Guest Post by Ira Glickstein.
When Lord Monckton told Congress “CO2 is plant food”, the Global Warming activists went crazy because … well, because they know he spoke an inconvenient truth. Monckton’s statement was ridiculed in many blog posts and You Tube videos, but no one directly contradicted his claim because it is clearly correct. Instead, they changed the subject to the supposed effects of rising Carbon Dioxide: too little AND too much precipitation (drought/flood), unusually high AND low temperatures (burn/freeze), and other contradictory consequences.
But, no one can deny the truth. Plants live on CO2. They are made of carbohydrates (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen). They get their carbon from the CO2 in the atmosphere. It is a fact that the best food crop yields occur when plants are grown in atmospheres that are triple or quadruple current CO2 levels. That proves current CO2 levels are way below most of the period of plant life evolution and adaptation on Earth.
This posting is about a concept that unites two technologies I predict will gain prominence in coming decades: Underground Coal Gasification and Elevated CO2 Farming, and how they may be united to provide a sustainable ENERGY and FOOD supply for the coming century.
See Clean Coal (Say WATT?) for an introduction to the concept of clean coal as a critical part of our energy future.
Also download this narrated PowerPoint Show for an animated version of this posting, complete with audio description and more detailed graphics than posted here.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND FOOD CONCEPT
The concept illustrated in the graphic is based on using underground gasified coal (or coal to liquid as an alternative) to generate both electrical POWER and provide CO2 as a plant food in an elevated CO2 greenhouse that produces FOOD as a byproduct, with biomass feedback to generate biogas as additional fuel for power generation.
As indicated, there are three steps to the process:
- Underground Coal Gasification, Burning the Coalgas to POWER the generation of electricity, and Capture of the resultant CO2 (the plant food).
- Growing FOOD in an elevated CO2 greenhouse where, using the captured CO2 and the energy of the Sun, yields are greatly improved.
- Recycling the cellulose and other non-edible biowaste into biogas (methane, etc.) that may be fed back into the fuel supply system for electrical power generation.
WHY COAL?
Coal is currently the most used fuel for generating electrical power in the US, and it is the centerpiece of this concept because it is the most plentiful here and in many other countries. As indicated in the graphic, fossil fuels, namely coal, natural gas, and oil, constitute about 70% of electrical generation in the US. These fuels create CO2 when burned. CO2 has been depicted as a poison, with James Hansen calling coal trains “death trains” and coal-fired electric plants “factories of death”. There are proposals to capture the CO2 and re-sequester it by pumping it into old oil wells, perhaps extracting additional oil by doing so. It seems to me it would be smarter to use the CO2 for the purpose Nature intended, as plant food!
The remaining 30% of US electric generation may be considered “green”. Of that, most is nuclear. We should have done a better job using nuclear, as France did, but we were scared away from it by the dangers of release of radiation and radioactive waste. There is a resurgence of interest in nuclear and we may see more new plants built at some time in the future, but the regulatory environment is daunting.
The “renewable” component of “green” energy makes up about 11.5% of the US total, and consists mostly of water (hydroelectric) with some wind and other sources such as direct solar electric. These pure forms of “green” will probably grow, under the umbrella of government subsidies, but they are unlikely to provide much more than 20% of our electricity for decades, if ever.
MORE DETAIL ON THE SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND FOOD CONCEPT
The chemistry of the concept is diagrammed in the graphic.
1) Gasified Coal-Fired Power Plant with CO2 Capture
(a) Underground Gasified Coal.
Coalgas (also called synthetic gas or syngas) may be generated within a coal mine. This is done almost completely underground to reduce transport costs and pollution. Safety is improved because there are no personnel required within the mine itself. This technique is especially suitable for very deep mines, where traditional methods would be more expensive, or for low-quality or depleted mines. Newly developed technology makes possible robots that operate in harsh environments as well as remotely-controlled sensors and actuators that permit the highest possible level of control of the gasification process.
