Forest Service Plans Carbon Dioxide Storage on Federal Lands 108
An anonymous reader shares a report: In recent years, lots of American companies have gotten behind a potential climate solution called carbon capture and storage, and the Biden administration has backed it with billions of dollars in tax incentives and direct investments. The idea is to trap planet-heating carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of factories and power plants and transport it to sites where it is injected underground and stored. But the idea is controversial, in large part because the captured carbon dioxide would be shipped to storage sites via thousands of miles of new pipelines. Communities nationwide are pushing back against these pipeline projects and underground sites, arguing they don't want the pollution running through their land.
Now the U.S. Forest Service is proposing to change a rule to allow storing this carbon dioxide pollution under the country's national forests and grasslands. "Authorizing carbon capture and storage on NFS lands would support the Administration's goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent below the 2005 levels by 2030," the proposed rule change says. But environmental groups and researchers have concerns. Carbon dioxide pollution will still need to be transported to the forests via industrial pipeline for storage, says June Sekera, a research fellow with Boston University. "To get the CO2 to the injection site in the midst of our national forest, they've got to build huge pipelines," Sekera says. "All this huge industrial infrastructure that's going to go right through." Sekera says building those CO2 pipelines may require clearing a lot of trees.
Now the U.S. Forest Service is proposing to change a rule to allow storing this carbon dioxide pollution under the country's national forests and grasslands. "Authorizing carbon capture and storage on NFS lands would support the Administration's goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent below the 2005 levels by 2030," the proposed rule change says. But environmental groups and researchers have concerns. Carbon dioxide pollution will still need to be transported to the forests via industrial pipeline for storage, says June Sekera, a research fellow with Boston University. "To get the CO2 to the injection site in the midst of our national forest, they've got to build huge pipelines," Sekera says. "All this huge industrial infrastructure that's going to go right through." Sekera says building those CO2 pipelines may require clearing a lot of trees.
It's not about solving the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
To the environmentalists, only one solution is valid... theirs.
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Which this is not.
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If you're "very much" an environmentalist, then offer up a fucking solution. Otherwise, your post is both dumb and pointless.
Here's a solution, instead of piping the CO2 in an attempt to sequester it I suggest using the CO2 as feed stock to synthesize hydrocarbons and close the carbon loop on the fuels we use everyday. This process will require energy so get that from nuclear fission. We'd need energy to replace fossil fuels whether we use it to synthesize hydrocarbons or recharge batteries, the difference is that we have infrastructure in place to distribute hydrocarbon fuels and build vehicles that burn such fuels while elect
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You're right that planes will never cross the pacific with batteries loading nearly the same cargo as they do today with petrol based fuels. Not gonna happen.
As far as nuclear reactors are concerned, we need a new batch of reactors, gen 3. Those in use currently (gen 2 in most places) can only get energy from a small part of their fuel bars and there's probably not nearly enough fuel (uranium) around to give the needed energy to the entire planet. Even more so if we use it to synthesize fuel. Gen3 reactors
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If you make the current pool of nuclear reactors scale to cover 100% of the WW electric grid and 100% of the fuel needs by synthesizing this, there is no guarantee that we will have enough Uranium to last 100 years for example The burn rate would be 1000 times that of today at least.
At the current rate, there is, it's true.
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Conservative persecution complex at work.
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To the environmentalists, only one solution is valid... theirs.
Don't complain about this one. With the forrest service storing harmful chemicals (well, just CO2) on goverment lands, this should remove the objections to Yucca Mountain's nuclear waste storage facility.
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If they solve the problem, there will be no more need for swaggering heroes to lead the charge against it (and get rich doing so).
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To the environmentalists, only one solution is valid... theirs.
I'm pretty sure that everyone believes they know the correct solutions to whatever problems society faces, if they didn't believe they had the right solution then they'd change their mind to whatever they believed was the right solution or just admit they don't know what is the right solution.
The problem I have with most environmentalists is that they are always demanding the next best thing, solutions that are still mostly theoretical than what is available to them today. Looking back through history ther
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We had barely gotten started on the problem in the 1970s (assuming you're talking about pollution). CO2 wasn't on most people's radar yet; global warming had just begun and had not yet been well supported by actual temperature measurements to go with the theoretical calculations. And then the 1980s happened and the Republican administration minimized most of the research into alternate and
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Another carbon capture idea for the Forest Service (Score:5, Insightful)
Plant more trees.
