An updated proposal to store CO2 on Antarctica
Story submitted by John Tillman
Story body: In 1995 two Japanese scientists suggested storing carbon dioxide in Antarctic ice caves. Now three scientists at Purdue have published a more elaborate and detailed proposal along these lines, advocating 446 deposition plants, supported by sixteen wind farms, on the icy, katabatic blast-swept continent.
This dry snow reservoir could come in very handy in the future. When climate cools again, and atmospheric carbon dioxide returns to the oceans whence it came, humanity might replenish our supply, without needing to burn more wood or fossil fuels (which we could be doing anyway, to keep warm, unless nuclear or alternative technologies have replaced carbon-based energy).
CO2 Snow Deposition in Antarctica to Curtail Anthropogenic Global Warming
Ernest Agee, Andrea Orton, and John Rogers Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Abstract
A scientific plan is presented that proposes the construction of carbon dioxide (CO2) deposition plants in the Antarctic for removing CO2 gas from Earth’s atmosphere. The Antarctic continent offers the best environment on Earth for CO2 deposition at 1 bar of pressure and temperatures closest to that required for terrestrial air CO2 “snow” deposition—133 K. This plan consists of several components, including 1) air chemistry and CO2 snow deposition, 2) the deposition plant and a closed-loop liquid nitrogen refrigeration cycle, 3) the mass storage landfill, 4) power plant requirements, 5) prevention of dry ice sublimation, and 6) disposal (or use) of thermal waste. Calculations demonstrate that this project is worthy of consideration, whereby 446 deposition plants supported by sixteen 1200-MW wind farms can remove 1 billion tons (1012 kg) of carbon (1 GtC) annually (a reduction of 0.5 ppmv), which can be stored in an equivalent “landfill” volume of 2 km × 2 km × 160 m (insulated to prevent dry ice sublimation). The individual deposition plant, with a 100 m × 100 m × 100 m refrigeration chamber, would produce approximately 0.4 m of CO2 snow per day. The solid CO2 would be excavated into a 380 m × 380 m × 10 m insulated landfill, which would allow 1 yr of storage amounting to 2.24 × 10−3 GtC. Demonstrated success of a prototype system in the Antarctic would be followed by a complete installation of all 446 plants for CO2 snow deposition and storage (amounting to 1 billion tons annually), with wind farms positioned in favorable coastal regions with katabatic wind currents.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JAMC-D-12-0110.1?af=R&
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From Anthony:
1 billion tons annually is what the proposal would store. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it?
From the Global Carbon Project:
CO2 emissions from fossil fuels burning and cement production increased by 3% in 2011, with a total of 9.5±0.5 PgC emitted to the atmosphere (34.7 billion tonnes of CO2). These emissions were the highest in human history and 54% higher than in 1990 (the Kyoto Protocol reference year). In 2011, coal burning was responsible for 43% of the total emissions, oil 34%, gas 18%, and cement 5%.
CO2 emissions from fossil fuels burning and cement production are projected to increase by 2.6% in 2012, to a record high of 9.7±0.5 PgC (35.6 billion tonnes of CO2).
CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and other industrial processes are calculated by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center of the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For the period 1959 to 2009 the calculations were based on United Nations Energy Statistics and cement data from the US Geological Survey, and for the years 2010 and 2011 the calculations were based on BP energy data.
Uncertainty of the global fossil fuel CO2 is estimated at ±5% (±1 sigma bounds based on the 10% at ±2 sigma bounds published by Andres et al. 2012).
Uncertainty of emissions from individual countries can be larger.
The 2012 projection of 2.6% growth is based on the world GDP projection of 3.3% made by the International Monetary Fund and our estimate of improvements in the fossil intensity of the economy of 0.7%.
Source: http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/12/hl-full.htm#FFandCement
So, with 35.6 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted in 2012 (estimated) and China still going like gangbusters, does anybody really think the 1 billion ton sequestration proposal is going to make even a dent?
![dotchinaco2new-blog480[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/dotchinaco2new-blog4801.jpg?quality=83)
Some excellently entertaining epistles here!
So glad free minds can look at suggestions – and skewer them if necessary!
