of the atmosphere.
IOW, "net negative". Somebody seems to have had the genius thought that just because it can't be done everywhere and act as a "silver bullet" for global warming doesn't mean it isn't worth getting what help it can provide by doing it in those places where it doesn't produce more CO2 than it scrubs.
Re:Ocean of Acid (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it's time to upgrade to Sea++?
Re:Ocean of Acid (Score:5, Informative)
This is why we RTFA:
There are potentially huge environmental benefits from addressing climate change and adding calcium hydroxide to seawater will also mitigate the effects of ocean acidification, so it should have a positive impact on the marine environment.
Lime is an alkalide.
Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_oxide [wikipedia.org]
Also here: http://www.cquestrate.com/ [cquestrate.com]
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:Ocean of Acid (Score:5, Funny)
Epic Fale.
What's that? Like a really big Samoan thatched roof house [wikipedia.org]?
Re:Chemistry 101? (Score:5, Funny)
Lime (or calcium carbonate, CaCO3) is a base, which is the opposite of an acid.
So the ocean will be all like 'All Your Base..'
Ok, I'll stop now.
Re:Ocean of Acid (Score:4, Informative)
You mean... calcium carbonate and hydrogen? A common compound in rocks and sea shells and a light gas that combines with oxygen to form pure water? No, it's not harmful.
Re:Riiight. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I'm not saying this is a great idea, but I'm getting pretty sick and tired of people bashing scientific findings simply because of who sponsored them. Why is Al Gore's sponsored research any more compelling than Shell's?
Instead of a knee-jerk attack on the messenger, why don't you discuss what's wrong with the research, like every one else ("lime" jokes aside) is doing?
Re:Riiight. (Score:5, Funny)
I wrote a real quick firefox extension to filter out everything that's a lime joke.
Sorry, your's is the only post left ;)
Re:This scares the hell out of me (Score:5, Informative)
> I'll leave out the fact that temperatures globally have been flat for several years now
Wise move, since it's an incorrect statement.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif [nasa.gov]
[TMB]
Re:This scares the hell out of me (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the link for you.
The data that was determined to be faulty & was therefore corrected only concerned the US, which accounts for ~2% of the globe.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ [nasa.gov]
The only change having a detectable influence on analyzed temperature was the 7 August 2007 change to correct a discontinuity in 2000 at many stations in the United States. This flaw affected temperatures in 2000 and later years by ~0.15C averaged over the United States and ~0.003C on global average. Contrary to reports in the media, this minor flaw did not alter the years of record temperature, as shown by comparison here of results with the data flaw ('old analysis') and with the correction ('new analysis').
Denial, juvenile insults & proud willful ignorance do not refute reality.
Re:This scares the hell out of me (Score:5, Informative)
Despite the political rhetoric we have no proof as to how much human activity is contributing to any warming trends, and even less of an idea on the possible side effects of any direct intervention. Other scientists have actually proposed putting more particulate pollution into the air to create a mild 'nuclear winter' style cooling in order to offset any rising temperatures.
I'll leave out the fact that temperatures globally have been flat for several years now, but I will point out in closing that hair brained schemes such as this one remind me of a five year old child trying to rebuild a Formula 1 engine with a pair of chopsticks. We are so very ignorant of how and why we have or can effect the climate. The sheer hubris of some people today who assume we have such great control over climate just amazes, and scares, me.
I agree that the climate is extremely complex, and that while we cannot understand all of the factors involved, we can draw some simple conclusions about some of the effects we are having on the environment.
You probably already know that humans produce a lot of carbon dioxide. We breathe it out, we burn things, and our agricultural and industrial processes create even more.
You probably also know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and that greenhouse gasses increase warming due to sunlight.
You may or may not know that the ppm of carbon dioxide has been increasing [swivel.com] over the years.
I propose that you cannot prove that we aren't increasing the temperature of the planet
Re:This scares the hell out of me (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey. This is not global warming, this is ocean acidification. The rise in CO2 in the last two centuries coincides exactly with the burning of fossil fuel. The acidification, which will kill of corals and other shellfish is an easily derived consequence of rising CO2.
If you want to dispute the effect of CO2 on climate, fine. I disagree with you, but there are valid questions. There are no valid questions on ocean acidification.
Re:This scares the hell out of me (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm...RTFA!
The lime is being added to REDUCE the acidification of the ocean which will then better absorbe CO2...which will return the ocean to the current acidity and rate of CO2 absorption. The excess CO2 will generally precipitate out, collect on the bottom and form...lime stone.
Re:This scares the hell out of me (Score:4, Informative)
Not that I'm claiming Car and Driver has a "stance" on global warming they heavily prefer, but that statement is simply untrue. Volcano CO2 output is dwarfed by human CO2 output.
Re:Depends on HOW the Lime is made... AND... (Score:4, Informative)
If you'd have RTFA, you'd see they're proposing doing this in places where they've raftloads of SOLAR energy in a situation that's impractical to utilize it for our needs right now- that, amazingly, have raftloads of limestone to convert to Quicklime.
They're not proposing doing it akin to the Lime industry...
Re:Depends on HOW the Lime is made... AND... (Score:5, Insightful)
Only on /. does this:
"Remembrances of my chemistry classes tell me this is not practical... "
magically make one person more qualified than dozens of environmental scientists with PhDs.
I feel better knowing that the /. crowd is on the job.
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...