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There’s a global race to reduce the amount of harmful gases in our atmosphere to slow down the pace of climate change, and one way to do that is through carbon capture and sequestration — sucking carbon out of the air and burying it. At this point, however, we’re capturing only a fraction of the carbon needed to make any kind of dent in climate change.
Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, in partnership with ExxonMobil, have made a new discovery that may go a long way in changing that. They have found a way to supercharge the formation of carbon dioxide-based crystal structures that could someday store billions of tons of carbon under the ocean floor for centuries, if not forever.
“I consider carbon capture as insurance for the planet,” said Vaibhav Bahadur (VB), an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and the lead author of a new paper on the research in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. “It’s not enough anymore to be carbon neutral, we need to be carbon negative to undo damage that has been done to the environment over the past several decades.”
Journal Reference:
Aritra Kar, Palash Vadiraj Acharya, Awan Bhati, et al. Magnesium-Promoted Rapid Nucleation of Carbon Dioxide Hydrates, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.1c03041)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04 2021, @11:07AM (3 children)
"Texas at Austin, in partnership with ExxonMobil"
If anything that these entities have to say about a climate "fix", given their histories, doesn't invoke some tongue in cheek suspicion, then not sure we have a chance while these warts continue to grow in our economies.
Are we really to believe they are going to sequester carbon when they are still pulling it out of the ground?
[ palm slap to forehead ]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Monday October 04 2021, @11:16AM (1 child)
Certainly. If you pay them to, they will happily pull carbon out of the ground. If you pay them again, they will happily put it back.
In fact, I bet they are already working on a way to pull carbon out of the 'crystal structures' in TFA , just in case someone will pay them for that too.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04 2021, @11:33AM
Shit you are so right, did not think of that.
They will most likely do it with tax payer's money through subsidies too!
Oh man, it gets worse as this Merry-Go-Round keeps spinning.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday October 04 2021, @04:58PM
You have to remember that the real message of studies like this is: "Senators, especially those named 'Joe Manchin', you don't need to do anything to stop us from drilling and burning the hundreds of billions in located oil and gas we own, because we have a legitimate-looking study you can cite about a theoretical piece of magic that will fix all the problems related to doing so. We appreciate your time, and hope you take thi$ token of our ongoing relation$hip."
So yeah, it's not surprising that Exxon is funding research like this. Because even if it doesn't work, it serves its purpose.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Monday October 04 2021, @12:06PM
Such a weasel word.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday October 04 2021, @03:18PM (1 child)
The point of global warming fight in general and carbon issue in particular is political. So, even if somebody comes up with a way to easily solve it, they still gonna go after oil/coal powers.
Having said that, it's good that we have more options. Remember that it's cheap and easy to cool the planet by many means such as cloud creation.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04 2021, @05:57PM
Pocketing taxpayers' money is the task those things solve GREAT.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04 2021, @03:25PM
Yes they were http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/08/methane-hydrates-tipping-point-threatens-to-get-crossed.html [blogspot.com]
Better make sure there is now way all that carefully and expensively sequestered CO2 can escape.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04 2021, @04:32PM (3 children)
scares the crap out of me!
first, just use the "everybody" space called atmosphere as a dumping ground and make money.
then instead of burning less hydrocarbon with "public air" the "contaminated air" now gets buried with that other thing we need to stay alive "oxygen".
according to periodic tables, oxygen has 8 protons whilst carbon only has 6? but we're burying 16 "oxygen protons" for every " 6 carbon protons".
the crazies will argue that there is more then enough oxygen to go around. that might be true overall but there can totally be "oxygen deprived" localities.
no idea how changing the composition of atmosphere in one locality changes other stuff.
maybe it's a bit like removing only quartz particles from a concrete pillar holding a bridge? still alot of other shit in that pillar, yes? lol, but scary as shit.
this carbon burying shit is plain crazy. the energy required is not free and using "renewable" energy to do it is even more crazy.
burn less and use the renewable energy to build more renewables (obviously manufacturing renewable energy harvesting and storing devices requires energy itself and they don't last forever and will have to be recycled and replaced)!
burying lots of oxygen with a bit of carbon without curtailing hydrocarbon consumption is basically turning "climate change" into a farce!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04 2021, @04:53PM (2 children)
off topic but methinks we cannot solve the "climate crisis" as long as the people "in power" cannot stop making war.
wars require energy, fast and dense.
the energy of a atom was liberated but didn't bring "world peace".
as long as war is a option, hydrocarbons are ammunition that power them.
i am hard pressed to think of a "instrument of war" that doesn't require hydrocarbons? maybe bio-weapons?
military power is also "guaranteed access to energy". seems one way to "keep submission" is controlling types of energy sources and access to them.
seems glaring that not every house roof has solar panels and electricity storage and fusion is forever 20 years away -or- only allowed
in a form and shape that has to be a gargantuan, endless and hydrocarbon intensive project. :)
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday October 04 2021, @08:40PM (1 child)
Maybe a nuclear submarine?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04 2021, @10:03PM
ah, yes, those.
pushing "da button" on one of those is like shoting yourself in the head with a frictionless bullet that keeps orbiting the earth at a height of a few meters ... sooner or later everybody steps into its path and dies, including the people who normally tie your sub to the home-dock :)
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday October 04 2021, @04:49PM (3 children)
I have access to numerous cheap and effective CO2 sequestration systems that easily lock up the carbon for decades at a minimum. And they're solar powered, along with some inputs of water and compounds commonly found in the natural environment. These complex systems are known as "trees".
(I know this is not up to the scale of the problem because the sponsor of this study keeps on happily digging dead plankton out of the ground to burn while lots of people with access to this solution are literally setting it on fire, but this solution at least exists rather than being theoretical.)
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04 2021, @04:56PM
agreed, but ... mushrooms. you gotta keep the mushrooms, that get their energy from braking the solidified carbon into gas (co2), from getting to it?
someone said that all coal dug up today, was created before mushrooms evolved :(
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday October 05 2021, @02:27AM (1 child)
FYI, an acre of fast growing high cellulose crops like Hemp or Bamboo, will produce 4 times more Carbon sequestering biomass per year than an acre of trees in the same time.
So quit hugging that tree and start planting that grass!!
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @01:07PM
How about don't burn any fossil fuels? In our sustainable community we have even done away with the need for heat in the winter by taking an example from mother nature. If used nationwide, synchronized collective shivering could reduce the global temperature by up to 2 degrees.