A new industry, soak up CO2 from the atmosphere

[kgun]

If you have a high enough techmological level, will it be possibel to make money on soaking up CO2 from the atmosphere and make money on it? In other words, will there be companies that soak up CO2 from the atmosphere?

[weegillis]

There already are--they're called foresters. Okay, that is snide. The real technological breakthrough would be if they could do it without using too much energy (which is just putting it all back into the atmosphere). The real problem is where to store it; i.e., put it back into the earth's own carbon cycle. Planting trees is still the best way to recover CO2 and return it to the earth.

[SteveGerencser]

It's an old industry. Chicago Climate Exchange did it back in 2003. Of course they didn't actually do much good.

And what the guy above me said.

[C0ldf1re]

... will it be possibel to make money on soaking up CO2 from the atmosphere and make money on it? In other words, will there be companies that soak up CO2 from the atmosphere?

There is money in it -- lots of money -- oodles of lovely money.

There is a fast-growing market (in the UK -- I can't speak for elsewhere) in "Carbon Credits". Basically, there is a law whereby companies are set a quota to gradually reduce the amount that they pollute the atmosphere. If they don't meet their quota, they can be heavily fined.

If a company reduces it's pollution more than their quota, then they can sell their over-quota (their Carbon Credits) to another company who haven't managed to reduce their pollution.

Naturally, some companies have a problem. Changing their manufacturing process to reduce pollution can be expensive. So is paying fines. So is buying Carbon Credits. They are seeking a fourth option. Buying CO2 removal technology, if that were possible, would allow them to offset the CO2 removal against the CO2 that their manufacturing creates.

Buying forests is an option! But it is rather expensive. Trees are not the cheapest way of removing CO2. Expect polluting companies to acquire new subsidiaries in areas where real estate is cheap, and to create gigantic lakes where algae (pond slime) organically remove CO2.

[SteveGerencser]

Here, our favorite green weenies have it figured out. They bought a massive forest in the Ukraine where no one could see it. Then clear cut it and sold the timber. Then sold carbon credits by replanting the forest. You know, the one that was there till they cut it down? Zero net benefit for the environment but they made an awful lot of money doing it.

[kgun]

There is a fast-growing market (in the UK -- I can't speak for elsewhere) in "Carbon Credits". Basically, there is a law whereby companies are set a quota to gradually reduce the amount that they pollute the atmosphere. If they don't meet their quota, they can be heavily fined.

If a company reduces it's pollution more than their quota, then they can sell their over-quota (their Carbon Credits) to another company who haven't managed to reduce their pollution.

Naturally, some companies have a problem. Changing their manufacturing process to reduce pollution can be expensive. So is paying fines. So is buying Carbon Credits. They are seeking a fourth option. Buying CO2 removal technology, if that were possible, would allow them to offset the CO2 removal against the CO2 that their manufacturing creates.

Buying forests is an option! But it is rather expensive. Trees are not the cheapest way of removing CO2. Expect polluting companies to acquire new subsidiaries in areas where real estate is cheap, and to create gigantic lakes where algae (pond slime) organically remove CO2.

It is the same here.

I have to admint that I only listended to the news with one ear, but as I understood CO2 was caught for use in some form of production. I am not an chemistry professional, but CO2 is C and O and C are as far as I am informed used in bikes, fishing rods, etc. etc. It is a very strong and light material if mixed with other materials in the corect proportions.

But what will the net effect on the environment of such a process to separate C and O be? I don't think the news said anything about pollution. It was about catching CO2 and use it in a industrial process if I heared correctly.

As I told, I am not a chemistry professional so I can have misundrstood the story told on our Tv.

[williamc]

Just for arguements sake, trees use c02 to grow and become logs which are then turned into paper, construction material, etc. which is in essence an industrial process, is it not?

[SteveGerencser]

CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) is one carbon and 2 oxygen atoms. Plants need it to live and thrive and animal exhale it when they breathe. Plants suck in CO2 and exhale O which we need to breathe. Pretty cool circle if you ask me. But part of me wonders if reducing CO2 on a global scale doesn't do more harm to plant life than any theoretical benefit that may come from a lower temperature.

A friend of mine at Los Alamos had presented a theory many decades ago about atmospheric warming, CO2 levels, atmospheric pressures and the dinosaurs that wasn't terribly popular because everyone likes the asteroid theory.

[weegillis]

It's sad the see that deforestation far outstrips replanting, and it is extincting many species of important old growth. While planting trees is a natural solution, and a sensible one, we can never get back to the symbiosis the earth had before man and industrialization. And it's doubtful any efforts by us will equal the effectiveness of nature and the carbon cycle itself. We don't have 20,000 years.

Don't remember where I read it, but the theory of CO2 being related to the extinction of the dinosaurs is strongly supported by the estimated time frame when volcanic activity was high, very high, with massive, subcontinent size volcanoes blasting millions of tonnes per hour of carbon and sulphur into the atmosphere, blocking the sunlight for years, possibly generations. This killed off the vegetation and everything that depended upon it starved to death. This doesn't mean the asteroid theory is wrong, but it suggests that there may have been very little life on earth by that time.

Today's CO2 problem being linked to global warming takes on a different dimension: that of destroying the earth's glaciers and icecaps, which are needed to regulate everything from ocean currents to weather. Every year the storms get more violent, heat waves get hotter and winters get milder. So mild in fact, that some isolated parts of Canada are inaccessible in winter, the time when trucks normally would be able to get supplies in on ice roads. The folks in those communities are feeling first hand the effect of global warming.

In the north we are watching polar bears become an endangered species and with year round shipping in the Arctic ocean, more pollution of the sensitive ecosystem in what is a very shallow sea.

No matter what we invent to eradicate the CO2 problem, we ultimately wipe out any gains as more and more pollution is created in developing countries, and the developed countries are doing very little to reduce their own. We've pretty much choked the earth's natural filtration and absorption mechanism. We cannot reinvent the part of nature we destroyed. That's the saddest part.

[SteveGerencser]

According to crab show ice is further south than anyone can ever remember *shrug*

I would love to be able to get upset, but species have been going extinct long before we started killing them off. Except maybe the mermaids I saw on Discovery channel the other night.