It seems the scientists at NOAA have decided they can play god with our planet's climate system. The recently released NOAA fact sheet on Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) reads like a manifesto for techno-utopian hubris, proposing a future where carbon capture and geoengineering are wielded as tools to reshape the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. This document, laden with grandiose claims and alarming uncertainties, outlines a vision that is as scientifically questionable as it is ethically troubling. NOAA's fact sheet emphasizes the role of human-caused CO2 emissions as a primary driver of climate ...
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Funny how all these schemes of theirs require LOTS of fossil fuels to accomplish, and they will not change anything overall.
I love that direct air capture with all those fans, OMG, think about how much FF it would take to build and operate that, and could it even remove C02 as fast as is produced to run it? These people need to study chemistry and engineering, they have no idea.
Removing the same amount of CO2 from the air that FF production adds into the air using wind/solar would require more than 2x the amount of wind/solar capacity it would take to replace all the FF that put it there. Is CO2 -> C + O2 endothermic? If so, maybe somebody can suck the heat out of the oceans and build a bigger ice cap.
No, CO2=>C requires a lot of energy input. If not, you could get energy burning C again and producing CO2 and back to C … forever!
”
en·do·ther·mic
/ˌendəˈTHərmik/
adjective
1.
Chemistry
(of a reaction or process) accompanied by or requiring the absorption of heat.
“
You can’t build, ship, install or maintain unreliables without fossil fuels, why should this be different?
Kinda like Ethanol right? How it takes more energy to produce Ethanol than it delivers. And then there are the unintended consequence e.g. the impact on food supply, its corrosive nature that corrodes fuel systems, government subsidies to keep it alive and benefit a few rich people who spread their newfound wealth back to politicians and bureaucrats…government solutions always seem to create unintended consequences. What they are talking about here,unlike CO2, could actually kill the planet. Since they seem hellbent on proceeding with these get the rich richer subsidized schemes, the rest of us should get ready to bend over and KOAG.
And guess what is a byproduct of ethanol production?
CO2, enough that it is sold and put to good use in other industries such as drinking water treatment.
Does it require more energy to produce Ethanol than it delivers?
Simple answer: Yes.
Here in the US the primary source of ethanol is Corn. Production is energy intensive. In addition to the energy to grind, cook, ferment, and distill. Additionally, since you cannot just pump it out of the ground, energy is required to plant, grow, harvest and transport it, since you can’t move the corn over a pipeline you need gas powered vehicles to get it the the production phase.
I actually ran the numbers based on the corn produced on my Wisconsin Uplands dairy farm that we sell for ethanol (taking back the resulting distillers grain as ideal dairy feed supplement).
The corn production energy based on my farm is about 1.25x the resulting ethanol energy. Production energy includes diesel for the tractor and harvester, nitrogen fertilizer from nat gas, propane for drying the corn down to 8% moisture if necessary (depends on fall harvest weather), and diesel for trucking corn to the local ethanol distillery. I did not include the diesel for shipping distillers grain back to the farm. I am also fairly sure a larger (multi thousand rather than multi hundred acre) corn farming operation would not be much different. Higher horsepower tractor and harvester and maybe truck, but same diesel engine efficiency. Same nitrogen fertilizer input.
But remember, ethanol was NEVER about energy in the original concept. It was about an octane enhancer replacing ground water polluting MBTE to max gasoline refined per barrel, and an oxygenate fuel additive reducing smog. The original 10% blend wall was set by the LA summer high octane requirement. Most places use less than 10%, and especially outside summer. That is why all gas pumps say ‘up to 10%’. Depends on season and location. Anything more than 10% is your local farm lobby foolishly at work.
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves tax it, if it keeps moving regulate it, if it stops moving subsidize it.” – Ronald Reagan
Ethanol became a bad solution to extend our oil supply during the oil embargo from back in the 70’s.
Also need to include the energy to irrigate tge corn from the water source to the cob
Oh it wasn’t a scam to buy of farmers for votes and get them hooked on the government gravy train? My bad, what do I know.
Right? That Government Gravy train is rich and fattening, real bob, and it sounds like Rud fattened up long ago. It would appear those government direct deposits are fattening his farm account so he is running cover, pretending that there is some kind of net energy payout when in reality it isn’t true.
Think about it if we could actually solve our energy problem by growing more energy than it took to grow it the government wouldn’t need to subsidize it. Without government subsidies there is no market for ethanol. We don’t need ethanol for energy and that corn he is growing could help feed hungry kids in Sri Lanka but Neither our government nor Sri Lanka’s will pay him for the edible variety.
The US National so-called-Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine have gone over the same board.