Gasification works by first igniting the coal within the coal seam and then pumping in air and water in quantities that are just sufficient to maintain incomplete combustion, such that combustible Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide are generated. The chemistry is as follows:
6C {carbon from coal} + 2H2O {water} + 2O2 {Oxygen from air} ==> Coalgas: 4H {hydrogen} + 6CO {Carbon Monoxide}
Description of formula: Coal is almost completely carbon. Six Carbon atoms (6C) are combined with two water molecules (2H2O) and two Oxygen molecules (2O2) to produce Coalgas that consists of four hydrogen atoms (4H) and six Carbon Monoxide molecules (6CO).
Coalgas may be further processed to yield liquid from coal, or it may be used directly as fuel in an electrical power plant.
(b) Burning the Coalgas and Capturing the CO2.
The coalgas is piped to the power plant where it is burned to heat the boiler and generate steam to run the generators. Electrical POWER is transmitted to customers via the grid.
The chemistry is as follows:
Coalgas: 4H {Hydrogen} + 6CO {Carbon Monoxide} + 4O2 {Oxygen from air} ==> POWER + 6CO2 {Carbon Dioxide} + 2H2O {Water}
Description of formula: Coalgas, consisting of four Hydrogen atoms (4H) and the six Carbon Monoxide molecules (6CO), when burned in the powerplant, yield POWER to drive generation of electricity plus six Carbon Dioxide molecules (6CO2) and two water molecules (2H2O).
CO2 has been wrongly depicted as a poison. There are projects underway to re-sequester the carbon by pumping it into abandoned oil wells and so on, possibly recovering additional oil in the process. However, since CO2 is plant food, I think it makes far more sense to capture and utilize this valuable product to grow food!
The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 390 ppm (parts per million). Doubling or tripling that level in a CO2 greenhouse can greatly increase the yield of many crops. It turns out that 1000 to 1400 ppm is ideal for increasing production of tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce by from 20% to 50%; grains such as rice, wheat, barley, oats, and rye by from 25% to 64%; roots such as potatoes, yams, and cassava by from 18% to 75%, and legumes such as peas, beans, and soybeans by 28% to 46%! It is likely that genetic engineering could develop new food crops that would thrive in CO2 levels of 2000 ppm or even higher, greatly increasing yields.
CO2 is essential to photosynthesis, the process by which plants use sunlight to produce carbohydrates – the material of which their roots, body, and fruits consist. Increasing CO2 level reduces the time needed by plants to mature. CO2 enters the plant through microscopic pores that are mainly located on the underside of the leaf. This enables plants to combine CO2 and water, with the aid of light energy, to form sugar. Nutrients and water uptake usually increase with higher levels of CO2 and plants develop larger, more extensive root systems that allow them to exploit additional pockets of water and nutrients, and spend less metabolic energy to capture vital nutrients. The chemistry is as follows:
6CO2 {Carbon Dioxide) + 2H2O {water} + 4H2O (added water) + SOLAR ENERGY ==> C6H12O6 (sugar} + 6O2 {Oxygen}
Description of formula: The combustion process produced six Carbon Dioxide molecules (i.e. PLANT FOOD) plus 2 water molecules. To these we add four molecules of water plus the ENERGY from the Sun. This yields FOOD in the form of a sugar molecule as well as six molecules of Oxygen, released into the atmosphere to partially compensate for some of the Oxygen used during the combustion process.
3) Recycling Cellulose to Biogas. Parts of the plant that are inedible, such as cellulose (chemical formula C6H10O6), are biowaste that may be fermented to form biogas, such as methane, which may be pumped back into the combustion process described in step (1).
CONCLUSIONS
The sustainable ENERGY and FOOD concept outlined here has the potential to provide necessary electricity along with foods in the form of vegetables, grains, roots, and legumes in a most efficient manner with minimum release of CO2 to the atmosphere. The concept makes use of coal, which is plentiful in the US and many other countries.
It will be many decades, if ever, before renewable energy sources, such as wind, water, and solar can provide levels of electricity needed for the human population. Nuclear energy, currently around 30% in the US, is probably the best alternative, as France, with over 70%, and other countries have demonstrated. However, despite growing acceptance of nuclear in the US, it remains fraught with regulatory paralysis and “not in my backyard” parochialism.
