Solution, store bad CO2 underground

Hi Cabe,

A lot of energy companies have been doing this CO2 sequesturing for a number of years.  Will it work? Well that is the $1.6B question.

If the rock domes are indeed air tight, then it is possible that the gas will stay contained.  That said, the earth is in constant motion with gravitational, plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, etc.  So it seems to me that it is only a matter of time before the structural integrity of the rock will be compromised.

Normally, CO2 would seek the lowest level and stay there, but in this case, it is under a lot of pressure.  So the gas itself will try to permeate the rock and would almost certainly dissolve into any ground water that it encountered.  Either way the process is doomed to cause some future problem.

What could go wrong, well lets look at some possiblities.

1.  The gas breaks out of the dome and works it way towards the surface until it can equalize its pressure.  As I recall, it is the CO2 densities that trigger volcanos to blow, so that would be bad.  If it suddenly broke out under the ocean, we could see a huge CO2 bubble form in the ocean.  So not only would the CO2 go back into the atmosphere, but we would also have a potentially huge Tsunami.  I think we all know what happens then.

2.  The gas stays contained, but causes pressures to change in the rock until it hits a fault line.  This event would most likely cause an earthquake, magnitude unknown.  As with any seismic event, triggering an earthquake in one place can cause a really bad earthquake somewhere else.  Most likely not a good thing.

3.  The gas stays contained and we still get global warming.  I think I have made my views on this result quite clear.  If I had the $1.6B to bet, I would put it on this horse.  I think this is the most likely result to pushing CO2 into the ground.  IT JUST WON'T MATTER!

4.  The gas stays put and we reverse global warming and go back into another ice age.  Well this one is my worst fear with all of the people trying to stop Global warming.  The Geologic record is very clear.  If the planet does not transition to hot earth, then it reverts to cold earth.  Cold earth will only support about 5% of the current population.  I do not like the odds of surviving this event.

Bottom line, I think the whole fear of CO2 build up in the atmosphere is highly over done.  The planet has been through hundreds of warm earth and cold earth cycles over the last 2 Billion years.  Somehow I don't see anything that humans can do to stop it.  It happened before we  became the dominant species and it will probably happen long after we are gone.

So if I was Australia, I would put the money to better use, like building a canal into the desert and pumping salt water into the dry areas.  The evaporating water would help ease their drought cycle and let them mine the minerals in the water for a profit, plus they could set up evaporation traps and collect hundreds of tons of fresh water daily.  The project would put many people to work and benefit the country much more positively then the CO2 project.

Either way, it is going to be millenia before we will know the answer.

Just my opinion.

DAB

Dab,

It really is speculation on their part to try this experiment. As we discussed in another post, Don't both designing green anymore?, it has been proven that we are at extreme levels of CO2 in the air compared to the past 600,000 years. It may take a millenia to get the answer.

Sometimes projects like this sound like exploitation through projects. That is a lot of money for such a fringe concept, don't you think?

Cabe

Hi Cabe,

As I said in my post, I think it is a $1.6 Billion dollar boon doggle.  But as you say, none of us will know for sure in our lifetimes, so if the Aussies want to waste their money, it is theirs to waste as they see fit.

DAB

Unfortunately, you are not only storing carbon, you are storing oxygen. We need oxygen.

If only there was some easy way to seperate out the oxygen from the carbon and put the oxygen back in the atmosphere. Even better if the process was solar powered. Hang on! There is: Plants!

In fact, we could even use these plants as a source of food.

Double Whammy!

The Australians are not alone, the Norwegians are considering it as well.

I've seen programs where scientist are creating artificial trees to filter out and capture the CO2 in the air so it can be stored underground. That is all well in good for desert climates like much of Australia. But why go though all that trouble in areas that you can plant a tree or some other vegetation? Why even store it at all. Why not produce a filtration system that uses say a huge reservoir of plankton to take that captured CO2 and convert it into oxygen? We are at a point in time where we are able to engineer a simple organism like algae or plankton to be more efficient at photosynthesising CO2. Then when said organisms are used up from the filtering process we can use them as fertilizer or fuel keeping the natural cycle of things going.

Nature has a way of taking care of itself even with all the unnatural stuff we do with it. So why not work with nature for the solution to the problems we create? Capturing and storing is a short term solution. Worst of all there is no financial incentive to really make it effective and worth doing. If we go with something like what I said above there is an opportunity to create a new industry.

Whilst I fundamentally agree with your solution, it is beset with problems. Like the Norwegians are generating electricity using oil, which they've got quite a lot of, but have difficulty growing anything as its either frozen or cold, radiant light being other element you need for photosynthesis. The Australins would need water, which is generally scarce in your average desert.

So whilst I agree nature knows best, we are generating CO2 in all the wrong places, and cutting down huge bits of equatorial forest doesn't help. So I guess we need to generate less of the stuff, hence all these government policies.

The best way to use the CO2 anywhere is to pipe it into greenhouses.  You can oversaturate the inside air with the CO2, which will both retain more heat and spur a higher level of photosynthesis.

As for water, Australia is surrounded by it.  They just need to pump it into the desert, set up solar stills and they would have more than enough fresh water for people and plants.  Espicially if they use closed cycle greenhouses.  They can control both the CO2 levels and humidity levels so they would not be losing water to the dry air.

Plus as a side benefit, the left over brine would yield a lot of useful chemicals, including gold, potasium, sodium, chlorine, calcium and a few trace elements.  They have the water, they have the sunlight, and they have the CO2.  They would get a much better return on their 1.6 Billion and build a sustainable ecostructure in the deep deserts.

Just a thought,

DAB

Interestingly the Dutch allready pipe CO2 in to their greenhouses from refineries.It increases yield, but doesn't help with heat.

And although theoretically your pipe water / distill / and create greenhouses idea sort of works, where do they get the CO2 from? or do they pipe that as well? Hazarding a guess, 1.6billion wouldn't even get close to the cost of the scheme.