Can we fix our carbon dioxide problem with gas cylinders?
Posted on June 3rd, 2010 by admin
As a welder, I know that there is available technology to take carbon dioxide out of the air and put it into gas cylinders. It would be the same as the stored fossil fuels carbon under ground but in cylinders, but then the problem of separating the oxygen from the carbon so we don’t suffocate ourselves. So is there a way to separate the carbon from oxygen in carbon dioxide?
"Is there a way to separate the carbon from oxygen in carbon dioxide?"
Coal is mostly carbon. When you burn it, the process consumes a lot of oxgyen, it liberates a lot of energy, and it turns the coal and the oxygen into mostly carbon dioxide. You are asking if it is possible to reverse the process.
Any chemical reaction can be reversed under the right conditions. I don’t know what those conditions would be exactly to reverse the burning of coal, but the process would consume a whole lot of carbon dioxide and a whole lot of energy, and it would give you back coal (well, pure carbon actually, maybe as coke or as graphite) and oxygen. How much energy would it take? Well it would take at LEAST as much energy as you got from burning the coal in the first place. Probably more. Probably a LOT more because (a) no process is 100% efficient, and (b) there’s this little problem called "entropy."
If your goal at the end of the day is to have a big pile of coal and some oxygen to breathe, then you are way ahead of the game if you just don’t burn the coal in the first place.
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D’Oh! Almost forgot, Probably the most cost effective way to separate carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen.
Plant trees.
When the trees mature, cut ‘em down, bury the logs in some slightly acidic swampy place, and then sit back and wait about 300 million years. If you do it right, they’ll turn to coal. If you don’t want to wait the whole 300 million years, you can bake the logs in an oxygen-free kiln until all of the cellulose has been converted to charcoal and steam.
If your goal is to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, then they key is to sequester the logs/charcoal. If you just leave the logs exposed to the weather, or if you bury them in the wrong sort of place, then they will be decomposed by fungi, and all of the carbon will eventually be released back into the atmosphere.
June 3rd, 2010 at 5:52 am
"Is there a way to separate the carbon from oxygen in carbon dioxide?"
Coal is mostly carbon. When you burn it, the process consumes a lot of oxgyen, it liberates a lot of energy, and it turns the coal and the oxygen into mostly carbon dioxide. You are asking if it is possible to reverse the process.
Any chemical reaction can be reversed under the right conditions. I don’t know what those conditions would be exactly to reverse the burning of coal, but the process would consume a whole lot of carbon dioxide and a whole lot of energy, and it would give you back coal (well, pure carbon actually, maybe as coke or as graphite) and oxygen. How much energy would it take? Well it would take at LEAST as much energy as you got from burning the coal in the first place. Probably more. Probably a LOT more because (a) no process is 100% efficient, and (b) there’s this little problem called "entropy."
If your goal at the end of the day is to have a big pile of coal and some oxygen to breathe, then you are way ahead of the game if you just don’t burn the coal in the first place.
_____________________________
D’Oh! Almost forgot, Probably the most cost effective way to separate carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen.
Plant trees.
When the trees mature, cut ‘em down, bury the logs in some slightly acidic swampy place, and then sit back and wait about 300 million years. If you do it right, they’ll turn to coal. If you don’t want to wait the whole 300 million years, you can bake the logs in an oxygen-free kiln until all of the cellulose has been converted to charcoal and steam.
If your goal is to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, then they key is to sequester the logs/charcoal. If you just leave the logs exposed to the weather, or if you bury them in the wrong sort of place, then they will be decomposed by fungi, and all of the carbon will eventually be released back into the atmosphere.
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