By Michael Marshall
Here is a radical solution to dangerous climate change: create lakes of liquid carbon dioxide on the seabed, and keep the greenhouse gas out of the air.
As well as cutting our emissions of carbon dioxide, it is becoming increasingly likely that we will have to actively remove the gas from the air to keep Earth’s temperature at a safe level – which is now agreed to be no more than 1.5 °C above that in preindustrial times.
But where should we put the carbon? Most attention has focused on burying it underground, perhaps by injecting it into depleted oil and gas fields. This approach has been tested and seems to work, but it is unclear whether people will accept this fix.
Now Steve Goldthorpe, an energy analyst based in New Zealand, has suggested a radical alternative: dump the carbon dioxide in deep ocean trenches, where it can sit permanently as a liquid lake.
The crucial point, says Goldthorpe, is that once the carbon dioxide reaches a depth of about 3000 metres, its density exceeds that of water – so it will naturally sink to the bottom and stay there.
Very large carbon sink
Goldthorpe used Google Earth to explore the seabed and identify a suitable storage site. He found a deep ocean trench around 6 kilometres down, called the Sunda trench, just south of the Indonesian archipelago. “It is big enough to accommodate 19 trillion tonnes of liquid CO2, which is greater than all the CO2 from the total global fossil fuel emissions,” he says.
HT | Robert Woodward
This is a really dumb idea.
Most substances which can exist as a liquid have a “vapor pressure curve”, which plots the minimum pressure at which the substance remains a liquid as a function of temperature. This curve ends at the critical point, which is the maximum temperature at which the substance can be liquefied. Near the critical point, if the liquid slightly below the critical temperature is heated to above the critical temperature, there is a sudden and possibly violent (explosive) expansion.
For carbon dioxide, the critical point is about 31 C (88 F) and 73.8 bar (1071 psi), meaning that if carbon dioxide was compressed, condensed, and pumped down below the bottom of the sea, the liquid CO2 could be exposed to geothermal heat and undergo rapid, explosive expansion, essentially causing man-made earthquakes, which could also cause tsunamis if they occurred under the sea.
It is true that sea water in deep trenches is cold (about 4 C or 39 F), which could avoid the heating problem, but there would need to be a physical barrier between the liquid CO2 and sea water, to prevent the CO2 from reacting with water to form carbonic acid (a reaction which releases heat). At 3,000 meters depth, this barrier would have to withstand a water pressure of about 4,200 psi without leaking. It is unlikely that the “plastic sausages” proposed by Ken Caldeira could withstand such pressures without being crushed–they would probably need steel containers several inches thick, which would be extremely expensive to manufacture.
It would be much cheaper to build an 8-inch high seawall around coastal cities every century to prevent the rising ocean from flooding them. The Dutch have been doing this for centuries.
It would not have to withstand 4200 psi, as the material on either side is incompressible it would get a uniform 4200 psi from either side with no shear and tear pressures.
It is still a dumb idea, but not for that reason.
You’re not going to have an explosion. At 6,000 meters depth, the pressure is about 590 bar. Since it is well above the critical pressure, at any temperature above the critical temperature it’s going to be a supercritical fluid. No boom. Still not a bright idea for many other reasons, but no boom.
When the pools of liquid CO2 were observed in the Pacific Ocean about 10 years ago they were separated from the ocean above by a layer of CO2-hydrate.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1599885/
“The answer to the apparent conundrum surrounding the very existence of this phenomenon is that the lake is maintained in place by a surface pavement and a subpavement cap of CO2 hydrate (CO2·6H2O) that traps the low-density liquid CO2 in place. At the temperature of the seafloor at this depth, such a CO2 hydrate should be stable (4), leading to a structure similar to that shown in figure 1 of the Inagaki et al. article (1), in which a surface pavement overlies a layer of CO2 hydrate that serves as a cap for the subsurface lake.”
Also at depths of 3,000m the paper said:
“CO2 hydrates also form at these depths, suggesting that large subsurface lakes of liquid CO2 capped by hydrates could be excellent locations for the large-scale injection and disposal of CO2 (3).”
So this idea has been around for quite a while.
This is not something new. It is mentioned at this more than ten years old page:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060830-carbon-lakes.html
C’mon peeps, y’all being a bit less than charitable here.
