Burying the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, has been mooted as one geoengineering approach to ameliorating climate change. To be effective, trapping the gas in geological deposits would be the for the very long term, thousands of years. Now, a team in Brazil, writing in the International Journal of Global Warming has reviewed the risk assessments for this technology and suggests a lack of knowledge means we should be cautious of turning to this method rather than finding sustainable ways to reduce emissions at their source.
Maísa Matos Paraguassú of the Federal University of Bahia and colleagues there and at Salvador University explain how the scientific consensus suggests that anthropogenic carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere underpins the greenhouse effect. Rising concentrations of the gas could lead to an uncontrollable rise in global average temperatures with concomitant effects on our planet’s climate and devastating local effects in extreme cases.
Numerous proposals have been put forward to sequester carbon dioxide from emissions sources, such as power stations the electricity-generating turbines within which are powered by fossil fuels, and vehicle exhausts. But, ultimately, there need to be global repositories within which the gas can be stored indefinitely in sublimed or mineralized form. Of course, the sequestration, conversion and transportation of trapped carbon dioxide has its own energy and emissions costs. Nevertheless, if sufficient of this greenhouse gas can be held within geological formations, then there might be a way to tame the potentially runaway effect of climate change that would ensue if atmospheric levels continue to rise.
“Risk can be obtained from the ‘combination of uncertainty and damage’, the ‘ratio between hazard and safeguard’, and the ‘combination of probability and consequence’,” the team reports, quoting various research teams from the last thirty years or so. For geological storage of carbon, there are technological risks as well as risks associated with the geology and geography of any chosen deposition site. The risks of a leak from a large deposit might well be enormous. It is difficult to determine how big that risk actually is because geological sites do not conform to the standardized structures and materials one would expect with a design industrial storage facility, for instance.
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Paraguassú, M.M., Câmara, G., Rocha, P.S. and Andrade, J.C.S. (2015) ‘An approach to assess risks of carbon geological storage technology’, Int. J. Global Warming, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.89-109.
Abstract: Carbon geological storage (CGS) projects are designed to securely store carbon dioxide (CO2) for thousands of years. Because of this, there are several studies to evaluate the potential risks of long-term storage of CO2 in geological formations. This paper presents a new method for the qualitative risk assessment of CGS: the risk assessment of stored CO2 (RA-CO2) method. It consists of the systematic and structured identification of CO2 release risk scenarios arising from: seal, well, and fault and fracture zones. The uncertainties associated to each mapped risk scenario and the risks are qualitatively evaluated using the RA-CO2 method. The characteristics of the RA-CO2 method enable a comprehensive understanding of the underground evolution and future behaviour of the CO2 in various time scales and their influence on safety. For future studies, the validation of the proposed RA-CO2 method using a real case study is recommended.
[Note: a related paper from 2006 says much the same: http://www.uscsc.org/Files/Admin/Educational_Papers/AttachmentToUSCSCReportOnCCSSafetyPaper_GeologicalStorageRiskAssessment.pdf ]
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pump the CO2 into greenhouses, then use the trees for biofuel.
Converting huge amounts of CO2 into huge amounts of limestone by combining carboxhydric acid H2CO3 with calcium hydroxide would need huge amounts of calcium oxide CaO.
How do you think is the industrial process to make CaO? It is the exact contrary: You take huge amounts of limestone and you heat them at an 800°C temperature. Then CO2 is freed in the atmosphere and CaO is produced.
So it would purely silly to trap the CO2 into limestone since there is as much CO2 freed as CO2 trapped.
Not speaking about the huge amounts of energy needed…
A concrete wall is a glimpse into CO2’s past.
and future
Maybe we should build a really really really big can of Coca Cola.
Reading about CCS it makes me wonder what those people near Lake Tanganiyka thought as it happened.
Watching people dropping in front of them, fires suddenly dieing out and then heaving for air only to discover there is none. As unpleasant as choking on something and trying do draw just any oxygen in is, breathing perfectly but still not getting any air must have been utterly terrifying.
It can’t have been a pleasant way to go, and people wanr to expose large numbers of people to it.