Clean coal, which even President Obama has said he will defend, is the best answer for the coming several decades at least. There are two aspects to clean coal: (a) Prior to combustion: Reducing release of pollutants onto land or into water or the atmosphere, and (b) After combustion: Capturing and re-sequestering the CO2 and other products of combustion. Underground coal gasification (or the alternative, coal to liquid) is the answer to (a). However, the idea that the answer to (b) should be sequestering CO2 by pumping into old oil wells strikes me as a waste of a valuable plant food resource.
I’m just a systems engineer, but I’m quick on the uptake and have the ability to absorb a little bit about a lot of things – just enough to come up with innovative concepts that may or may not be practical (and, even if practical, are bound to have some sticking points that need lots of detailed study, science, and engineering :^). I love to work with domain experts who know how to dig deep in their area of specialization. I’d appreciate comments on this proposal by WUWT readers who have, I am sure, far more detailed and specific knowledge of the science and technology involved in this concept.
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As a 35-year researcher of chemical aspects of photosynthesis, “CO2 is a benign substance” is what I say or write in the first place, when discussing the global warming/climate change/disruption issue (& fiasco).
Net farm/crop food income from the areas of the U.S. who vote for supporters of man made global warming approaches absolute zero. This Zero knows.
This won’t be economic. If it was then it would have already been done. Power is needed in big cities and industrial regions. Rural areas are where food is grown. Greenhouses are expensive.
Though my knowledge is limited, I’m unaware of any life form that doesn’t thrive when it’s food is plentiful.
Considering CO2 is the very first link in the well known food chain, it follows that all life forms will benefit from an increase in this food.
Those who believe otherwise will need to come up with some unique proof.
After a little Googling, I was surprised to see just how extensive greenhouses already are in some areas (like Almería in Spain and the Netherlands). So perhaps the economics are no quite as but as I would have guessed at first. I suspect, even so, that only “high value” crops would be economical (like vegetables and flowers, not rice and wheat).
Still, pumping gas around large area with the proper concentration of CO2 would seem quite a challenge. And I also wonder about other pollutants that are inevitably produced when coal is burned (CO, SO2, particulates, heavy metals ….). If these are concentrated in greenhouses along with the CO2, the levels might well end up hazardous to either the plants or the workers.
“This yields FOOD in the form of a sugar molecule as well as six molecules of Oxygen, released into the atmosphere to partially compensate for some of the Oxygen used during the combustion process.”
I don’t think this is true about compensating for O2. The only way that EXCESS O2 would be produced is if EXCESS plant mater was produced. In other words, there would have to be a net sequestering of carbon in biomass. But the greenhouses would be neutral in this respect. The plants grown each your would be
1) burned in the proposed powerplants
2) “burned” buy people as calories
3) decayed
All of these would then return the CO2 to the atmosphere.
Good post Ira – thanks!
In practical terms it would seem that this is one of those technologies which has to start small and grow – its big advantage really.
One thing you should mention in your proposal is that levels of 1,200 – 1,400 ppm of CO2 is not harmful to human beings. I think that the level has to get up to around 3,000(???) before it becomes toxic to us. This will be an important statistic for the greenhouse workers!!! The other important point is that I also understand that below 200 ppm plants do not grow…
Madness I’m afraid.
An experimental in ground coal ->gas plant in Australia was shut down when carcinogens were found in farm & town bore water.
As a organic chemist, I would be totally opposed to such schemes as the ground will be poisoned for generations with toxic compounds from the pyrogenic process.
Far better (though I admit more expensive) is to mine, then produce the gas in above ground plants. The Toxic phenols etc can be extracted for use in other chemical industries.
Row crop acreage runs in the millions in EACH state. Since growing these crops in greenhouses raises the cost of production by a BUNCH as opposed to open air fields, the price of veggies you get from greenhouses will rise substantially. Tell me how this is a good thing?