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Right. So just how many trees, and where, do you expect them to plant in order to offset the billions of tons of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere annually?
What a monumentally insufficient understanding of the scale of the problem you just projected.
How many trees? [Re:Another carbon capture ide...] (Score:3)
Right. So just how many trees, and where, do you expect them to plant in order to offset the billions of tons of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere annually?
640 trees per American, according to: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mi... [mit.edu]
Fewer for most of the rest of the word, of course.
The article doesn't specifically point this out, but you have to cut down and save the wood from all of these (can't let it rot, or the CO2 goes back into the atmosphere), and replant new trees each year.
Re: How many trees? [Re:Another carbon capture ide (Score:2)
"can't let it rot, or the CO2 goes back into the atmosphere"
What percentage of it?
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hahahahahAHHAahAHAHHAhahahaHahhaahhahahaha
How are we supposed to believe you nuclear shills know anything about nuclear when you know nothing about anything else?
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The pork must flow.
Doesn't really work (Score:2, Insightful)
The result is that we can't plant our way out of the crisis. We need to actually reduce emissions.
As for these carbon schemes, they're scams similar to plastic recycling. They're theater used to make you feel like you can keep driving your SUV to the suburbs and that
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Oh, and no, EVs aren't going to save us. Overall emissions from them aren't really any better, and they're too expensive for large swaths of the public. You can't drive a 20 year old EV when your poor, the battery replacement is more than the car...
As you can see, this is basically going to end car ownership for large part of the population. They'll be forced to walk or take public transportation or otherwise pay an uber type service to get around. That'll cut down on carbon emissions! Couple that with the ever increasing price of food, especially meat, and that will make it so really only rich people can eat meat or own cars. Should help save the planet in no time!
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Probably like this https://bestanimations.com/Mil... [bestanimations.com]
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Unfortunately they just don't store enough CO2, or do it fast enough, to fix the problem we created.
The environmental concerns could be mitigated by selecting the injection sites carefully. Near the edge of parks, ideally.
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haha good one (Score:4, Insightful)
Forests ARE carbon storage. So, the Forest Service plans to cut down trees to make room for carbon storage. Clown world.
Re:haha good one (Score:4, Insightful)
So, the Forest Service plans to cut down trees to make room for carbon storage.
That's how it works.
You cut down a tree, mill it into lumber, then build a house out of it.
Now a new tree grows in that spot and captures more CO2.
Old-growth forests actually consume relatively little CO2. New ones do.
The trouble is the ecowhackos who think we are going to burn in Hell also think that lumber is evil. While they live in houses made of lumber (or concrete which is "much worse").
But if they knew how anything worked they wouldn't be so trapped in their minds.
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it's not just about cutting down trees, it's how they're harvested (and even then, not just about the trees themselves). Selective logging, where there's still a viable 'forest' after they're done is one thing. clearcutting, not so much. I can't imagine a sane person having too much issue with selectively logging a section of forest, leaving enough trees in place for a canopy, and then replanting. Otherwise the habitat is utterly destroyed, the topsoil erodes away, and eventually turns into a jungle of
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In your eagerness to trash "ecowhackos", you missed the point.
The problem is the long distance pipelines to transport the CO2, not the storage underground in forests and grasslands.
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And why is a CO2 pipeline a problem? You know its a gas right? It leaks up and away. It poses no harm to human health unless you start trying to huff off of a leaky pipe (and even then, you'll just pass out and wake up with a headache). So exactly why this is a problem?
PS That's sort of the joke here. It isn't, its literally the last thing you can call a harmful chemical. It doesn't explode, it hates to react with anything and its not corrosive. Its only a problem when there are billions of tonnes
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The density of CO2 is about 1.5 times that of air. It does not leak up and away. Not that anything less than a catastrophic leak in a small low-lying area would be much of a danger.
Re: haha good one (Score:2)
Again, you've missed the point.
Building a pipeline causes massive environmental destruction.
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The trouble is the ecowhackos who think we are going to burn in Hell also think that lumber is evil.
I listen to a lot of ecowhackos, and I don't think I've ever heard them say lumber is evil.
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If you're suggesting doing that to capture the shitload of carbon humans did put in the air, think again. You would need far more trees than you can plant realistically. You'll miss the mark by probably more than an order of magnitude.
