Question about carbon/climate change

this seems like the right place to ask about this so here goes:

i've been wondering that since climate change is not easily reversible by just cutting emissions then shouldn't we be looking into something along the lines of carbon recycling? we know that nature has a mechanism for converting CO2 and H2O into hydrocarbons via sunlight and catalysts so it seems to me that it should be possible for engineers to find a way to make massive reactions of atmospheric CO2 into usable fuels, plastics, whatever.

i have not been able to find any literature about efforts to do something like this but maybe i have not looked hard enough. does anyone know anything about this?

thanks in advance for any help.


edited to fix spelling

Plants do it with sunlight. At the moment, we can't set up the economy to get the energy we want for our societies without burning fossil fuels, so the chances of getting more energy to start scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere looks very small.

Recent proposals involve growing algae for fuel. The beauty of the proposal is that the net carbon release to to the atmosphere is zero ... because the carbon comes from the atmosphere and not from the dirt. If we have to burn carbon, it makes sense to not take it from the earth and undo millions of years worth of natural sequestration.

I don't think these studies have adequately explored the down sides of this proposal, but it is still interesting ...

Trav

i have also seen phytoplankton mentioned as another method.

basically making artificial trees. as i understand it plants simply use photosynthesis as a way to convert solar energy into chemical energy via carbon-hydrogen bonds. chlorophyll is the catalyst that helps the plants lower the necessary energy required to break the strong carbon-oxygen bonds in CO2. i'm just thinking that if nature can do it effeciently then shouldn't we be able to replicate that on a larger scale?

Is the word you are looking for. Taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and putting it back into the ground. Unfortunately, the CO2 is in the atmosphere in a low energy state, and taking it out of that state to do something with it, be it make plastics or fuel or whatever, requires the use of energy. It's enough to make one want to go D'OH!

The efficient carbon sequestration devices are plants and algae. They are what took a planet that had a high CO2 atmosphere and made it into one with lots of oxygen that can support animal life.

The first step in stopping CO2 rise is to get to a state where all the fuel being burned is coming from biomass so that there is no net CO2 being taken from below ground and put into the atmosphere. The next step, trying to get a net CO2 reduction, would require some smart thinking on how to speed up the planetary metabolism of plants. Other than far out ideas about seeding the oceans with lacking trace minerals to encourage algae blooms on a gigantic scale, not many practical possibilities have been put forth.

good stuff in your post thanks for posting. algae seems to be the most effecient method so far. i wonder if you could pump seawater into the desert and bloom algae there or something like that that would minimally disrupt the oceans etc. or maybe turn all the oil storage tanks into algae growing and processing facilities. anyway you've got me thinking so thanks again for the insight :-)

Actually, you don't have to pump sea water to do it. There is a project in Carlsbad, NM (700 miles inland) to grow algae on the brackish water they have there and turn it into biodiesel. Check out this link: http://www.cehmm.org/

of how much carbon could be sequestered by dumping corn tailings and other farm waste into the deep ocean. There may be other problems with doing that, but the underlying idea is sound.

the ocean keeps popping up in these discussions, i know i'm being captain obvious here but it seems the ocean is integral to the problem and the solution of climate change.

it's just more difficult because it's a solid.

The ocean is fluid and under the right conditions can accept a lot more carbon. I think it's worth investigating seeding the Indian Ocean with iron (to encourage plankton which will evenutally sink to the bottom). But the impact of the proposal itself always has to be looked at.

thanks for posting this i will keep watching this as it develops and helping if i can, which i love the open source idea of it.