There is no need to capture CO2. No need to add the cost of greenhouses to the cost of raising veggies. This is just throwing money away on a non-problem resulting in increased prices for no reason whatsoever. Folks who think that greenhouse farming can feed a nation, let alone a world, are sadly mistaken. As mistaken as those who think windmills can provide the electrical demands of a quality of life that allows for a longer, less diseased existence.
This idea is foo foo and is yet another attempt of a non-farmer thinking that they know where their plate of food comes from, and how easy and cheap it is to grow it, so what’s a few pennies more.
Balderdash I say.
AND…grains in a greenhouse???? Laughable! Do you have any idea just how large wheat fields are????? Even here in hillside combine land we have HUGE fields! And I should know cuz I picked the gawdamned rocks out of those fields so that equipment wouldn’t break down. AND if I were taller, I could tell you about the experience of pulling wild oats out of those fields. But I was too short to see above the stock let alone the tassel, in order to determine what the hell I was pulling (wild oats grow taller than wheat and domesticated oats)! So Grandpa wouldn’t let me pull wild oats. But I did get to ride in the grain truck.
I digress. But I think I have made my point. Please, be a farmer before you try to tell real farmers how to raise crops. Can’t wait to show this article to farmers and ranchers at the Lostine Tavern Friday night.
You don’t get it at all. You want to use fuel to make food. The idea is to use food to make fuel, like Ethanol. This way more people will starve to death reducing over population, and save the planet. Then it will be the environmentalists dream come true.
Yayy, Glick!
Some ideas never make it off the drawing table. I remember that some metallurgist got all excited in Britain about the effect of urea increasing the extraction rate of gold cyanide-leaching (down from about 20 hours to 2 hours, or soemthing of that order). He ran off to South Africa to sell the concept, only to be confronted by the inevitable economic demise of his idea. Not only would urea be relatively expensive as a reagent, more importantly pachuca (leach) tanks are incredibly cheap to build. so what looked like a great result in the lab was completely uneconomic in real life.
Unfortunately this idea falls in the same category for reasons mentioned by others above. That’s not to say it isn’t a neat idea, it is simply that it isn’t practical nor economic.
BTW what would be the mass balance I wonder? i.e. how many hectares (acres whatever) of crops would be required to balance the CO2 emissions of a typical power plant?
I think we shall stick to the traditional atmospheric fertilisation system for now… I like that. The Greens love using euphemistic terminology so from now on I am going to call CO2 emissions atmospheric fertilising instead. /nod
Great post, thanks Anthony, Ira. I made a brief discussion about this article here, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2011/01/co2-is-plant-food.html
Pamela Grey – great reply. No need to do this because CO2 isn’t a poison and doesnt need to be sequestered.
Nice read.
The point about greenism is missed though.
The point being that from their point of view [greens] there are too many people.
The idea is not to feed and house people, the idea is to “lose” several billion people.
apparently, we only need a few million people in the entire world: Greens, of course.
Ditto Ms. Gray. Especially the part about non-farmers having not a clue about where their food comes from, or how, or the source of the wood products they consume, or even their water and air.
Engineers! There’s an old joke that goes: What do engineers use for birth control?
Answer: their personalities! And it works!
New joke: Where do engineers think their food comes from?
Answer: the supermarket!!!!
A truly awesome, stunning, vital post. All Watts readers must read it and digest it and act upon the information that it contains.
Please add in geothermal, its vital and only lacks co2 but that can be obtained easily from other sources. In cold climes the waste heat can warm computer climate controlled greenhouses growing high value foods. all year round in rotation.
We also, contrary to big corp claims, have a viable green organic way to convert plant cellulose into plant sugars suitable for fermenting into biofuel. We can also reverse engineer the process to provide very efficient sewage disposal.
This is a positive way to constructively dismantle the Watermelon claims and fear mongering.
Not a world of Greens, some greens and the rest to service their needs.
