New Material Can Selectively Capture CO2 285
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."
Like corn cobs? (Score:5, Interesting)
other uses (Score:2, Interesting)
And how does it affect the environment? (Score:5, Interesting)
full? (Score:4, Interesting)
Raises two questions (Score:4, Interesting)
how much ENERGY does it take to make a crystal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Solution without a Problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Like Zeolite (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I already have a CO2 storage device (Score:1, Interesting)
But IMHO a better way to accomplish the same thing is to extract the CO2 from the atmosphere and store it as octane, like I suggest here [slashdot.org] (in a post that was modded down for no reason by the people that are stalking me), and get the energy to do that from nuclear power, like this guy [nytimes.com] has already worked out the details for. That way, the gasoline you would burn, would only return to the atmosphere, what was taken from it.
Of course, the purpose of the global warming alarmism is NOT, and never has been, to find ways to reduce net carbon emissions and prevent catastrophe. The purpose, for most such alarmists, is to shut down activity they don't like. "Global warming" is a pretense. Anything that stops global warming, but doesn't shut down those activities, will be vehemently opposed.
And btw, whenever someone tells me that woodburning is good for the environment, I always have to ask, *whose* environment? Not the environment of the people who have to breathe the surrounding air!
Re:Very Good... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:how much ENERGY does it take to make a crystal? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I already have a CO2 storage device (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Solution without a Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
The second website looks to me like a highly biased collection of cargo cult science put together by people who specialize in fields like economics, not climatology.
Send it to outer space or turn it into oil (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I already have a CO2 storage device (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I already have a CO2 storage device (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose listening only to that great bastion of unbiased scientific study, the 4:1 liberal:conservative press, is one option...
Re:I already have a CO2 storage device (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I already have a CO2 storage device (Score:2, Interesting)
Forgive me for being light on details about WHY these chemicals are good for the environment, but this is not my area. I simply recall this from a talk by Jose Fuentes at the University of Virginia, who is studying Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, which are similar to Sydney's Blue Mountains.
More details can probably be found here:
http://people.virginia.edu/~jf6s/ [virginia.edu]
Re:I already have a CO2 storage device (Score:5, Interesting)
Only if you use coal and oil as the power source for producing and transporting it!
Honestly, this one gets trotted out so often that you'd think there was some sort of thermodynamic paradox behind using a biofuel-powered tractor (or solar-powered or hydrogen-powered - or even a fricking horse provided it was fitted with a fart afterburner to kill the methane) to harvest your biofuel.
The problem is the half-baked rush to promote a uniquely expensive and inefficent biofuel (corn alcohol) without first building the infrastructure or ensuring sustainable supplies.
Re:I already have a CO2 storage device (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I already have a CO2 storage device (Score:2, Interesting)
As a maintenance guy working for a company that extracts salt from sea water via solar evaporation, I can confirm this one hundred per cent. We have a saying: "at the salt works, everything rusts." As a result, we frequently resort to low-tech solutions straight out of the 19th century, such as wooden bearings, and yet can still barely keep up with the disintegration of the plant.
So how many billions of tons will we need...? (Score:3, Interesting)
To me it doesn't sound like much of a solution to anything.
Nuclear power plants, OTOH, there's a technology which could help.
Same with wind power (where practical).
etc.