1 / 30

Geoengineering

Geoengineering. Can we fix things while doing as we do now? 1. Dispose of CO 2 (CCS or to the ocean depths) 2. Change the earth’s albedo. Sources:. R. Socolow , Scientific American, July 2005 Special section, Science 25 Sept. 2009. CCS=Carbon Capture and Sequestration.

adila
Download Presentation

Geoengineering

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Geoengineering Can we fix things while doing as we do now? 1. Dispose of CO2 (CCS or to the ocean depths) 2. Change the earth’s albedo.

  2. Sources: R. Socolow, Scientific American, July 2005 Special section, Science 25 Sept. 2009

  3. CCS=Carbon Capture and Sequestration Capture CO2 into some chemical from the exhaust stream of power plants Release this CO2 into a pure stream Compress or liquify it Pump it deep into permeable or porous deposits, under impermeable cap rock Or, into deep brines

  4. FutureGen Demonstration ‘clean coal’ plant, high efficiency, CCS, making hydrogen. Using IGCC Mattoon IL, 2003, 275MWe, cost $1.8B 75% federal, 25% private CCS 1 million tons of CO2/year for four years Cancelled 2008, perhaps back to life

  5. numbers • FutureGen to capture one million tons/year • US burns 109 tons of coal per year • 109 tons of coal x ½ carbon x 44/12 = 1.8 billion tons of CO2/year • FutureGen 106/1.8x109 = 0.05%

  6. IGCC • Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle • Coal to gas (C+H2OCO + H2) • Burn the gas in turbinespower • Hot turbine exhaust steampower • Efficiency ~ 60%! • Use separated oxygen, not air, exhaust stream nearly all CO2

  7. Then what? Lake Nyos, Cameroon, 1986 Naturally sequestered volcanic CO2 burst out, killing 1700 people, all animals within 25 km radius

  8. Drawbacks to CCS Only about 15% CO2 The technology, cost to capture. How to deal with small sources. Storage dumps—forever! Liability The scale of the problem

  9. (8) The world burns about 8 billion tons • of coal each year, about half of which • on average is carbon, making 14.7 billion • tons of CO2, as in your recent homework, • equal to 13.3 billion metric tonnes. The • density of CO2 in its densest form as a • liquid is 1100 kg/m3. If we were to bury • the CO2 just from our coal burning, how • many cubic meters of such liquid would • we have to bury? Compare this volume • to global petroleum production of 4.2 billion • metric tonnes per year, at an average • density of 900 kg/m3. What are you going • to tell a policy maker considering CCS • (Carbon Capture and Sequestration)? • I will tell you also that such liquid requires • a pressure at least 5.1 times that of the • normal atmosphere, and at that pressure,

  10. Iron fertilization of the oceans Iron in the water is the limit to open ocean life. Add iron, plankton bloom, die, sink. Visible from orbit.

  11. Phytoplankton from space

  12. Increase atmospheric albedo, reflect sunlight Natural experiment, Mt. Pinatubo SO2sulfuric acid, nucleates water into clouds

  13. EYJAFJALLAJOKULL Source of all that heat energy? Internal radioactivity, uranium, thorium 40K Akin to meltdown of TMI core. Cooling or melting?

  14. Space mirrors Change the solar constant

  15. Cloud yachts • Spray mist into clouds

  16. Drawbacks-albedo Must keep the albedo high Local influences-rain

  17. Read for April 23 New York Times Magazine April 11 2010 Building a Green Economy Paul Krugman

More Related