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Researchers have used liquid metals to turn carbon dioxide back into solid coal, in a world-first breakthrough that could transform our approach to carbon capture and storage.
The research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a new technique that can efficiently convert CO2 from a gas into solid particles of carbon.
Published in the journal Nature Communications, the research offers an alternative pathway for safely and permanently removing the greenhouse gas from our atmosphere.
Current technologies for carbon capture and storage focus on compressing CO2 into a liquid form, transporting it to a suitable site and injecting it underground.
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Climate Rewind: Scientists Turn Carbon Dioxide Back Into Coal
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TAPPING? You POLITICIANS! Don't you realize that the END of the "Wash
Cycle" is a TREASURED MOMENT for most people?!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Thursday February 28 2019, @10:24AM (15 children)
That's the problem with every single one of these silver bullets. You start with:
To reverse it you need:
Given enough energy, you can transform almost anything into almost anything else, it's where you get the energy from that's the problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @10:38AM
In the end, you'll have to get it from nuclear reactions in one way (human-built reactor) or another (naturally occurring reactor, aka the Sun).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 28 2019, @11:45AM (9 children)
Well, yeah, if you turn it into coal. I can think of several forms of carbon that are worth a shitload more than coal though. Turn it into diamonds instead then sell them and you'd have to shovel less money into the project. Get all the Chicken Littles who are certain the sky is falling to only buy these new "green diamonds" and you might actually do some measurable good for humanity just by devaluing the ones of a more bloody persuasion.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 28 2019, @02:31PM (4 children)
Just talking about turning gaseous CO2 into diamonds is enough for DeBeers to send the hit squad... been nice knowin' ya Buzzy.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:59PM (3 children)
DeBeers already sells artificial lab-grown diamonds for a fraction of the price of real ones. When you pay thousands for a diamond, it's not the stone that you're paying for, you're just paying for the knowledge that someone actually went and dug that shit out of the ground. Which is pretty fuckin stupid IMO, but apparently there are plenty of people who fall for it....
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 28 2019, @06:17PM (2 children)
What's the fraction? Last time I even thought about buying a diamond was in the 1990s and the only option back then was Cubic Zirconia, which was tempting, but sort of lacked appeal in that I could easily afford a CZ so large and flashy that it was obviously 'fake'.
If I could have gotten a ~1 carat synthetic diamond in a good setting for under $1000, I would have gone for it. As it was, I think we got good 1/2 carat for ~$1600 and the good quality 1 carats were running around $5K. And the damn thing still fell out of its setting one day about 8 years later- luckily found it on the swimming pool deck.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday February 28 2019, @06:57PM (1 child)
Looks like the fraction is 2/15 -- $6k per carat for mined diamonds vs $800 for synthetic:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-diamonds-debeers-synthetic-analysis/lab-grown-diamond-prices-slide-as-de-beers-fights-back-idUSKCN1OK0MQ [reuters.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 28 2019, @08:55PM
Figures they'd find my price point and use it. Put an $800 1 carat synthetic in a $200 setting and I'd call that a decent engagement ring.
The problem with a $1K engagement ring with CZ is that the stone can be arbitrarily large. I suppose you could just spend $300 on the CZ ring and take a $700 weekend vacation instead, that would be the rational thing to do.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:58PM (2 children)
Diamonds are neither of limited supply nor are they difficult to synthesize these days. The price of diamonds these days has nothing to do with their rarity (or lack thereof). I expected better of you Buzzy
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Thursday February 28 2019, @05:41PM
IIUC, while diamonds are not horrendous to synthesize, the process is still quite energy intensive.
OTOH, what the should do is turn the CO2 into sheets of graphene. Now *that's* valuable. And shouldn't be too energy intensive once you work out the bugs.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 01 2019, @12:25PM
You're missing the "green" marketing angle. You could charge dug-up-out-the-ground prices and Chicken Littles would line up to pay it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday March 01 2019, @09:11AM
Also Gas Masks for when Vlad sets us up the Sarin.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by curunir_wolf on Thursday February 28 2019, @05:23PM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 28 2019, @06:25PM
I'd like a process that turns atmospheric CO2 into structural carbon fiber economically...
In the style of RoboCop 2014 "I'd buy that for a dollar."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday March 01 2019, @09:10AM
Arguably it's Carbon-Negative, because not all parts of the plant are suitable for making fuel.
Consider the use of Palm Oil as motor fuel; only the fruit of the tree is pressed. The vast majority of that tree actually _sequesters_ Carbon in quite an efficient, lo-tech and cheap-as-dirt way.
Not long ago I read that "One Tree Captures One Ton Of Carbon In Ten Years". While arguably that's a marketing tagline rather than an actually-measured average, there is no doubt that a ten year old tree weighs quite a lot with a substantial chunk of that weight being Carbon alone.
Got some land? Plant an orchard.
Got a front lawn? Plant a fruit tree or a nut tree and you can feed the homeless.
Hate the poor? Enjoy the fruits and nuts of your _back_ yard instead!
As for me... I've got four dried Avocado pits soaking in some water even as we speak. When I get home tomorrow morning, I'll stick three toothpicks into each one then set then atop jars of water.
Dad used to do that, it was quite cool but I never asked what he actually did with the trees when they got too big for our kitchen window. I'm hoping that he planted them somewhere but I don't actually know. Mom's memory for stuff like that is quite hazy.
It gets cold where I live, so when I make my occasional road trips to California to visit friends and family, I'll take some young Avo trees with me. For the most I'll plant them along the same railroad tracks I myself walked down for most of the two hundred miles from Santa Cruz to Oceano Dunes State Beach near SLO.
This because quite a lot of people walk up and down those tracks. Or rather, well-away from them, but in parallel. This because three trains go like ninety miles an hour in that part of the fertile California countryside.
Good Times.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday March 01 2019, @09:12AM
Consider that a good chunk of the cost of your TSLA is graphite.
A while back I read that the entire _planet's_ supply comes from Just One Mine In China.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]