Several times in UK last year the idea of an opt out clause being put into place re ownership of one’s own body.. As they did with private health care information kept on cards by GP, government claimed all information for itself with opt out clause hardly announced 2-3 weeks in advance of it happening. Rights being eroded, US Constitution is trashed by the bogey of constant war on terrorism; the list goes on.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/01/03/germany-passes-energy-tyranny-act-will-force-energy-rationing/
http://wideshut.co.uk/the-body-scanner-scam/
Sociopaths have a tendency to rise to the top defying gravity and staying in power for hundreds and thousands of years..
..need to remember, they’re already genetically skewed, they’re not very well.
The Netherlands is a big exporter of vegetables,flowers and fruit. The total is about 30 billion euro per year, or a quarter of total export.
This is mostly due to its extensive use of greenhouses since the largest part of the scarce aerable land is used for livestock. At the moment multi-floor greenhouses are being built with co2 at 1000 ppm. The yield per m2 is doubled already due to the multi-floor and again doubled due to the high co2 concetration.
All this in a country with a rather cold climate. I’d say Zero is right on the mark.
Yield increase is a bit ambiguous IMO.
Sure plants grow faster with enhanced Co2 (up to around 1500ppm) and can tolerate higher temps, and use less water too. However, a 75% increase in yeild/time for potatoes is not going to grow into a potato plant with 75% more potatoes.
More crop rotations can be planted sure, but will all crops rotate right through winter? Will that 75% yield/time improvement really translate into maximum yield/time efficiency all year round?
Even if the gas was piped into crops in open fields negating the greenhouses, the scale is just too big IMO, I’m not sure you could even squeeze another crop rotation in, maybe in the tropics, though with food prices ten times today’s who knows what they will try.
According to some, we already live in/on a giant greenhouse, so why not just keep pumping out the CO2 and let the plants use it the way they do now.
Eventually the system might reach equilibrium!
Some people never learn, and the above article proves Ira Glickstein is one of them.
On 30 December I posted a correction to a similar article that he then posted because he does not know what coal gasification is, how it is done, and problems of doing it underground.
His failure to correct his misunderstanding of what gasificatin is in the above article causes me to suspect he may be promoting yet another underground-gasificiation-trial scam.
My post on WUWT on 30 December 2010 was as follows.
Richard
At December 30, 2010 at 10:47 pm you quote “Ira” and ask:
“ “As I understand the process, once it is initiated, it involves injecting air and water into the coal seam. (C3{coal} + H2O{water} + O2{from air} → Coalgas which is 2H{hydrogen} + 3CO{carbon monoxide}) Ira]”
isn’t energy input required to split the water molecule?”
Yes, it is, and Ira does not understand coal gasification and why underground gasification is impractical. Indeed, he confuses gasification and water-gas shift.
The following briefly explains coal gasification both in gasifiers and in coal seams..
Coal is mostly carbon (C) and burns by combining with oxygen (O) to form carbon dioxide (CO2) in a two-stage process.
Stage 1.
The first combines oxygen and carbon to form carbon monoxide (CO)
2.C + O2 2.CO
This first reaction is endothermic (i.e. it consumes heat) which is why it is difficult to start a fire.
Stage 2
The second combines oxygen and carbon monoxide to form carbon dioxide (CO2).
2.CO + O2 2.C O2
This second reaction is exothermic (i.e. it emits heat). Stage 2 emits much more heat that Stage 1 consumes, so their net effect is an emission of heat. And this net emission of heat is why a fire can spread when started.
Gasification consists of providing the coal with oxygen which is only just sufficient
(a) to complete Stage 1; i.e. sufficient oxygen to convert all the carbon to carbon monoxide
and
(b) to conduct enough of Stage 2 to enable Stage 1; i.e. sufficient oxygen to convert sufficient carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide to provide the heat needed for the formation of carbon monoxide.
The result is a gas which is rich in carbon monoxide with some carbon dioxide. Burning this gas provides the same output of heat as would have been obtained from burning the coal which was gasified.