We’re getting a damn good education from all this –
I knew diddly squat about Sumdaystramtrams Trench this morning and just look at me now – fully up to speed about roughly where it is and, plus or minus 1, how many trillions it’s got.
What’s a trill between friends eh – justa bitta loose change innit
And we know from Climate Science, if a computer got to know this, there may be A Projection (scary huh) and it could, maybe, likely, possibly, experts think (I struggle to believe that actually but..) be a Tipping Point.
Ah man, Not had a good tipping point for aaaaages.
Could never happen in England tho – there’s signs everywhere saying ‘No Tipping’ and ‘£50,000 Fine’
Just try firing an apple-core outta yer car winda – that’s you marked for life.
That’s No Lie
And this guy wants to dump how many ‘apple core’ equivalents of carbonoxide into Sumdays TramTram?
It’ll be unprecedented, that’s for sure. Bound to make somebody’s willy look really big, whoever works it out.
(Reaches for calculator, wondering just how many apple cores per unit CO2, my Bramley tree is sagging badly………………………..)
This guy Goldthorpe, who professes to have a BS in Chemical Engineering, has been publishing similar tripe since 1992. Twenty-five years of grants, no doubt!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245159036_Costs_of_CO2_disposal_options?ev=prf_high
How do I get a job publishing galena (PbS) for twenty-five years with an undergraduate degree in in chem e?
Greg, maybe that BS in BS in Chem Engineering doesn’t mean what you think it means:-)))
Email old Steve and tell him what you think. Steve.Goldthorpe@xtra.co.nz
What is the point of hiding the CO2?
we need all the CO2 we can get to turn into natures own storage mechanism
Oil gas and coal.
In the meantime. agricultural produce just got cheaper…
On the tip of Sumatra, Mobil found the Arun field in 1971, with 16 trillion cubic feet of gas, 500 million barrels of condensate, and 17% CO2. At one time that gas generated 25% of the electricity in Japan. All the hydrocarbons have been burned, and all that CO2 was separated out and vented to the atmosphere. Somehow, man survived.
Here’s the full paper: http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1876610217318878/1-s2.0-S1876610217318878-main.pdf?_tid=32de2030-9d63-11e7-a6bf-00000aacb361&acdnat=1505843684_12846db3d962436172626d70d34d1931
THIS is why WUWT is so important. Carbon is the basis of all Life on Earth. Our alarmist enemies absolutely HATE human life, and many hate every living thing. Eventually, the nonsense will be defeated one way or another, but how much damage will they do in the meantime?
Health and vitality are the real issues. We will not win by worrying over much about temperatures–nobody really cares unless they believe the nonsense about rising sea levels or hurricanes or something. Something that affects safety, life, bodily well-being.
The grad student at Denver’s Ice Core lab thinks “climate optimum” means extremes, hot or cold. His degree is in geology: that is what they are teaching them these days. A generation ago, geologists learned about paleontology and “climate optimum” meant a warm period, because that is where the greatest variety and abundance of fossils was found.
The whole scream story is an attack on Life–ALL Life. Get that.
Life, vitality, well-being. That is what it is really all about. That is what we must emphasize.
Carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, plus some other elements, are the basis of life, to include water. But specifically, a compound of carbon and oxygen, CO2, is the trace gas essential in the food chains based upon photosynthesis. That includes virtually all multicellular eukaryotes, ie plants, fungi and animals, and much of the unicellular eukaryotic and prokaryotic worlds.
Of course there is another minor fly in this CO2 remedy and that relates to the hugely active earthquake and volcano zone in which Sumatra is located. Possibly not the best choice of places, especially after giving attention to Steve Zell’s excellent contribution.
And I loved the Superman response. Fancy, there’s me thinking Superman was just a story book character!
For those who believe in the radiant greenhouse effect, the primary greenhouse gas is H2O and not CO2 so what is being proposed will do very little to change the over all radiant greenhouse effect. We cannot store any more H2O in the ocean trenches than what is already there. Anything that we add to the ocean floor will cause sea level rise which we do not want to happen. But furthermore there is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really zero so changing CO2 levels in the atmosphere will have no effect on climate.
