Environment & Energy

OKIsItJustMe

(19,938 posts) Thu Feb 5, 2015, 10:41 AM Feb 2015

A trap for greenhouse gas

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/02/a-trap-for-greenhouse-gas/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]A trap for greenhouse gas[/font]
[font size=4]Microcapsule method offers new approach to carbon capture and storage at power plants[/font]
February 5, 2015
By Paul Karoff, SEAS Communications

[font size=3] Harvard Gazette
A team of researchers has developed a novel class of materials that enable a safer, cheaper, and more energy-efficient process for removing greenhouse gas from power-plant emissions. The approach could be an important advance in carbon capture and sequestration.

The team, led by scientists from Harvard University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, employed a microfluidic assembly technique to produce microcapsules that contain liquid sorbents, or absorbing materials, encased in highly permeable polymer shells. They have significant performance advantages over the carbon-absorbing materials used in current capture and sequestration technology.

The work is described in a paper published online today in the journal Nature Communications.

…

“These permeable silicone beads could be a ‘sliced-bread’ breakthrough for CO₂ capture — efficient, easy-to-handle, minimal waste, and cheap to make,” said Stuart Haszeldine, a professor of carbon capture and storage at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the research. “Durable, safe, and secure capsules containing solvents tailored to diverse applications can place CO₂ capture … firmly onto the cost-reduction pathway.”

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7124

4 replies

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Highlight:

A trap for greenhouse gas (Original Post) OKIsItJustMe Feb 2015 OP

What is wrong with just growing stuff? Demeter Feb 2015 #1

Growing stuff is good OKIsItJustMe Feb 2015 #2

NO, I do not mean burning it Demeter Feb 2015 #3

That's great! OKIsItJustMe Feb 2015 #4

Demeter

(85,373 posts)

1. What is wrong with just growing stuff?

Reply to OKIsItJustMe (Original post)

Thu Feb 5, 2015, 02:49 PM

Feb 2015

No high tech, no plastic, completely renewable, and wood is the preferred material for anything that doesn't have to be metal or be implanted in a human body....

OKIsItJustMe

(19,938 posts)

2. Growing stuff is good

Reply to Demeter (Reply #1)

Fri Feb 6, 2015, 10:00 AM

Feb 2015

If you grow biomass and burn it (which I assume is what you mean) and capture the carbon emissions from it, you wind up with a net negative.

However, there is a limit to how much “stuff” we can grow and burn…

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/how-biomass-energy-works.html#bf-toc-2

[font face=Serif][font size=5]…[/font]

[font size=4]Potential for Biopower[/font]

[font size=3]In the United States, we already get over 50 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from biomass, providing nearly 1.5 percent of our nation's total electric sales. Biomass was the largest source of renewable electricity in the U.S. until 2009, when it was overtaken by wind energy. Biopower accounted for more than 35 percent of total net renewable generation in 2009, excluding conventional hydroelectric generation.[14] The contribution for heat is also substantial. But with better conversion technology and more attention paid to energy crops, we could produce much more.

The growth of biopower will depend on the availability of resources, land-use and harvesting practices, and the amount of biomass used to make fuel for transportation and other uses. Analysts have produced widely varying estimates of the potential for electricity from biomass. For example, a 2005 DOE study found that the nation has the technical potential to produce more than a billion tons of biomass for energy use (Perlack et al. 2005).

If all of that was used to produce electricity, it could have met more than 40 percent of our electricity needs in 2007 (see Table above). In a study of the implementation of a 25 percent renewable electricity standard by 2025, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) assumed that 598 million tons of biomass would be available, and that it could meet 12 percent of the nation’s electricity needs by 2025 (EIA 2007). In another study, NREL estimated that more than 423 million metric tons of biomass would be available each year (ASES 2007).

In UCS’ Climate 2030 analysis, we assumed that only 367 million tons of biomass would be available to produce both electricity and biofuels. That conservative estimate accounts for potential land-use conflicts, and tries to ensure the sustainable production and use of the biomass. To minimize the impact of growing energy crops on land now used to grow food crops, we excluded 50 percent of the switchgrass supply assumed by the EIA.

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Demeter

(85,373 posts)

3. NO, I do not mean burning it

Reply to OKIsItJustMe (Reply #2)

Fri Feb 6, 2015, 10:12 AM

Feb 2015

I mean reforestry, reclamation, purging the poison.

OKIsItJustMe

(19,938 posts)

4. That's great!

Reply to Demeter (Reply #3)

Fri Feb 6, 2015, 10:18 AM

Feb 2015

So, how are you going to produce the power that people will continue to demand?

There’s also the little matter of the CO₂ CH₄ and other greenhouse gases, which are already in the atmosphere, and continue to be added to the atmosphere… “growing stuff” and halting all emissions can take care of it, at the rate of roughly 1ppm/1,000 years. (We need to get rid of 50-100 ppm kinda quickly…)

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