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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:12 pm Post subject: A dash of lime |
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A dash of lime -- a new twist that may cut CO2 levels back to pre-industrial levels
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.
Shell is so impressed with the new approach that it is funding an investigation into its economic feasibility. 'We think it's a promising idea,' says Shell's Gilles Bertherin, a coordinator on the project. '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.'
Adding lime to seawater increases alkalinity, boosting seawater's ability to absorb CO2 from air and reducing the tendency to release it back again.
However, the idea, which has been bandied about for years, was thought unworkable because of the expense of obtaining lime from limestone and the amount of CO2 released in the process.
Tim Kruger, a management consultant at London firm Corven is the brains behind the plan to resurrect the lime process. He argues that it could be made workable by locating it in regions that have a combination of low-cost 'stranded' energy considered too remote to be economically viable to exploit � like flared natural gas or solar energy in deserts � and that are rich in limestone, making it feasible for calcination to take place on site.
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'.
'This process has the potential to reverse the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. It would be possible to reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels,' Kruger says.
And Professor Klaus Lackner, a researcher in the field from Columbia University, says: 'The theoretical CO2 balance is roughly right�it is certainly worth thinking through carefully.'
The oceans are already the world's largest carbon sink, absorbing 2bn tonnes of carbon every year. Increasing absorption ability by just a few percent could dramatically increase CO2 uptake from the atmosphere.
This project is being developed in an open source manner. To find out more, please go to http://www.cquestrate.com , a new website, launched today.
Source: Society of Chemical Industry |
http://www.physorg.com/news135820173.html |
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Kikomom
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: them thar hills--Penna, USA--Zippy is my kid, the teacher in ROK. You can call me Kiko
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| Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:09 am Post subject: |
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Now why would someone want to go and mess up the pH balance of the oceans?
Wouldn't the co2 generated from mining make this a zero sum game (at best)? |
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BS.Dos.
Joined: 29 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting website with evidence of some very progressive thinking going on. Not sure how much fruit this lime carbon-sink idea will generate though as with so many of these ideas (algea blooms etc) the impacts on the ecosystem where the projects are earmarked to take place are usually unknown and never fully specified.
The logistics of this project seem, initially at least, to be expensive. Transporting the amount of lime needed and having the means to disperse it across wide tracts of open ocean would require considerable start-up costs. However, and as mentioned on the website, cap-and-trade/carbon credit schemes could work. Big industrial CO2 emitters could finance such an operation, by contributing to the cost thereby gaining extra carbon credits.
However, while I like these imaginative ideas, I'm rather cynical about these 'golden bullet' type solutions. I'd much rather we addressed the causes of environmental problems than continually focusing on developing ways to combat the symptoms.
Thanks for sharing.
Last edited by BS.Dos. on Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:12 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Thunndarr
Joined: 30 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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What's the point? Most libertarians I know were convinced, up until I stopped paying attention to them last year on this subject, that global warming didn't exist.
(Or have they come around, finally, to the notion that pumping metric f-tons of CO2 into the atmosphere can't help but to have some kind of effect?) |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:26 am Post subject: |
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| Thunndarr wrote: |
| What's the point? Most libertarians I know were convinced, up until I stopped paying attention to them last year on this subject, that global warming didn't exist. |
And if they did believe in global warming, there's nothing they'd want the government to do to stop it anyways. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:14 am Post subject: |
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| Not only wouldn't they want the government to do anything, they would say that the free market would solve any problem that might occur. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:10 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, I'm skeptical about the extent of the problem. Like most things, the various claims are trumped up for the purpose of securing government funding and the naked self-interest of careerist academics.
But if we have decided to go off the deep end and panic I'd much rather we find a scientific solution than the iron gavel of bringing economic activity to a more appropriate outcome.
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lomborg30/English
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COPENHAGEN � When it comes to global warming, extreme scare stories abound. Al Gore, for example, famously claimed that a whopping six meters (20 feet) of sea-level rise would flood major cities around the world.
Gore�s scientific advisor, Jim Hansen from NASA, has even topped his prot�g�. Hansen suggests that there will eventually be sea-level rises of 24 meters (80 feet), with a six-meter rise happening just this century. Little wonder that fellow environmentalist Bill McKibben states that �we are engaging in a reckless drive-by drowning of much of the rest of the planet and much of the rest of creation.�
Given all the warnings, here is a slightly inconvenient truth: over the past two years, the global sea level hasn�t increased. It has slightly decreased . Since 1992, satellites orbiting the planet have measured the global sea level every 10 days with an amazing degree of accuracy � 3-4 millimeters (0.2 inches). For two years, sea levels have declined. (All of the data are available at sealevel.colorado.edu.)
This doesn�t mean that global warming is not true. As we emit more CO2, over time the temperature will moderately increase, causing the sea to warm and expand somewhat. Thus, the sea-level rise is expected to pick up again. This is what the United Nations climate panel is telling us; the best models indicate a sea-level rise over this century of 18 to 59 centimeters (7-24 inches), with the typical estimate at 30 centimeters (one foot). This is not terrifying or even particularly scary � 30 centimeters is how much the sea rose over the last 150 years.
Simply put, we�re being force-fed vastly over-hyped scare stories. Proclaiming six meters of sea-level rise over this century contradicts thousands of UN scientists, and requires the sea-level rise to accelerate roughly 40-fold from today. Imagine how climate alarmists would play up the story if we actually saw an increase in the sea-level rise.
Increasingly, alarmists claim that we should not be allowed to hear such facts. In June, Hansen proclaimed that people who spread �disinformation� about global warming � CEOs, politicians, in fact anyone who doesn�t follow Hansen�s narrow definition of the �truth� � should literally be tried for crimes against humanity.
It is depressing to see a scientist � even a highly politicized one � calling for a latter-day Inquisition. Such a blatant attempt to curtail scientific inquiry and stifle free speech seems inexcusable.
But it is perhaps also a symptom of a broader problem. It is hard to keep up the climate panic as reality diverges from the alarmist predictions more than ever before: the global temperature has not risen over the past ten years, it has declined precipitously in the last year and a half, and studies show that it might not rise again before the middle of the next decade. With a global recession looming and high oil and food prices undermining the living standards of the Western middle class, it is becoming ever harder to sell the high-cost, inefficient Kyoto-style solution of drastic carbon cuts.
A much sounder approach than Kyoto and its successor would be to invest more in research and development of zero-carbon energy technologies � a cheaper, more effective way to truly solve the climate problem.
Hansen is not alone in trying to blame others for his message�s becoming harder to sell. Canada�s top environmentalist, David Suzuki, stated earlier this year that politicians �complicit in climate change� should be thrown in jail. Campaigner Mark Lynas envisions Nuremberg-style �international criminal tribunals� against those who dare to challenge the climate dogma. Clearly, this column places me at risk of incarceration by Hansen & Co.
But the globe�s real problem is not a series of inconvenient facts. It is that we have blocked out sensible solutions through an alarmist panic, leading to bad policies.
Consider one of the most significant steps taken to respond to climate change. Adopted because of the climate panic, bio-fuels were supposed to reduce CO2 emissions. Hansen described them as part of a �brighter future for the planet.� But using bio-fuels to combat climate change must rate as one of the poorest global �solutions� to any great challenge in recent times.
Bio-fuels essentially take food from mouths and puts it into cars. The grain required to fill the tank of an SUV with ethanol is enough to feed one African for a year. Thirty percent of this year�s corn production in the United States will be burned up on America�s highways. This has been possible only through subsidies that globally will total $15 billion this year alone.
Because increased demand for bio-fuels leads to cutting down carbon-rich forests, a 2008 Science study showed that the net effect of using them is not to cut CO2 emissions, but to double them. The rush towards bio-fuels has also strongly contributed to rising food prices, which have tipped another roughly 30 million people into starvation.
Because of climate panic, our attempts to mitigate climate change have provoked an unmitigated disaster. We will waste hundreds of billions of dollars, worsen global warming, and dramatically increase starvation.
We have to stop being scared silly, stop pursuing stupid policies, and start investing in smart long-term R&D. Accusations of �crimes against humanity� must cease. Indeed, the real offense is the alarmism that closes minds to the best ways to respond to climate change. |
What he said. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:23 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Not only wouldn't they want the government to do anything, they would say that the free market would solve any problem that might occur. |
Read the article posted by mises. Socialism is causing rising food prices, poverty and INCREASED CO2 levels. Nice job.
The fact is, in a pure free market, pollution will be zero (other than accidents and criminal activity).
It's is socialism that has legalized pollution and allowed individuals, businesses and the worst polluters of all, in every country worldwide, GOVERNMENTS to pollute the land air and water legally.
In a Free Market, all land, air and water resources would be privately owned and the private owners would control the acceptable amount of pollution their neighbors would be allowed to dump into their water or air or onto their land.
Private owners would choose a zero level of course, and in a free market there would be no pollution.
ALL POLLUTION IS A PRODUCT AND DIRECT RESULT OF SOCIALISM. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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Me:
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| they would say that the free market would solve any problem that might occur |
ontheway:
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| The fact is, in a pure free market, pollution will be zero |
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Private owners would choose a zero level of course, and in a free market there would be no pollution.
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Direct from the horse's mouth. Thanks for demonstrating my point. And yet you still wonder why your guy struggled to get 10% of the votes. No doubt his anti-war stance accounts for 9 of every 10 votes he did get. |
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BS.Dos.
Joined: 29 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
In a Free Market, all land, air and water resources would be privately owned and the private owners would control the acceptable amount of pollution their neighbors would be allowed to dump into their water or air or onto their land.
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And who would determine the 'acceptable amount of pollution', the markets? Free markets are only concerned with one thing; profits, which equates to growth, which equates to more production, which equates to more resource extraction, which equates to more pollution.
The bottom line is that unchecked free-markets, that fail to factor in environmental externalities, are responsible for the predicament we're in. It's nonsense to suggest that unlimited free-markets can rectify the pollution problems without some kind of state intervention. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
Me:
| Quote: |
| they would say that the free market would solve any problem that might occur |
ontheway:
| Quote: |
| The fact is, in a pure free market, pollution will be zero |
and
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Private owners would choose a zero level of course, and in a free market there would be no pollution.
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Direct from the horse's mouth. Thanks for demonstrating my point. And yet you still wonder why your guy struggled to get 10% of the votes. No doubt his anti-war stance accounts for 9 of every 10 votes he did get. |
That was satire, wasn't it? Right? |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:04 am Post subject: |
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Understanding the free market:
Suppose a farmer, let's call him Yata, buys some land in Iowa. Now suppose a big industrial company, let's call it Hufnpuff Products decides to make widgets.
Hufnpuff Inc. decides to build a big smokestack and pollute the air.
Under today's socialist system Hufnpuff can pollute the air all it wants, within the limits set by the socialist government. Poor farmer Yata, who thinks socialism is wonderful, can do nothing but vote, complain, and post on Dave's calling for more regulation. Of course socialism is the problem, but farmer Yata never studied it. He wants more of the government control that created the problem.
Hufnpuff Inc. likes the socialist system. Socialism always benefits the rich and politically powerful class. They have a big company, many employees and a lot of clout. So, although new laws will be passed, and new regulations imposed, Hufnpuff can be sure that they will be minimal and they can keep on polluting.
Now, how do things work in a free market.
In a free market, property owners set the level of pollution they are willing to accept. Not the government. Not the regulators. Not the business owners.
Property owners will choose a level of zero. Even farmer Yata, who has no clue how govenments or economic systems work, can understand that pollution is bad. He will choose a level of zero pollution for his property. Furthermore, he can join with millions of other property owners, landowners, farmers, homeowners - to join together, monitor the quality of their air and water and take action against polluters.
In a free market, the government cannot give polluters the right to pollute by fiat. Anyone who wishes to pollute would have to pay every property owner for permission to pollute. And if even one property owner refused to accept payment - JUST ONE - and demanded a zero pollution level, then the polluter would have to find a clean way to produce.
Unfortunately, we have had the socialist system for so long, that few people have any idea what would happen in a free market.
There are no externalities in a free market system. Externalities are the result of socialism.
Socialism is the problem.
Freedom is the solution. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| In a free market, the government cannot give polluters the right to pollute by fiat. Anyone who wishes to pollute would have to pay every property owner for permission to pollute. And if even one property owner refused to accept payment - JUST ONE - and demanded a zero pollution level, then the polluter would have to find a clean way to produce. |
Wow! What an extremely efficient and productive method of regulation this would be.
I would now like to put this theory into practice. Ontheway - you're creating too much carbon dioxide for my liking. Please cease production until you negotiate a payment to me. |
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