Luckily, the world is trying to focus on reduction with the goal to reduce the use of fossil fuels to zero, eventually. Reduction is the correct way to go, but it only stops carbon from entering the system and bumping up the Greenhouse effect and Climate Change. And to be sure, we passed the tipping point for carbon a few years ago. That is the amount of carbon has passed the point where the effects of the carbon are adding more Greenhouse Gases beyond what we are putting into the air— a runaway effect.
Basically, the CO2 is affecting the climate enough to melt the permafrost, which frees trapped Methane gas, a more powerful Greenhouse gas. The increased warmth allows marshes to dry out, more Methane. Increased warmth means more water vapour in the air, water vapour is a strong greenhouse gas. All these gases are making the world warmer and the climate change and increasing the natural greenhouse gasses being released and so on.
Reducing is important, but reducing greenhouse gases to zero tomorrow won't change anything right now. Plus our economy, the world's economy, is based on oil. So how do we get our economy off oil? There are a lot of renewable options to produce energy, wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and other things like sidewalks that generate electricity from people walking on them. This is cool and is great, but there is a lot of energy that has to go into producing these devices. And there are detractors people who say that we need to have the power available when we need it and how do you switch our infrastructure that has been built for one kind of power system and switch it over to a new one.
People have been talking about improving the battery storage capabilities of society, but it is unlikely that we will devote buildings to store energy for the neighbourhood. That is what we need. One big building for every ten thousand people, built to cover the times that the sun is not out and the wind is not blowing and the energy can't be brought in. That is one option. It is a good option, but it is one of those infrastructure changes. The other question is how long do these batteries last and what would happen if something bad happens, do they explode, do they contain lethal chemicals?
Another way to store energy is to make other systems to store potential energy. One method would be to store excess energy by pumping water up behind dams and using hydro electric generation to retrieve the energy when it was needed. This works and does not require any additional infrastructure if the infrastructure exists. How do you store energy if there are no hydro dams?
One method, which is theoretical, is to make gasoline. This would be ideal for a number of reasons: 1) We would not have to change the existing infrastructure much, our economy could be still based on oil. 2) We would be recycling the CO2 that we have put into the world's system. 3) We have over a century of technology and knowhow on storing it safely. 4) It is easily transportable.
Octane gasoline is eight carbon atoms and eighteen hydrogen atoms. 8CO2 molecules and 9 water molecules would be required to produce one Octane molecule and 12 and a half Oxygen molecules and when the energy is used the result is what you put into it. It is Carbon Neutral.
We need to Reuse Carbon as well, which is different than recycle. There are industrial processes that use Carbon Dioxide to create things we use, but we don't use the processes to their proper degree because they are more expensive than other available products. Off hand I can think one industrial process that has multiple uses that would improve our society significantly, but are expensive so we don't use them. People who read my stuff before know it, Super Critical CO2.
Super Critical is a state of matter, where a fluid acts as a gas and a liquid. It requires two things heat and pressure. CO2 is typically a gas in our atmosphere and it freezes into a solid at -78.5°C. There is a liquid stage but pressure is required. When it is a liquid and more pressure is applied and a little heat, it enters the Super Critical stage. Just 100 times the pressure around us and about 30°C worth of heat. The temperature is easy to attain and really, the pressure is quite low too, any container that can simulate the pressure at 1000m under water can reach this pressure threshold.
What can you do with super critical CO2? It is already used in industrial dry cleaning. You can make Areogel with it, which is an extremely light weight, extremely insulating material; a thin sliver between two panes of glass has the insulation effectiveness of a wall filled with standard insulation, and it would let the light through too, granted not as easy to see through, but given the number of people who shut their blinds all day, who cares?
You can use it in Power generation. Typical power generators use superheated steam to drive turbines to create electricity, but super critical CO2 would use less energy to become useable and would have more mass than water as a gas or liquid, so more power for less. More expensive to be sure, the equipment would be different, but would allow power generation in locations with poorer Geothermal sources.
Carbon recycling is not enough though, we need to change the 3 Rs to 4Rs in the case of Carbon to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Remove. If we are to slow climate change or if possible, reverse it, we have to be able to remove CO2 and store it so it can't interact with the environment anymore. If we gain the technology to create Octane, than we will have one technology to store the Carbon indefinitely. We could bury it as the oil that we take out now; it has been stable down there for millions of years, no need to worry that that would not continue again. But we need to be able to store it around here. It occurs to me that one of the things that when burnt, releases a lot of CO2 is Limestone and the curing process of concrete releases a lot of CO2. If we could create a synthetic limestone, we would be able to remove Carbon from the air and the the environment and use it to build our civilization too. A real win win product.
What people don't know can and will kill them. Besides warming the planet, the continued wide spread release of Carbon into the environment is killing us. CO2 is very soluble in water. Carbon that we push into the air very quickly enters the water and it is only when the CO2 levels balance in the water and in the atmosphere balance do the concentrations go up. When they say 400 parts per million in the air, they also mean 400 ppm in the water too. Water and CO2 react and make an acid, called Carbonic Acid, so the CO2 in the water is very slow to rise and so the levels in the air are also very slow to rise. However, the levels of acid in the water are continuing to rise and this has an effect too. The acidification of the oceans will affect the smallest lifeforms first. Like the small phytoplankton. You know those little things that are responsible for fifty percent (50%) of all the oxygen production on the planet.
I try not to think about that, I need to be able to sleep at night. I need to earn money to live. People think I am crazy to ride my bike everywhere, to ride in the rain, to ride in the winter, in -30° weather. They are the crazy ones, those beautiful idiots.
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