Auto
I’m just curious. What is the practical working life of a modern wind turbine under Antarctic conditions? How do you suppose the average temperatures (as cited in this proposal) might affect things like lubrication, bearings and maintenance cycles?
What do you suppose would be the impact on local temperatures of installing that large a wind-farm? Would the recently-discussed wind-shadow raise the local temperatures enough to defeat the assumptions about local storage temperatures?
On a positive note, the variability of wind-speed might not be a problem. Unlike most wind-power proposals, there is no external imperative that the plant run all the time. You could theoretically generate your dry ice only when the wind blows. But pretty much all the other factors affecting the cost-effectiveness of wind turbines seems to have been ignored here.
Antarctica seems like a good place to sequester greenies – permanently.
If we’re thinking about sequestering in Antarctica, or any other frozen place, why not just dump organic material collected from farms, human waste, and debris from some wild habitats. Maybe we could throw in some seaweed.
Frozen organic material doesn’t decay and release CO2 or CH4. Might be cheaper and/or more scalable than biochar or artificial coal.
Why don’t we let nature’s carbon sequestration plants soak up the bounty…
Or better yet, there’s gotta be someone that could build several billion tons worth of wooden things (while collecting their carbon credits). And since fast growing forests sequester more CO2 than old growth forests, let’s lop off large sections of old growth and plant new faster growing treesin the name of being green.
If we leave out the CO2 part, Antarctic sequestration may turn out to be a good idea. After they’re convicted of fraud, “Death Trains” Hanson and Mikey M could serve out their sentences doing real scientific work for a change – studying penguin droppings on the balmy coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Continuing my quixotic prediliction for posting on long-forgotten threads: there is much confusion above between GT Carbon and GT CO2. 35 GT of CO2 emitted is only around 10GT Carbon. Further, much less than 10GT ends up in the atmosphere, as much is absorbed elsewhere. Hence, sequestering 1GT Carbon would be very significant. A reduction of 0.5 ppmv per year compares to an increase over the last five years of only 2.0 ppmv/year (SA).
I would cut these guys some slack. The engineering is probably a mile away from the back-of-envelope theory, but I’d take a guess that the harm done by removing CO2 this way is a tiny fraction of the harm done by raising the price of energy enough to have the same effect by reducing emissions.
More generally I’d propose that giving climate alarmists a more-or-less harmless ‘out’ to focus on rather than going full tilt on their pure religion is no bad thing.
RERT well said. One caveat us that they would simply spend tax dollars on that boondoggle.
Wind turbines are going cheap in Australia at the moment but they dont do what they claim, and have wind speed limits in any case!
Another rort in the name of ‘saving the planet’ !
-see http://stopthesethings.com/
Re the various suggestions to power CO2 sequestration with wind turbines.
The term for the Antarctic windstorm is “Herbie”.
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Community/antarctic_slang.htm
Herbie – The name given to particularly powerful and dangerous storms that affect the US McMurdo base coming from the South, through “Herbie Alley”, winds can be in excess of 100 knots. Am
See for example:
http://firepenguin.webs.com/antarcticherbiewinter2004.htm
“A Herbie Blows Through on 16May2004
Well we had a bit of nasty weather roll through, and pretty much right over, town this past weekend. (16May2004) Although it wasn’t really cold, relatively speaking, the winds were what got the best of us. There was some pretty good damage all over town. We had windows blown in and smashed on several buildings and vehicles. Doors were ripped from their hinges and several bay doors are completely missing. Almost as much snow inside some buildings as outside. Several roofs were either damaged, or are totally missing. It even blew the entire top off a converted fuel tank. There were downed power lines and furnaces quit working in many buildings. Some pipes froze causing them to burst, one causing a 20,000 gallon lake (okay, skating rink) inside one of the buildings. We had wind speeds in town pushing 120 m.p.h. Black Island, across the bay from us where we house much of our communication equipment and radio repeaters, had sustained winds of about 160 m.p.h. and gusts up to 190-200 m.p.h for two days. Our base sits at the end of what is known as Herbie Alley. The name comes from a combination of hurricane and blizzard. Guess it held true to it’s name this time.”