CATEGORY - CARBON CAPTURE

A new one that looks to be topical. As always, share and share alike.

Articles

The Register - Brown gov will make 'big commitment' to carbon capture - Big as in small - Nowt like backing a winner!

Greenbang - Carbon capture as much use a chocolate teapot: Greenpeace - Bless

Guardian - Can technology save the climate?

Indy - UK's climate change plans incoherent, says scientist - Oi, Gordon, I think a tabloid has another plastic bag opp for you to devote your energies to.

Greenbang - Think tank gives roadmap for carbon capture in the UK - So the technology is sound...phew. It's just how it gets specified, used, subsidised, traded and all round abused by the cabal of dodgy pols and venal corporates after a quick target-tick and/or short-term £reebie that are the problem.

So I can see all that changing right away. Not.

Gizmag - Carbon Capture: a bridging technology too far?

Guardian - Wicks: All is lost on global warming without clean coal - Feeling secure, are we?

Times - How carbon capture and storage (CCS) could make coal the fuel of the future - Ah, 'could' it?

Greenbang - Is carbon storage really all good? -

FT - EU split on carbon capture intensifies

Guardian - Live Q&A: George Monbiot on clean coal - While I might query the 'leading green commentator' bit, it's a debate, and may be worth following.

FT - The carbon-capture challenge

FT - NEW - Carbon capture and storage in very, very expensive shock





Information

Leek investigations

Biology came third in my sciences, but this looks interesting.

Leeks to the rescue

SIR – Earlier in the year, Professor Steven Chu, America’s Energy Secretary, suggested that the roofs of houses should be painted white to combat global warming (report, May 28).
A more effective way would be to introduce the houseleek (Sempervivum tectorum) to suburban roofs. These plants, of the Crassulaceae family, capture carbon dioxide at night and use it during the day – a method of photosynthesis known as crassulacean acid metabolism.

Now, how one configures roofs to sustain the load, maintain ('acid' being a word that sets up some red flags) and manage the crop is a whole new ball of enviROI, but if the claim is true it seems at first blush a better plan than some.

PROF's POSER - Killer Cure?

Carbon capture, but where’s the polluter?

A little science is a dangerous thing. Which is why I lack the certitude of many in the climate arena, and usually content myself with simply asking often daft or at least possibly naive questions. If they are really daft then I get politely put back on track. If they are daft like a fox then it's fun seeing the experts get busy.

I was at school doing Physics, Chemistry and Biology when Isambard K Brunel was in short stovepipes. I did 2/3 of a vet degree but dropped out when it was clear I would not be meeting the lady who played James Herriot's missus in the TV series, and then went on to a Civ. Eng degree I was mainly granted on the strict understanding I didn't try an build anything. So detail is not my strong suit. However I still often have a fair grasp of the bigger pictures.

Some notions may yet go astray. I have merely wondered what might happen if we suck the energy out of all the wind that blows ashore before it gets to where it used to. And while I appreciate the vastness of the earth, I do still concern myself as to the possible consequences of sucking a bunch of heat from down there to up and out on top. I guess all pale to the as yet unconfirmed consequences of sucking bazillions of litres of oil up as well over the last several decades. I have seen the 'Crack in the Earth', you know. Mind you, many of my doubts on nuclear are based on Space 1999.

Anyhoo, this latest wheeze has promoted my next 'but what about...'.

I'm going to plump for the scientific term osmosis. I know it's usually associated with fluids and movements of short distances in liquids, but basically I thinking that basically Nature likes balance, just as it abhors a vacuum. Hence you have a bunch of stuff in one place and less in another, so it will migrate.

Now, ignoring the vastness of our Earth, and even in the form of its wafer thin crust coating and micro-bubble of atmosphere, assuming these calumpter-calumpter machines do what they say on the tin, is there not a slight danger that if they don't suck at sucking, pretty soon there will be less Co2 overall globally to be sure, but won't here also be some very odd pockets where there is an extremely low concentration, namely in a gradient to the hemisphere centered on these things.

So, and just asking here, bearing in mind that some C02 is still part of the old natural balance, is there not a danger that there might be large areas where the plant life is gasping a bit and ends up prevented from its millenia-long task of Co2 scrubbing... and O2 emitting?

The carbon capturing car?

Here's yet another twist on hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles as reported by Channel4.

"The Georgia Tech car can run on conventional petrol or diesel, but has an on-board processor to separate out the hydrogen in the fuel. The hydrogen is used to run the car, as in a fuel cell vehicle, giving zero-emissions operation (the only waste product is water) and the carbon is stored in a liquid solution."

The idea is that the remaining hydrocarbon liquid contains all the carbon, which is then reprocessed to create yet more fuel. Sounds like an interesting concept. Let's see how it develops.

Wood and trees

This from the Indy Letters page about the role of trees in the carbon cycle bears a thought:

How forests store greenhouse gas

Steve Connor's article "Forests losing the ability to absorb man-made carbon" (1 November) illustrates one of the most common misconceptions surrounding absorption of atmospheric carbon by trees: the misapprehension that forests are net absorbers of CO2.

A mature forest is incredibly useful to us as a store of carbon since any carbon that is fixed within the mass of a living tree is carbon that is not contributing to global warming. However, an existing forest can never help us in our plight unless it is spreading to cover more land. A mature forest (like a mature individual tree) is essentially "carbon neutral": it is absorbing only as much as it is releasing.

Unfortunately, there is not one significant area of mature forest on our planet that is increasing in size. We only get a net benefit when we plant new trees and thereby create new forest. We are in desperate need of more trees and the really sad thing is that this article will lead to fewer new trees being planted.

So... my banging on about not knocking down forests is valid, but not enough. Equally, I retain some significant doubts on many (not all) 'offset schemes' which, as I glibly put it, 'whack a fir in t' firmament - hey, an missed acronym: 'WAFIF'.

In fact, this kind of connects to my notion that using FSC-certified products might actually help over recycling by encouraging replanting. Or does it, as the net area does not expand... oh, my spinning head!

Indy - How timber can store carbon

There's what is. There's what might be. And then there's what probably should be.

I have 'do what?!' sensors. And when I read something like this they get put on alert: ‘Fertilising’ oceans with iron may combat climate change

Now I like science along with the next fellow. I also really like things that can help. But when I see something that 'may' work being written up so factually, especially when it's about a short-term mitigation 'solution' of dubious merit that impacts the rest of the planet, I do wonder why it's up there.

It's only later you get to find out that there are some down sides. Mind you, lobbing a ton of car in to get back 100,000 tons of C02 seems like a deal... if it works. Maybe we could set up a ramp at Land's End. Furthest out gets a prize. I know, a trip to the Antarctic!

Meanwhile this, which I saw in passing, seemed more of a worry: Rapeseed biofuel ‘produces more greenhouse gas than oil or petrol’ - then you read the comments. What to believe?

Tinkers those journos, eh?