98 comments on CO2 Capture and Storage: The Energy Costs
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Most biological organisms will eventually decay and release their CO2 to atmosphere.
Unless their corpses are sent deep underground or undersea where no aerobic bacteria can digest them, and that's difficult to impossible.
I think it's much easer to avoid generating CO2 in the first place---nuclear is better, and we should keep the carbon geologically sequestered as permanently unmined coal.
Well the current plans revolve around using the organisms as a source of fuel, but obviously you'd still have the problem of capturing the left over carbon from that process.
Obviously it's in principle easier to avoid mining the coal in the first place, but even a crash program to replace the world's current fossil-fuel powered plants with nuclear ones would still generate a hellavu lot of CO2.
I hate nukes, but I think you are right.
I hope that Fusion, (IEC Polywell) can play a role. P-B11 fusion is so much cleaner than nukes, and can burn the fission waste.
Dr. Bussards IEC Fusion program... the cure for peak oil ?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/27/213841/746
Even if it was perfected tomorrow, it wouldn't make a dint in the immediate problem of peak oil, a liquid fuels crisis.
However this thread is about CCS, a 'cure' for global warming. Fusion (of any sort) would definitely be a big help there...providing we could actually get it working within the next few decades. I'm not holding my breath.
Carbon capture is needed but problematic, and I agree with the prior comment that there is an advantage to not creating the C02 in the first place. So anything that can partially replace liquid fuels... over time.. say the next 20-30 years, is really good. Unless I miss the mark, generating electricty by solar, wind maybe fusion can play a part in replacing most liquid fuels by ... say.. 2050.
Average US driver drives 30 miles a day.. right ? So there is a portion of liquid fueled vehicles that can easily be replaced by electric. Given time... -sigh-
The P-B11 fusion thing is theoretically very attractive, but I believe there is a problem in keeping the plasma dense enough to make it go. A conceptual problem - like particle physicists doing the math and needing to put two pounds of beans into a one pound bag to make it fly ...
Decay is a biological process. If the dead algae biomass is sterile, it will not decay. How keep it sterile? Store it amongst the canisters of spent nuclear fuel in a nuclear spent fuel storage site. That's a pretty deadly environment, I think. ;-)
Micro-organisms are hardly little things. And yes, some even live in nuclear reactor waste tanks, oddly enough.
Plus check out this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein