New Material Can Selectively Capture CO2

Socguy brings us a story from CBC News about a recently developed crystal that can soak up carbon dioxide gas "like a sponge." Chemists from UCLA believe that the crystals will become a cheap, stable method to absorb emissions at power plants. We discussed a prototype for another CO2 extraction device last year. Quoting: "'The technical challenge of selectively removing carbon dioxide has been overcome,' said UCLA chemistry professor Omar Yaghi in a statement. The porous structures can be heated to high temperatures without decomposing and can be boiled in water or solvents for a week and remain stable, making them suitable for use in hot, energy-producing environments like power plants. The highly porous crystals also had what the researchers called 'extraordinary capacity for storing CO2': one litre of the crystals could store about 83 litres of CO2."

I already have a CO2 storage device

[bhodikhan]

I use another CO2 storage technology in my house already. It's called WOOD. Doesn't have any patents tied to it and the more we plant, cut up and build with, the more CO2 we will remove from the atmosphere. Sure there might be a more high tech solution with a higher yield but planting trees and using them also produces oxygen as well. Nice idea but it's been done before. Way before.

Powerplant Modernization

[esconsult1]

So I can tell you that these guys with powerplants will take forever to modernize to use this technology. If you have a steady stream of income, and a reason to not go down, then you're gonna hate to do anything to cut into your profits and to also interrupt that stream of income for even a second. Inertia and income are the drivers for these plants to never, ever make any changes to benefit the environment.

Solution without a Problem

[MSTCrow5429]

CO2 is a lagging indicator of global warming, not a catalyst for it. It takes 300 - 1,200 years for CO2 concentrations to rise after an increase in global temperature. This is a scientifically intriguing discovery, but it's more likely of interest to human spaceflight, not saving the world.

Re:full?

[timeOday]

You put them where all the oil and coal came from.

Re:I already have a CO2 storage device

[itsdapead]

I use another CO2 storage technology in my house already. It's called WOOD.

Hopefully sourced from any trees which were cut down to make space for your house...?

But seriously, the other neat trick is that even if you cut down the wood and burn it for power, you're only putting back the CO2 which the tree took out - not releasing carbon that has been safely out of the equation for millions of years.

Sadly, though, it looks like the idea of biofuels is going to get discredited by the lamebrained alcohol-from-corn debacle.

Like Zeolite

[StCredZero]

They are like Zeolites. For mobile applications, they're going to need a lot better than 83X. More like 1000X. This might be useful for stationary applications, however.

Re:Powerplant Modernization

[Anonymous Coward]

worth pointing out that a carbon tax would fix that problem.

Re:Solution without a Problem

[Waffle Iron]

CO2 is a lagging indicator of global warming, not a catalyst for it.

* [Citation Needed]

Re:only 1 thing

[ScrewMaster]

Not really. They could be as chemically poisonous as plutonium, but still be useful. I mean, we're not talking about sequestering carbon dioxide with this stuff and then making Coke bottles out of it. It'll have to be put somewhere, of course, and that will pose problems. So which is worse? Global warming, or providing long-term storage of chemical residue?

One's opinion on that depends upon where one sits on the issue of global warming, I suppose.

Re:I already have a CO2 storage device

[Firethorn]

There's no reason we couldn't have transportation systems that run off local ocean driven power generation for all our costal cities

Quite a few reasons actually, for one tidal power generation systems haven't been perfected yet.

and make local personal transportation free of charge and free of pollution.

Free of pollution? Maybe so, but certainly NOT free of charge - you'd end up paying for it somehow, whether it's a per ride charge or a subscription service or out of your taxes depends, but just like 'free' healthcare in nations with nationalized healthcare services, you still end up paying for it.

Resources have pretty much always been in 'short supply', it's just that as we gain methods to extract more resources, so doesn't our desires to do stuff to exploit them.

betties just aren't attracted

[victorvodka]

I agree with you, but usually people stop adding up the energy costs of some new technology at some arbitrarily-premature place in the process. For example, once these crystals are soaked with CO2, where do you put them? How toxic are they? (CO2 is acidic and can be toxic when concentrated). How bulky are they? If I was Dictator, I would want to see the complete ledger of energy costs for this before I signed off on it. My guess is that conservation is cheaper, but conservation is always just TOO HARD because the betties just aren't attracted to guys driving cars with small engines.

Re:I already have a CO2 storage device

[dubl-u]

But then we wouldn't need this fascist control, where companies and governments are in bed together keeping the power strucuture alive and the resources always in short supply.

Totally. Why, I hear that those bastards have suppressed some sort of globe-spanning communication network that would have allowed the populace access to vast amounts of information about every subject under the sun. Billions of pages, all at your fingertips, from a simple device in your home. Obviously, it would have made it much harder for them to control us. So those fascist parasites killed it.

Oh, wait. No, actually, the government funded the initial development of the Internet, and corporations funded a lot of the subsequent development and most of the rollout. Hmmm. I wonder if your world-view could do with a little expansion.

Re:Powerplant Modernization

[cunamara]

That and needing hundreds of liters of these crystals per hour to absorb the CO2 produced by a coal- or natural gas- fired powerplant. USG (United States Gypsum) was working on stuff like this to absorb acids out of smokestack emissions 20+ years ago and determined that, while it could be done, it just wasn't cost-reasonable.

good old brute force science

[Gearoid_Murphy]

according to the article, they discovered these crystals after processing thousands of compounds, somewhat like the way Edison figured out a stable element for light bulbs, pretty cool stuff, would be even cooler if they could process the captured co2 and seperate it into o2 and carbon.

Re:I already have a CO2 storage device

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if your world-view could do with a little expansion.

So now that everyone's realized their mistake and ISPs are trying to crack down on the users and the government is calling it a terrorist tool, where's your worldview now?

Re:Solution without a Problem

[Waffle Iron]

And yes the amount of Co2 being emitted unnaturally by humans is less then .0001% of the total green house gases. And yes, you heard that correctly, less then 1/1000 or 1 percent of the total greenhouse gases in our atmosphere at any given time.

* [Citation Seriously Needed]

Re:Solution without a Problem

[Ambitwistor]

And yes the amount of Co2 being emitted unnaturally by humans is less then .0001% of the total green house gases. And yes, you heard that correctly, less then 1/1000 or 1 percent of the total greenhouse gases in our atmosphere at any given time.

The most abundant greenhouse gas is water vapor, with an average concentration of about 0.25% by volume, or 2500 ppmv. The amount of CO2 emitted by humans over the last 150 years is about 100 ppmv (280 to 380 ppmv, a ~35% increase). So the ratio is only a factor or 25. (It would be more accurate to compare greenhouse potentials and not straight concentrations.)

However, as I've explained to you in the past, the relative concentration of greenhouse gases is not really the important issue. What matters is the change in greenhouse effect above the natural baseline. The natural greenhouse effect is something like 30 degrees C. Anthropogenic CO2 has, so far, added less than 1 C to that. The natural baseline is much larger than the anthropogenic contribution, because there are more natural greenhouse gases than anthropogenic. But the anthropogenic GHGs are still important: 1 C matters, climatically speaking. And projected CO2 emissions are likely to add several more degrees on top of that, which is the point.