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How about, cut down old trees, and bury them?
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Or even better, turn it into lumber and build more houses, while also replanting trees. It's a win win.
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Forests ARE carbon storage. So, the Forest Service plans to cut down trees to make room for carbon storage. Clown world.
Open rock faces are 'carbon storage'.
When it rains, the rainwater absorbs co2 from the air turning it into carbonic acid, which erodes the rocks and results in the carbon being sequestered in the ground.
The best way to reduce co2 in the atmosphere is more rain on more open rock faces.
Thats what nature's been doing for millennia.
Make carbonate rocks [Re:haha good one] (Score:2)
Open rock faces are 'carbon storage'. When it rains, the rainwater absorbs co2 from the air turning it into carbonic acid, which erodes the rocks and results in the carbon being sequestered in the ground. The best way to reduce co2 in the atmosphere is more rain on more open rock faces.
Nice idea, but it's extremely slow.
If you shatter the rock to increase surface area it helps, but that's energy inefficient unless you can find rock that's already broken apart (i.e., mine tailings). Pumping carbon dioxide into fractured rock underground (i.e., down fracking wells) is probably a better solution.
https://www.usgs.gov/news/feat... [usgs.gov]
Thats what nature's been doing for millennia.
And "millennia" is how long it takes.
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Forests ARE carbon storage
They are really not. They are a temporary buffer, most of their carbon is released when trees die and decay.
Instead, what you do is cut down trees, charcoal them, and then _bury_ the charcoal to prevent carbon from entering back into the atmosphere. Then let new trees grow on top of it.
Re: haha good one (Score:3)
He said "charcoal them", which converts them into just carbon. Not the same thing as burning them. Some CO2 is produced but much of the carbon remains.
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Yeah, because we all know that trees cannot be replanted after the construction is complete. Once they're gone, they're fucking GONE FOREVER, right?
To save the Earth we must destroy it! (Score:1)
"All this huge industrial infrastructure that's going to go right through." Sekera says building those CO2 pipelines may require clearing a lot of trees.
And those trees would have captured how much CO2 on their own?
And the pipelines used how much energy to mine the raw materials for?
Just plant more trees... if we set up a nuclear power plant to desalinate a vast amount of water, pipe it into the desert and create a forest where there was just sand before, how much CO2 could that capture...
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And those trees would have captured how much CO2 on their own?
Well, it depends on how fully grown they are, but generally very little.
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Trees don't capture a lot of CO2. Phytoplankton do a better job at this. So if we're going to do organism based solution, that's the ticket. That said, modern CO2 capture at a power plant is a lot faster and scales a lot better than tree solution, hence the reasons I roll my eyes every time I hear people toss around planting more trees as some carbon sink solution. For that to work we need way more trees than you can possibly imagine and the logistics of that are just stupid outright to talk about. Tha
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Trees don't capture a lot of CO2. Phytoplankton do a better job at this. So if we're going to do organism based solution, that's the ticket. That said, modern CO2 capture at a power plant is a lot faster and scales a lot better than tree solution, hence the reasons I roll my eyes every time I hear people toss around planting more trees as some carbon sink solution. For that to work we need way more trees than you can possibly imagine and the logistics of that are just stupid outright to talk about. That's not to say we do not need more trees, just to say we need more trees but trees as a CO2 sink solution is not really a thing. Just numerically speaking it doesn't pass a reasonable understanding of the problem.
if we set up a nuclear power plant to desalinate a vast amount of water, pipe it into the desert and create a forest where there was just sand before
How about we don't do that. We can do the nuclear plant, we can do the desalinating water thing, but lets pass on the destroying an ecosystem (yes, things do live in deserts) just to do a solution that's mostly unworkable and basically amounts to that whole getting rid of plastic straws solution of actually helping.
The thing is the CO2 rich liquid is more carbon dense than a tree can be. The complex organic compounds that capture the CO2 within a tree (of which lignin is one of them) can only be so densely packed, the CO2 rich liquid from a power plant can pack more carbon per cubic centimeter. That's just how it be. Not saying that I support any of this stuff, but that's just me indicating compound densities. The liquid stuff from the power plant is more carbon dense than a tree, that's just how it is.
Rainfall on rock faces does a much better job of co2 capture than forests...
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... and basically amounts to that whole getting rid of plastic straws solution of actually helping.
