Monday, April 5, 2010

Carbon Sequestration

BY JEFF JENNINGS

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) has just released a report finding that even if anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide are immediately and fully stopped, irreversible climatic effects will continue for 1,000 years (1). Given such data, it becomes apparent that global climate change must not only be slowed, but actually reversed. The leading proposal for this is currently carbon sequestration.

Carbon sequestration technologies have the potential to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store this greenhouse gas in natural geologic formations, terrestrial ecosystems, and deep-ocean sediments. These technologies are still being developed, yet one technique holds immense potential. Mineral sequestration of carbon, primarily in the form of magnesium carbonate, can store vast amounts of carbon in a considerably small space. While this type of sequestration is one of the least researched and most underfunded, a magnesium carbonate mineral storage system could hold the equivalent of 25 million metric tons of carbon in an area only ten kilometers by ten kilometers by 150 meters (2). In 2001, global carbon emissions were approximately 23.9 million metric tons, meaning that an area of magnesium carbonate 6.2 X 6.2 X.09 miles could hold an entire year’s worth of global carbon emissions(3).
In addition to the ability to hold vast amounts of carbon in such a small area, this mineral sequestration method also poses no risk of leakage of the carbon over time, and the necessary magnesium is significantly abundant in the natural world (4). If policy can be constructed to shift emphasis toward research and development of such promising technologies, the impacts of anthropogenic climate change can be minimized to combat widespread irreversible damage.
Sources:
(1) http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf+html
(2) http://fossil.energy.gov/sequestration/novelconcepts/index.html
(3) http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/carbon.html
(4) http://sequestration.mit.edu/pdf/carbonates.pdf

11 comments:

  1. So does this technique imply long-term storage of carbon? Like a magnesium carbonate landfill? Increasing the Earths albedo by implementing reflective rooftops could also help combat global warming without requiring a large amount of undeveloped land.

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  2. This sounds like very promising technology but you also mentioned it's underfunded and and under researched. Is their any real possibility this technology will be developed in the near future? Even in the long term future?

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  3. I agree with Colantonio in saying that implementing reflective rooftops could combat global warming...but to expand on the point of not using undeveloped land, this is a major issue for current political regimes. President Obama just signed an almost apologetic offshore drilling bill, meaning that the development of land that is now "free" is in the process. What will happen if one day there is no more "non-developed" land? Also if the idea of reflective rooftops comes into play will one day the moon be able to produce enough energy that we can convert to usable resources?

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  4. Removing carbon from the atmosphere would be a very useful way to address the biggest problem in human history, but the storage part still needs work, in other words research and development. I have heard carbon sequestration into the ground can cause seismic activity, and in large amounts even earthquakes. And a quick side note on reflective rooftops, they may have a cooling effect, but could not solve all of the problems associated with climate change. Evaporation and precipitation are big parts of climate patterns, and these shifts may occur quicker than species and ecosystems can adapt. Not to mention the health effects associated with greenhouse gases. I think it would be more beneficial to put solar panels on rooftops instead:)

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  5. im all for research and development of carbon sequestration. what are the potential costs for this technology?

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  6. I understand the necessity to sequester carbon, but the greatest problems we face are an order of magnitude larger than the amounts that are claimed here. Arctic permafrost will be released in bursts that are on the order of billions of metric tonnes. Furthermore, unless actual magnesium carbonate deposits can be found near the earth's surface, it requires using magnesium ore, a lot of water and a lot of energy to make. Technologies like Biochar seem to be the best current solutions to carbon sequestration.

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  7. I do think carbon sequestrian is a great idea, but I think we need to focus our energies on preventing any further green house gas emissions before tackling the carbon that is already there. If we are taking carbon out of the atmosphere while still emitting carbon in to the atmosphere, then we have merely achieved a state of neutral carbon emissions, as opposed to zero fossil fuel dependency. Furthermore, skeptics of global warming could use that ideology to promote continued dependence on fossil fuel because the emissions are merely being taken up at the same rate.

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  8. It sounds promising, but there are several technological hurdles in the way. Overcoming each of these would cost a significant amount of money without the assurance that the next obstacle can even be solved. I have to wonder if it's underfunded for a reason. Might it be more cost effective to develop technologies to eliminate co2 emissions? I realize that the effects will continue, but it's definitely attainable and better than putting your eggs into a basket that may not really hold.

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  9. It's true that carbon sequestration is appealing. But for it to work the carbon dioxide needs to be pressurized to five times the pressure of one atmosphere, at kept at negative 53 degrees celsius (i learned this in my energy and the environment class). Not only that, but if all annual carbon dioxide emissions from the US were captured and sequestered, it would require 12,100,000,000 cubic meters of space (a calculation we recently did as a class) which is significantly greater than the volume of petroleum consumed in the US. Not an entirely realistic alternative...

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  10. It's true that carbon sequestration is appealing. But for it to work the carbon dioxide needs to be pressurized to five times the pressure of one atmosphere, at kept at negative 53 degrees celsius (i learned this in my energy and the environment class). Not only that, but if all annual carbon dioxide emissions from the US were captured and sequestered, it would require 12,100,000,000 cubic meters of space (a calculation we recently did as a class) which is significantly greater than the volume of petroleum consumed in the US. Not an entirely realistic alternative...

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  11. While this sounds much more promising than some industry claims that we can sequester carbon in liquid form, it still presents an enormous land use factor. Also, the amount of energy required to produce and transport this volume of material must be massive. I'm all for new ideas and research though, some sequestration sounds interesting, just as long as they end up being realistic before too much funding drains into them.

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