Since at least 2015: https://www.americangeosciences.org/policy/news-briefs/national-academies-reports-urge-geoengineering-to-counter-climate-change
The nutty McNutt chaired this panel and is now Pres of NAS. Here is their answer to the moral hazard issue: “Geoengineering opponents argue that these experiments present a “moral hazard” and that they may have unintended, adverse, worldwide impacts. The panel disagreed, stating that society has “reached a point where the severity of the potential risks from climate change appears to outweigh the potential risks from the moral hazard” of conducting geoengineering experiments.”
Clearly nothing is beyond them making them seriously dangerous.
Go for it.
Other than planting grass to hold sand dunes, which is already done, none of these make sense and there are serious consequences with all of them.
It will be difficult funding such operations during the coming global monetary collapse.
NOAA dares to call such a “fact sheets” . . . talk about hubris!
“Intentional Biomass Sinking” looks suspiciously like dumping raw sewage out at sea. 😉
Calling it “biomass” makes it more palatable than calling it “raw sewage”.
An excuse for deliberate pollution. !
Dang, the plus-sign only works once.
And what a waste, when they should be carting it to farmlands as fertilizer.
I’m old enough to remember anyone saying they are geoengineering was called crazy and a conspiracy theorist. Now they just say they are doing it and here’s why it is good. Truly insane evil people.
Story tip- Mercedes EQE EV explodes in apartment building parking structure in Korea; 23 people hospitalized for exposure to toxic fumes, 100 cars damaged
I wonder how fish would react to “Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement”.
And i would really to see the equations. How the hell do you enhance the ocean’s alkalinity? If your aim is to raise the level from say 8.0 to 8.1ph do you add or subtract something?
Ocean pH is pretty much buffered to stay around its current value, with variations during seasons, ocean cycles, locations etc
You could temporarily lower or raise the local pH by human intervention, but it would go back to where it wants to be quite quickly.
Indeed. I am just imagining someone sitting in a room somewhere thinking: well, if we just put x amount of …in the oceans we get x amount of extra alkalinity. Just the mere idea of that makes me snigger. It is as the article said: playing God.
It should not be surprising. There is no more hubris in this than there is in the claim that mankind’s activities can alter the climate.
Story tip
https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/ev-fire-prompts-parking-garage-bans-safety-fears-in-korea
“play god with our planet’s climate system”
??? Humans dug up the carbon and burned it. Why is it playing god to try to return it to the ground?
What an idiotic comment from Nick !!
The burning of fossil fuel returns the carbon back into the carbon cycle where it belongs.
CO2 does not belong in the ground.
It belongs in the atmosphere where it provides for ALL LIFE ON EARTH.
I would down vote this because I think any comments from Nick are idiotic
Definitely the Kool Aid king
Almost all the CO2 in the air comes from respiration from plants and animals and CO2 from the oceans as they warm due to increased solar output over the last 100 years.
Respired CO2 comes from the products of recent photosynthesis. It isn’t new carbon. It was taken from the air and returned.
CO2 in the last glaciation was down 100 ppm, when the temperature was down about 6C. So far, we’ve warmed about 1.5C. That doesn’t produce a 140 ppm rise in CO2 from the ocean.
Here is a graph matching CO2 in the air with what we have dug up and burned:
CO2 in the air tracks our burning, with about half going into the sea.
Would you rather we get colder??
“CO2 in the air tracks our burning, with about half going into the sea.”
And water is wet.
graph from Moyhu.. which is a garbage AGW-collaborator site. !
Rate of CO2 increase closely follows the ocean atmospheric temperature.
Where is the human signal in the rate of CO2 increase??
What about all the new growth that more than accounts for the CO2 we ‘dug up and burned’?
https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/
What? . . . you think humans are synthesizing carbon (element C) to any significant degree from raw protons, neutrons and electrons, or alternatively by nuclear fission or fusion?
Essentially 100% of all the carbon that exists or will exist on planet Earth was formed in past stellar novas or supernovas (more than 5 billion years ago) that created the interstellar atoms and molecules, including carbon, from which the Solar System condensed.
Nick,
Nature removed CO2 from the atmosphere and put it into the ground for our use later on.
We are just restoring the balance, it seems.
You will notice that the Earth managed to cool, even when nearly all of the Earth’s carbon was in the atmosphere, rather than converted to hydrocarbons and buried.
Do you believe in the GHE myth, perhaps?
“We are just restoring the balance”
Playing “god”? Or playing “Nature”?
Neither,
Just enhancing the human life-span and feeding the plants.
CO2 has no measurable effect on climate.
Nick,
Just accepting reality. You obviously decline to do so. Feel free to believe in the myth jokingly referred to as the “Greenhouse Effect”.
