Guest no schist Sherlock by David Middleton
Stanford News Service
MAY 20, 2019
Stanford researchers outline vision for profitable climate change solutionA seemingly counterintuitive approach – converting one greenhouse gas into another – holds promise for returning the atmosphere to pre-industrial concentrations of methane, a powerful driver of global warming.
BY ROB JORDAN
Stanford Woods Institute for the EnvironmentA relatively simple process could help turn the tide of climate change while also turning a healthy profit. That’s one of the hopeful visions outlined in a new Stanford-led paper that highlights a seemingly counterintuitive solution: converting one greenhouse gas into another.
The study, published in Nature Sustainability on May 20, describes a potential process for converting the extremely potent greenhouse gas methane into carbon dioxide, which is a much less potent driver of global warming. The idea of intentionally releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere may seem surprising, but the authors argue that swapping methane for carbon dioxide is a significant net benefit for the climate.
“If perfected, this technology could return the atmosphere to pre-industrial concentrations of methane and other gases,” said lead author Rob Jackson, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor in Earth System Science in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.
[…]
Stanford News Service
My first thought was: No schist Sherlock.
Real Clear Energy
My second thought was: The technology is already fairly well perfected.
But then, I read more of the Stanford News Service article…
Most scenarios for removing carbon dioxide typically assume hundreds of billions of tons removed over decades and do not restore the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels. In contrast, methane concentrations could be restored to pre-industrial levels by removing about 3.2 billion tons of the gas from the atmosphere and converting it into an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to a few months of global industrial emissions, according to the researchers. If successful, the approach would eliminate approximately one-sixth of all causes of global warming to date.Methane is challenging to capture from air because its concentration is so low. However, the authors point out that zeolite, a crystalline material that consists primarily of aluminum, silicon and oxygen, could act essentially as a sponge to soak up methane.
Stanford News Service
They’re referring to the insane idea of converting atmospheric methane directly into carbon dioxide, without using it as a fuel.
The whole process might take the form of a giant contraption with electric fans forcing air through tumbling chambers or reactors full of powdered or pelletized zeolites and other catalysts. The trapped methane could then be heated to form and release carbon dioxide, the authors suggest.
Stanford News Service
They even insist that this will be “profitable”… WTF?
A profitable future
The process of converting methane to carbon dioxide could be profitable with a price on carbon emissions or an appropriate policy. If market prices for carbon offsets rise to $500 or more per ton this century, as predicted by most relevant assessment models, each ton of methane removed from the atmosphere could be worth more than $12,000.A zeolite array about the size of a football field could generate millions of dollars a year in income while removing harmful methane from the air. In principle, the researchers argue that the approach of converting a more harmful greenhouse gas to one that’s less potent could also apply to other greenhouse gases.
Stanford News Service
How the frack could there be “market prices for carbon offsets”? There is no market for “carbon offsets.” The only way that there could be a market for “carbon offsets,” would be if governments imposed such a “market” through a carbon tax… Which really isn’t a market.
This is what a $500/ton tax on carbon dioxide emissions would do to commonly used fuel prices.
A tripling or quadrupling of energy prices through a $500/ton carbon dioxide tax would ostensibly make it “profitable” to suck CH4 out of the air turn it into CO2 and bury it in the ground. That’s just fracking mental.
This is a special type of stupid. They should take any paper and electronics used to complete this study and quickly convert them into CO2 and H2O, then find new careers as clowns.
Many folks want to tax producers of large amounts of CO2.
Insofar as this process produces CO2, will such tax apply?
As an engineer (and geologist) I am amazed today’s science-lite, high -schoolish sciency fair professors of climate don’t drop over to the universities engineering department – heck any engineer would do – to tell them such childishness is a non starter. So something the size of football field is going to clean the atmosphere of something the size of the earth! The only thing big related to the football field is the availability of zeolites!
David Middleton above noted $500/ton for CO2. I will be making coffee this morning on my natural gas (methane)-powered stove, happily converting powerful greenhouse gas methane into two powerful greenhouse gases CO2 and water vapor. I hadn’t planned to submit a request for reimbursement, but after reading this post, who do I contact at Stanford for my money for doing my part to save the world as we know it?
