Mikael

Global warming 'cure' found by scientists

A "technical fix" that could stop global warming by taking billions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and save the coral reefs from being destroyed by acidification has been developed by scientists.

The process could be used on an industrial scale to remove excess carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels from the atmosphere in "a matter of decades rather than millennia," according to researchers from Harvard and Penn State universities.

The process relies on speeding up a process that happens naturally, whereby carbon dioxide dissolved in sea water breaks down volcanic rock and soils to make alkaline carbonic salts.The water flows into the ocean and increases its alkalinity. Sea water containing more alkali can absorb more carbon, so more carbon from the atmosphere is "locked up" and becomes harmless bottom sediments, according to the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Researchers estimate that it would take a cube of volcanic rock 10 kilometres across to return the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere to pre-industrial levels.

Unlike other proposed "technical fixes" that "sequester" carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, this one makes the sea more alkaline and therefore counteracts the other side effect of more carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere - the acidification of the sea.

The alkalinity of the sea has remained the same for 60 million years but the burning of fossil fuels has caused it to decrease.
It is feared that the drop in alkalinity will slow down the oceans' take up of carbon dioxide - which accounts for half the Earth's natural capacity for "scrubbing" carbon from the atmosphere.

It will also threaten animals whose bodies are made from calcium, which is alkaline, such as corals, shellfish and phytoplankton.

Scientists say the technique is adaptable to operation in remote areas, run on natural gas or geothermal energy.

"The technology involves selectively removing acid from the ocean in a way that might enable us to turn back the clock on global warming," said Kurt House, a graduate student at Harvard University.

However, Prof Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia, who was one of the authors of a Royal Society paper on the acidification of the sea, said the "fundamental problem" with dissolving rock into the sea was "the immense scale on which you need to do it to make any impact."

He added: "We are producing 8 billion tons of CO2 a year and that takes the combined efforts of all coal mining, oil and gas production. If you want to make an impact on that you need a process of the same order of magnitude to make a difference.

"The local effect would be alkali pollution of the sea - but we are polluting the sea globally by putting carbon dioxide into the ocean. This method is expensive and therefore it's not the first line of attack for the global warming problem.

"The first is energy conservation, the second the substitution of fossil fuels with solar energy or biofuels, and the third - and above dissolving rock into the sea - comes carbon capture and storage from power plants. We know what technology is needed for that and engineering companies can do it."

Prof. Watson, an expert on the carbon cycle and the oceans, said that dissolving rock was "worth considering" if the world got into a situation in which the oceans were dying because of acidity and we needed to alleviate the problem. "If you did it the right way you might be able to save the coral reefs from the worst effects. I would see it being done in areas where there may be another reason for doing it as well, such as this. "There is no single 'silver bullet' for global warming."

Other "technical fixes" for global warming have concentrated on seeding the oceans with iron filings or nitrogen to stimulate algal growth in the hope that this would then die and take the carbon the plankton contained to the sea bed.


Source: - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Curb Zone

 

coolraoul

The mankind is brilliant. Mad, but brilliant.

John

Check out: - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Planktos, Inc.

Hypersonic

But how would this 'cure' global warming? ...carbon dioxide is not the main greenhouse gas ...water vapour is. This frenzy surrounding CO2 is extremely misguided.

Alfie

Bolidismo is right.
Only 0,000383% of all the gasses in the atmosphere is CO2. And as far as we know, the current CO2 levels are sub-optimal for plant growth.
To be honest, I don't buy this story that CO2 is the reason to climate change. There are still Freons in the atmosphere despite that the use of them was banned a long time ago. They can still have a big affect on the climate.
I say keep researching and digging in to this and that politicians should stop use pre mature discoveries and theories as tools to get their will through. There is still alot more to find out about climate change.

John

True water vapour is the dominant greenhouse gas followed by CO2. Whereas we see a lot of time series plots of CO2 content, we see little if anything in the literature about the influence of water vapour. Personally I believe there is a positive relationship between CO2 increase and climate change. The problem is there are many sources of carbon dioxide both induced and naturally occurring. So, it comes down to assessing the cumulative effects of the various sources - a daunting task. From a political standpoint, it's easy to get brownie points by picking out the easiest of culprits; one being the automobile which we can apply our brilliant technology to by creating hybrid this and diesel that (bullsh*t).

Remember ten years ago when the biggest environmental issue was cutting the equatorial rainforests. Nowadays you hardly hear anything about it anymore, yet it goes on at an alarming rate. If it were up to me, I'd suspend this desicration immediately. These areas are the earth's carbon sink and climate control centre. As a climate control centre, these forests play a key role in the status of the earth's hydrologic cycle. It's reasonable to assume that changes in ocean currents and increases in water vapour do occur given extensive losses of forest to date.

I found "An Inconvenient Truth" interesting, but to not mention (even once) that forest cutting is one of the many cumulative effects responsible for climate change made the whole argument seem ridiculous (political agenda or not).

John

Agreed 100%. There are so many avenues of research required and not just the ones that give the politicians a quick fix.

Alfie

So true.
This may be over the top, by far, but I can't help to think of Hitler. He was quick to blame the Jews for everything and the people joined in and gave him power so he could take care of the "problem".
It's easy, come up with something people will buy is the source to a problem and stick with it. Hitler did it and politcians are doing it again today. Not as severe but there are similarities in their strategies.

Curb Zone