Whenever plastic straws are brought up I think of that poor woman that was found dead in her kitchen because she fell and the metal straw she was using happened to stab her through the eyeball.
I'm sure this woman was trying to "save the planet" but it ended up killing her. She knew she had some motor control issues, and people with such conditions probably should not be using metal straws. She likely had a seizure, or just didn't quite land her foot right to walk out of her kitchen, and then fell. A pla
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You could make coffee shops require you bring your own cup/container. That would cut down on a ton of waste, since those cups are hard to recycle anyway. We could also do this for pretty much any beverage company if we really wanted. Stores would sell it via fountains as opposed to individually packed items. Milk use to get delivered in glass bottles and then the bottles reused. Now we just use plastic and it goes into the dump.
Doubt you will see this happening but we could do it.
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if we set up a nuclear power plant to desalinate a vast amount of water, pipe it into the desert and create a forest where there was just sand before, how much CO2 could that capture...
A drop of water off of the ocean, is a visual approximation of what that would to to the CO2 in the atmosphere. Won't make a dent.
Plants are already doing it (Score:3)
From: https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
"New research published today in leading international journal Science Advances paints an uncharacteristically upbeat picture for the planet. This is because more realistic ecological modelling suggests the world's plants may be able to take up more atmospheric CO2 from human activities than previously predicted."
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Oh well apparently it's not a problem any more so we should go back to getting 5mpg in ridiculously oversized and overweight SUVs that require road expansion and repairs more often due to the size and mass, which all requires pumping more carbon into the air.
Guess what? There's still limitations, and we're still being shockingly stupid about our own futures, even if "the world's plants may be able to take up more atmospheric CO2 from human activities than previously predicted" - there's still a limit, and
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You will eventually find that it might have been better than the alternative we're doing today: burning all the fuel and gas we can get.
For those not in the know. (Score:4, Interesting)
The most popular form of carbon capture is post-combustion capture. Particulate matter is removed, as it has been since it was required in the 1990 Clean Air Act update. This is done via filters and what-not and how those work varies from solution to solution. But after that is done, you have flue gas that is mostly has SO2, NO2, O2, CO2, CO, and some molecular hydrogen. There's still some other things in there, but compared to everything, not in quantities worth talking about.
That flue gas is then pumped into a second stage that takes out the nitrates and sulfates of oxygen and then the resulting gas is pumped into a large system that ultimately recirculates the remaining flue gas into an aqueous amine solution. This selectively captures the CO2 and vapors off the remaining gases that are usually flared. Oh, all this equipment is pretty fucking big which is why it's an investment. Here's the DCC stage which is just one of the many stages flue gas needs to go through. [nov.com]
This liquid, that's very CO2, rich is what everyone is asking to have some central deposit for.
There, you're caught up. And yes, I'm sure folks who would like to inject more details will follow. But that's the 30,000 foot view of it. I'll take no questions.
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Sounds way too complicated. Where does this "aqueous amine solution" come from?
and, after you produce this "CO2 rich liquid"-- how exactly is that sequestered?
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Thanks.
It has electrolytes! (Score:3)
Idiocracy truly was ahead of its time...
Re:It has electrolytes! (Score:4, Funny)
Carbon dioxide is what plants crave!
It is better if they send people to Mars (Score:1)
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Did they try to plant more trees? Plants perfectly absorb CO2 from atmosphere, no need to transfer CO2 anywhere by pipes and burn more fuels to get energy for that. Mandate to use more wood everywhere instead of syntactic construction materials, mandate to use natural fibers everywhere instead of plastics. Every IKEA table and chair stores CO2 permanently. No need to build any special storage underground.
It is even more funny taking into account that the rest of the world does not give a s*** about that idea.
Because those IKEA tables and chairs would never, ever get burnt.
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This kind of carbon capture has shown to be emitting more than they can capture, which would make sense, since carbon is the output from burning carbon-based fuels. Basically they're taking flue gasses and compressing the air+gas mixture into a mine. With a little bit of extra work, they can turn the carbon right back into fuels on location without any need for transport.
However, if you somehow are able to capture and compress net negative carbon in the process, you end up with a perpetuum mobile.
How much wood would a wood sequestration sequester (Score:2)
Mandate to use more wood everywhere instead of syntactic construction materials, mandate to use natural fibers everywhere instead of plastics. Every IKEA table and chair stores CO2 permanently. ...