Apparently nothing to do with greenhouses, and of no effect whatsoever.
Nick doesn’t answer questions, he just deflects.
Nick, since you asked:
The true God is not stupid. CO2 is life sustaining—and increased levels of it in the atmosphere are nurturing—for plant life, at least up to levels of 3,000 to 7,000 ppm based on paleoclimatology. At 420 ppm, we are currently closer to plant CO2 starvation levels than we are to optimum CO2 levels. The above-described NOAA plan is some stupid humans attempting to play as a loose-cannon god.
Not surprising that you had to ask.
Chickens and eggs.
A NASA fact sheet largely devoid of facts.
Sort of like their satalt sea level rise measuring about 3 mm when their own satalt spec for Jason 3 said the intrinsic accuracy was about 3.8cm.
“A NASA fact sheet largely devoid of facts.”
ie.. a normal NASA piece of propaganda pap… par for the course, of course
Just hire the unemployed to paint the ground white. More albedo and less unemployment. Win win.
‘The whitest paint is here – and it’s the coolest. Literally.’
https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q2/the-whitest-paint-is-here-and-its-the-coolest.-literally..html
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — In an effort to curb global warming, Purdue University engineers have created the whitest paint yet. Coating buildings with this paint may one day cool them off enough to reduce the need for air conditioning, the researchers say.
In October, the team created an ultra-white paint that pushed limits on how white paint can be. Now they’ve outdone that. The newer paint not only is whiter but also can keep surfaces cooler than the formulation that the researchers had previously demonstrated.
“If you were to use this paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet, we estimate that you could get a cooling power of 10 kilowatts. That’s more powerful than the central air conditioners used by most houses,” said Xiulin Ruan, a Purdue professor of mechanical engineering…
Indiana goes negative Cº in winter… you want to absorb the sun’s energy, not reflect it.
… and the average maximum in summer is less than 30ºC, I might just be thinking of turning the air-con on.
These people are loony !
Aren’t we told that we have to cover our roofs with black solar panels?
Those solar panels don’t heat up the Earth. They just catch electricity floating about the sky. Ask any pink-haired environmental studies major (and probably Nick Stokes, who I don’t believe is the same Nick Stokes who used to comment here).
Unless that ultra-white paint comes with a magic self-cleaning mode, its amazing property of wide-spectrum light reflection will likely last all of a week or so in an outside environment. Rain and wind (and perhaps electrostatic attraction) will quickly deposit grime and dirt on such painted surfaces, rendering them less-than-ultra-white.
There is a saying that fits here: scientists need to get out of the lab occasionally.
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 is 427 ppm in dry air. This is only 0.839 grams of CO2 per cubic meter of air. The reason for the low concentration of CO2 in air is due to the its absorption by the oceans where a large portion is fixed by aquatic plants ranging from phytoplankton to sea grasses and sea weeds. All the carbon in the plants and animals in the oceans and in fresh water on land comes from CO2 in the air.
On land plants fix large amounts of CO2 via photosynthesis.
How can NOAA not know all of this? If NOAA removes CO2, then there is less for the production of the food, fiber, and wood.
Remember” according to Burl Henry, the climate emergency is humans doing well. So, disabling whatever allows humans doing well is the way to fix the emergency.
The ‘tell’: the big climate players’ overriding worry is there is no crisis in the offing. They have suspected this since the “Dreaded Pause” they suffered thru for almost 2 decades. Frantic fiddling of temperatures and shifting of goalposts gave no relief to the flaccid temperature curve, and this was followed by the horribly failed 25 year T° anomaly forecast of the IPCC in 2015, using the average of 30-some climate models’ outputs that proved to be 300% too hot compared to empirical measurement.
The only thing left to rescue the climate consensus racket is to geoengineer things in order to claim they saved the planet ‘in the nick of time’. A bonus, of course, is they get to keep the CO2 Climate Knob theory that, left to it’s own devices would have died a natural death and all this sleight of hand mularkey would evaporate.
L
The oceans, which hold around 60 times as much CO2 as the air, are at equilibrium with the air.
Any CO2 removed from the air will just be replaced by the oceans. Duh.
Interesting concept from NOAA. Change the temperature of a mixture of gases by changing the concentration of one of them.
Must change the phlogistonic potential of the luminiferous aether – or something!
What a load of rubbish! Adding CO2 to anything changes the temperature not one bit. Removing CO2 likewise.
If NOAA has money enough to fool around with stuff like this then that proves they have too much money, time for drastic budget cut.
While we are on the subject, this is a very interesting read.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/08/greenhouse_gases_are_a_scientific_myth.html