Gasification is conducted in chemical reactors called gasifiers. Some gasifiers react the coal with pure oxygen, but most gasifiers use air as the oxygen supply so they provide a gas which is mostly nitrogen (because air is mostly nitrogen). A gasified kilo of coal provides the same amount of heat when the resulting gas is burned whether the gasification uses pure oxygen or air, but this heat is in a larger volume of gas obtained when using air because it contains the large addition of nitrogen which is not present in the gas obtained by gasifying with pure oxygen.
Controlled gasification is not easy. The oxygen and coal must be mixed such that a gasifying surface of a piece of coal receives just sufficient oxygen to complete Stage 1 and then to conduct the correct degree of Stage 2. Too much Stage 1 and the process stops, and too much Stage 2 and the resulting gas provides little heat when burned. Also, the produced gas must be removed from the gasifying surface at a rate which permits the two stages to occur at the required rates.
This control is achieved in gasifiers but is extremely difficult when conducted in-situ in an underground coal seam.
Underground gasification consists of pumping air down a shaft drilled into the coal seam, using that air to enable the partial combustion of the coal, and using another shaft to extract the resulting product gas.
Controlled gasification is extremely difficult when conducting underground gasification. An excess of oxygen needs to be provided to ensure Stage 2 is sustained (otherwise the gasification stops) and this produces a gas that provides little heat when burned (i.e. the gas has low calorific value). Also, the interaction of the oxygen supply and the coal surface varies as the coal seam is gasified so the calorific value of the gas varies.
Thus, underground coal gasification provides a product gas with low and variable calorific value. Such a gas has little use.
Also, the removal of the coal seam causes the ground above the seam to subside. Coal mining engineers take great efforts to control this subsidence otherwise surface structures are damaged. But no such control is possible when gasifying the coal seam. And the subsidence cracks the ground above the coal seam that is being converted to the carbon monoxide. Leakage of carbon monoxide from the surface of the ground is a probable hazard in most places: carbon monoxide is a cumulative toxin.
So, underground coal gasification is not a desirable activity in habited locations.
The Soviet Union conducted large studies of underground coal gasification in Siberia during the 1920s and 1930s. Several other studies have since been conducted, notably a study in Spain was conducted by the EU who were encouraged to conduct it by the then UK government that wanted to pretend its closure of the UK’s coal industry had not ‘lost’ the UK’s indigenous coal.
All studies of underground coal gasification have confirmed that it is not viable for the reasons stated above. However, governments repeatedly get suckered into funding studies of it because it is an ‘easy sell’ to those who do not understand its problems. Governments are easily fooled into funding such silly studies; e.g. they also keep being suckered into funding studies of ‘hot rocks’.
Richard
I’m not going looking for the quote but about six months ago Bill Clinton let slip that CO2 was plant food. My first thought was: ‘Oh, boy, she’s running’. He doesn’t seem to have followed up on the insight, however.
================
And they call us deniers.
Continually take co2 out of a greenhouse and see how long the plants survive.
As I understand it in the face of ever rising co2 the biosphere has been greening of late.
The following study found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole saw an increased greening of 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth’s vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometres — enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines.
http://modis.cn/pubs/PERS_2007_Liang.pdf
I’m no expert in any relevant field, but I think it’s a concept that could be looked at further.
At the very least the idea of capturing the CO2 and using it as a plant food should be explored. Why pump it into old oil wells (which as far as I know, is just as radical and has not been doen before as this idea) when it can be used?
To people who say things like “greenhouses are expensive” and such like, there are aready massive greenhouses that produce crops on an industrial scale, and plans to make more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1025689/Welcome-Thanet-Earth-The-biggest-greenhouse-Britain-unveiled.html
These could be either be located nearer to the power stations or a method of transportation developed.
Personally, it’s not the way I’d like farming to go, I prefer a more holistic, small scale and more organic approach, if only because it’s better quality…. But I’m sure there are others that are less fussy and with a growing population, super-efficient farming practices are probably the way to go.
Mr Glickstein is modest enough to acknowlege that this is just a concept at this stage, and it will need input from people who know more in the relevant fields than he does. It’s a great idea, which certainly merits further discussion.