The very notion of storing a gas underground for geologic timescales is about as unsustainable a thing as I can imagine. Why are the greenies even on this, I wonder.
I propose a solution much more sustainable. We cryogenically separate CO2 from the atmosphere as is done today. Then we electrolytically reduce the carbon all the way back to elemental C and liberate the Oxygen. The Carbon obtained is then pressed into graphite blocks for permanent storage and sequestration. This atmosphere processing plant would need a lot of energy to run, so a Thorium Reactor would be used for power. So far, all green, very sustainable.
The final issue is what to do with all that graphite. Again a sustainable answer suggests itself. We could use old coal strip mines as repositories. The graphite blocks are stacked where the coal was extracted, and the the site landscaped over. In this way, the carbon is sequestered and old, dangerous strip mines are reclaimed and the land restored. The whole plan is as green and sustainable as could be.
Science!
Or … or … we could make a really really really big pencil.
http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/621/555/62155506_640.jpg
I love it. I never would have thought of it.
More Science!
The sign in front reads
FUDGE, NUDGE & ERASE
ACCOUNTANCY
What’s with these plant hating Carbon Capture & Sequestration fanatics? Why do these ecobigots want to starve the flora of Mother Earth? And by extension, starve the fauna as well? Why do they want to cheat Godess Gaia of her overdue greening of the planet? A more sensible solution is to let the plants have free access to all of the CO2 possible. It’s the sustainable solution…… and Oh…. So……Green!
Not enough thinking outside the box, here. If timber didn’t decay when a tree died, it would soon be buried under the leaf litter, eventually turning into coal. The process takes eons, but the carbon is sequestered all that time. In the future Man would be able to use it for fuel as he comes out of the next dark ages (a result of the green movement).
How do we make that happen? First we kill all the lawyers – not as part of this process, but just on principle – then we kill all the termites. That should do it. (And, no, I’m not serious).
Funny someone thought of real risks. Sadly, wrapped into bullscheisse cellophane. The Castor project is something to draw a few conclusions from: https://www.thespainreport.com/6623/hundreds-earthquakes-caused-directly-castor-gas-project-say-spanish-geologists/
In the latest issue of Discovery magazine it seems that strong UV converts about 5 % of co2 into O2 + C in one step. The rest is converted to CO + O. I wonder what the implications of this are? Not that the sun produces strong UV light, does it? Does that mean that somewhere, before man started producing the evil molecule, that the earth was adding co2 naturally in order to keep a balance? Or how close were we in having plant life shut down? Talk about an extinction event!! And since I don’t think that co2 was added in a slow and deliberate manner, why aren’t there spikes in the co2 record as per the IPCC graph relating to temperature? In any 5 year period there could be a spike of +/- 25% or more. And then, what could have caused such a large increase in co2?
I got so many questions. No wonder they put a satellite up to see where the co2 is coming from. And I foolishly thought they couldn’t tell the difference between man made co2 and natural. Everybody remembers those arguments with isotope numbers, But then they knew that didn’t they. The carbon budget didn’t balance. I don’t know what they know, but I’m sure ” if they have to explain it to me “, being not a ( approved by the IPCC) climate scientist, ” I wouldn’t understand it “. (words in quotes by Bernie)
CO2 is a wonder gas that causes life on this planet. It is necessary for photosynthesis that produces green plants that in turn produce meats. It is odorless, tasteless, colorless, and nontoxic. It not only is necessary at the basic food chain of life, but in humans it helps prevent pain and aches in the joints, lowers blood pressure, and is otherwise good for health. I am now going to go and drink some carbonated water because it lowers my blood pressure and makes me feel much better.
This is important because the EPA could not pass the CO2 regs if the cost of regulation outweighs the benefits. They have to do a cost-benefit analysis ahead of time (the RIA, Regulatory Impact Assesment) and show that the benefits of regulation outweigh the costs. The calculations of benefits is questionable, but the cost of complying with the regs is fundamentally the cost of coal with CCS. All of their documents have charts that estimate the cost of a coal plant with CCS. The cost per ton of CO2 is less than the benefit of taking a ton of CO2 out of the air. So they win. But it’s all inaccurate and exaggerated, exaggerated up in terms of benefit and down in terms of cost.