As I discussed above, Etiope finds a substantial portion of the hydrocarbons
in the atmosphere are non human from the earth. He didn’t include wetlands
but I do. Wetlands were there before humans. He also does not include
the natural gas which is responsible for the topsoil in Kansas, as an example.
The natural gas which is responsible for topsoil stops rising when the soil
is frozen, is in balance with the microbes oxidizing it when an average
amount of moisture is available, and when the soil is saturated by
spring rains or flooded, the natural gas rises just as it does from wetlands.
As I said above, large amounts of natural gas rises unoxidized in
arid areas. Etiope found this also in a study which I do not have
at hand currently.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008GL033623
Etiope’s research on ethane, propane, etc. in the atmosphere.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/323/5913/478
Etiope got really close to my findings, but didn’t make the
last step. All upland topsoil, in the presence of adequate moisture,
owes its richness to the amount of natural gas rising through it.
“the approach would eliminate approximately one-sixth of all causes of global warming to date.”
only in model fantasy land. Not in reality. It would do nothing except be very expensive.
And as for “converting methane to carbon dioxide could be profitable with a price on carbon emissions or an appropriate policy. ” That requires a heavy-handed police and taxing powers of the state, not the free market. Again offering government policy solutions that only grow government and control.
These people at today’s universities who write this stuff up are absolute morons if they think the US public is going to accept their socialist schemes.
(Robt waves hand.)
I know one way to convert methane to carbon dioxide!
We could, you know, pipe it to some place. And then burn it to heat things.
These people have jumped on the scam-wagon:
So instead of burning it for energy, we’ll convert methane to CO2 via an expensive boondoggle that produces absolutely nothing of value?
This is the green agenda in a nutshell.
Than you for this post. I heard this guy interviewed on the radio and
it was mind bending. I was so glad I was in bed and didn’t have to get
up. Also, I shared the fracking video. I know about the oil business
cause my older brothers worked in it when I was young. Great video.
I have a very efficient methane to CO2 conversion reactor in my home. It’s called a gas stove, and it’s also useful for cooking food.
On an industrial scale, oil wells also have methane to CO2 converters, called flares.
While methane in the atmosphere does absorb about 20 times more IR radiation than CO2, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have been flat while CO2 levels are increasing. There is a very scientific reason for this. Air has a molecular weight of about 29, while methane has a molecular weight of 16, and carbon dioxide has a molecular weight of 44. At a given temperature, the density of a gas is proportional to pressure and molecular weight (ideal gas law). Methane is therefore buoyant and rises to the stratosphere (and some of it escapes Earth’s gravity into space) while CO2 is heavier than air and stays near the surface.
Any additional methane accidentally emitted from oil and gas drilling facilities (or flatulent livestock) may cause some slight warming of the stratosphere, but would have little or no effect on the climate at the earth’s surface.
If methane is too difficult a molecule to work try hydrogen.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/05/21/nasa-to-provide-6-million-for-electric-aircraft-research-at-univ-of-illinois/ Some debate in comments.
I had a short course in thermodynamics long ago which didn’t leave me this impression.
“Hydrogen has a specific (gravimetric) energy density that is unparalleled by just about any other energy storage method. In fact, hydrogen has a specific energy over three times that of traditional kerosene-based jet fuels, and has specific energy over 700 times that of modern battery systems…..Per unit energy, a liquid hydrogen system is far lighter than Jet A fuel, and the overall propulsive drivetrain is expected to be more efficient as well, reducing the net energy needs of the storage system.”
Something about cryogenics and superconductivity. Somebody please explain, they didn’t say much of where or how much the energy to produce all this required. Is there something around like carbon–-HYDROGEN BLACK. Well, somebody claims CARBON BLUE, which I haven’t quite figured out yet either.
It’s not mental if you get to keep some of the money. It’s only mental for those who pay for it.
Here in Finland we have an old tradition of telling stories of some fancy tribe of fools with hilarious counterintuitivity. Once the fools built a house but forgot to make windows. So, they found a solution: They exposed bags to the sun and carried light to the house. – I feel that kind of insanity is prevalent nowadays.
My car converts methane into CO2 and water, and uses less gasoline at the same time.