The AGW conjecture depends upon the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect provided for by trace gases that have LWIR absorption bands. One problem with that concept is that good absorbers are also good radiators so the so called greenhouse gases do not trap heat energy any more than all the other gases in the atmosphere. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of a radiant greenhouse effect. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect. Same too on Earth where gravity limits cooling by convection. From first principals the Earth’s convective greenhouse effect keeps the Earth’s surface on average, 33 degrees C warmer then if it were at the black body radiator equilibirum temperature. 33 degrees C is the derived amount and 33 degrees C is what has been observed. Additional warming caused by a rediant greenhouse effect has not been observed. A radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed anywhere in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction. Hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction.
We need to face reality. The climate change that we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. If Mother Nature has her way as has happened over at least the past million years, our current intergalcial period will end and the real problem will be global cooling. dropping sea levels, and contentinal ice sheets. But it seems most likely that it will take still thousands of years for the current intergalcial period to end.
The real problem is that over eons, too much carbon has been sequestered in the form of fossil fuels and carbonate rocks. When the next ice age hits the oceans will be absorbing more CO2 causing a reduction in atmospheric CO2 that may prove dangerous for the existance of plant life. Our current adding CO2 to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels may not be enough.
What couldn’t go wrong here? Active geologic area, change in ocean currents, (insert many more possible events) and you think the CO2 pools are just going to sit there?
Has anyone heard of carbonate rock like marble, limestone and others? They precipitate in warm shallow seas, usually with the assistance of a few microorganism (i.e. Diatoms). It’s been going on for eons. Just look at the Grand Canyon and the vertical cliffs are carbonate rock which represents 1500 feet or more of stored CO2 from hundreds of millions af years ago.
Has no one though of storing it in the atmosphere where it does nothing but good?
better question is SHOULD we store it/…..
and answer is a resounding hell no!!
The VERY BEST place to store any CO2 we get as a by-product to electricity generation, cement making etc…. …
is in the atmosphere WHERE IT BELONGS !!!
If they wanted to lower the atmospheric concentration by 50ppm, Back to their beloved 350ppm, how much liquid CO2 would that entail and what kind of effect on sea level would that have.
Sorry, it recently chimed Gin O’clock or I’d try the math myself.
I will get out paper and pencil right now. 50 ppm of atmospheric pressure multiplied by earth surface area divided by 68 pounds per cubic foot is the approximate volume…the density is a SWAG so I best research. Molar weight of 44 for carbonic anhydride.
Thanks for that, had a quick go and while the gin has made me draw a cat, my first rough stab at it was a not very scary figure. Still it’d be a beautiful pristine environment wiped clean of life, most of it probably unknown life.
Chemical plants have been developed that remove CO2 from the air using solar power – the colloquial name for them is trees. 🙂
They even grow bigger all by themselves!
Even though this is a dumb idea that would result in some disaster I imagine, somebody actually published this study in “Science”.
It is so dumb, it actually got published in one of the most prestigious scientific journals there is.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.1686
How about we instead store the carbonistas 20k leagues beneath the sea, and plant trees? Win-win!
Could we … drill a hole in the top of our heads and plunge into it a fat knitting needle then vigorously stir it for several minutes.
Then we would all be obedient environmentalists and believe in catastrophic global warming and the need to remove life-sustaining CO2 from the atmosphere and bury it deep underground.
How do we get these vacuous geniuses back into their little play modules. The solubility of CO2 is legend. I was impressed when my daughter carbonated a sizeable bottle for drinking water in about a second in a unit equipped with a small CO2 capsule. The water Dr Doolittle is targeting is only 2C, too! Is there now a lake of CO2 in the trench – there would be if this physicist was correct. I’d venture to say the entire atmospheric content of it would have already been there millions of years ago.
This is yet another crazed suggestion from CAGW Loony Land. It is a non-solution to a non-problem. Storing CO2 in the atmosphere, as at present, is an excellent solution.
“it is becoming increasingly likely that we will have to actively remove the gas from the air to keep Earth’s temperature at a safe level ” How about recognizing increased CO2 has negligible impact on the heating of the planet and spare the cost of any foolish solutions that nothing more than a waste of money. Worse yet they may become the source of problems created by their implementation. These are large scale projects that have the potential to negatively impact the environment on their own.
Something these SJW ‘scientists’ seemed to neglect is the environmental consequences of their actions. The bird and bat killing windmills are an excellent example. In this case dumping that CO2 into a trench would exterminate all living things below. Now these aren’t high density ecosystems but there are a surprising number of living organisms down there. A unique environment too.
I’d like to see the Environmental Impact Statement for that project….