Not sure that we have any way to use forty billion metric tons of wood per year in making IKEA furniture and natural fibers.
There's about eight billion people on the Earth, so that requires each person on Earth to use 5 metric tons of furniture every year. That's a lot of IKEA shipments.
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We could build homes for everyone with all that lumber. Replant the trees to capture more co2 and house people with the stuff we just cut down. Even provide the entire house with cabinets and furniture, all made out of wood. Sounds like a win win to me!
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We could build homes for everyone with all that lumber.
Five metric tons per person per year? Damn right. And after the first year, what are you planning to do? Build another house every year?
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Hey, let's get that first year handled then we can worry about the year after. If we build sustainable houses that use less energy, require less heating and cooling, that will also contribute to less co2.
We could also of course bury these logs or even launch them into space towards the sun.
Hehe, we could add co2 to the sun! Make it last longer! /s
Intermittent carbon capture (Score:2)
Carbon transport (Score:2)
It seems to me that if you have a commercially viable carbon capture process then A) the expense of capture should be covered by taxation at the source of release and B) building your carbon capture facility on top of your carbon sequestration site makes more sense than building pipelines.
And as always, it's still only in the early experimental phase, and there is no point yet in scaling up - it is currently more effective to use your sequestration budget to reduce the release of CO2 in the first place.
lovely idea to push the costs onto the feds... (Score:1)
so.. company pops up... sends carbon to federal land.. files for bankruptcy... tax payer money used to maintain the carbon capture site and no costly maintenance to be conducted by company that siphoned the profits out in the initial phase.
wouldn't it be easier and cheaper (Score:2, Funny)
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I'm really bothered by this "eat the rich" attitude. Not because they take murdering people so lightly, though that does factor in, but rather the blindness to how basic math works.
If we put all our hate into the "one percent" and do what we can to remove them then we just created a new population that becomes the "one percent". Keep removing the wealth (and/or lives) from the top 1% then at some point everyone is left living in grass huts as subsistence farmers. The violence stops because everyone is in
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Easier? Yeah.
Cheaper? Hell yeah.
It would not do a thing for the planet though. Not any more or any less than what they're planning to do here.
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Top 1% is responsible for 16% of GHG emissions.
Bottom 66% is responsible for 16% of GHG emissions.
The 33% in the middle, which you are likely a part of, are responsible for 68% of GHG emissions.
Maths says that if you remove top 1%, climate change is not solved.
Maths also says that if you remove bottom 66%, not only climate change is not solved, but you have no-one to build cheap goods anymore
Maths actually says that cutting into the middle 33% will be the most effective in fighting climate change (removing
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And if you remove them, those emissions will fall back on the rest of the population. The fuel will burn all the same, the planet will roast all the same.
Not saying it's a bad idea. I'm saying it won't change the climate future.
This is all so pointless... (Score:2)
This is all so pointless without the Chinese on board. But they just don't give one rat's ass about environmentalism, much less climate change.
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And yet, they are the ones building more renewables than the rest of the world combined, and also building more nuclear plants than anyone else.
Their emissions per capita are like a fourth of that of a US citizen, their historical emissions are far lower than the US (for a bigger population too), and they are likely on track to peak below US levels (both per capita and for total emissions). What will be your excuse then?
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The emissions per capita in China are low because the citizens are vastly poorer and therefore consume far less.
Nice spin, CCP shill!
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The emissions per capita in China are low because the citizens are vastly poorer and therefore consume far less.
Climate change, and the underlying physical laws driving it, do not care about the reasons behind lower emissions.
The reality is that emissions are intricately linked to wealth. While there is some potential for decoupling through the decarbonization of the electricity grid and widespread electrification, the fundamental connection between emissions and wealth persists.
Your point was that China isn't actively addressing CO2 emissions, my counterpoint was that they are taking more substantial steps than the
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China is not taking any substantial actions. You work for the CCP.
I have a better idea. (Score:2)
Nazi's did carbon storage too! (Score:1)
Unfortunately the carbon they buried was the bodies of their enemies, fictitious or not.
This will kill the forests (Score:1)
When the idiots supporting this say that nobody could have know the imact this would have, or the deaths of flora and fauna this would cause, please point them back to this post. The forests will never be the same again after this disaster.
carbon capture and storage, that's what trees do ! (Score:2)