How much lime does it take to treat the whole ocean? Where have we heard this before? Oh yes, dump powdered iron into the ocean. That one didn’t happen yet. Sure, let’s just toss a bunch of lime into the ocean and watch what happens. We’ll just order up a few billion bags of slaked lime and toss ‘em into the sea, yeah, that’s the ticket. Note that there is no discussion of what all that lime might do to upset other balances, just so long as we get rid of that nasty CO2. Thank goodness another professor from James Hansen’s Columbia University gives a stamp of approval.
I’d love to see the environmental impact report on this one, especially when they find out that lime does not dissolve immediately or completely in water, but tends to settle.
By the way, slaked lime + water = whitewash. I’ve mixed a few batches myself recently.
From Physorg: 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. Read the rest of this entry »
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