Comments

This discussion got my attention to the extent that I had to register so I could add my 2 cents! We need to review how the whole cycle works. We're complaining (very rightfully) about how much C02 we're dumping into the atmosphere, and wishing we could extract it back out and put it someplace where it won't contribute to global warming. And many of us are wishing we could even dissassociate the carbon from the O2. But understanding the cycle will help us understand why we can't do that. At least not with current technology, or maybe ever. We burn stuff to get the energy we've become addicted to. What we burn is hydrocarbons, compounds of mostly hydrogen & carbon. Things like wood, coal, oil (and its refined products) and natural gas. We either grab the resulting heat to warm our homes, or rely on the huge expansion caused by the heat to propel our steam turbine generators, cars, trucks, airplanes, rockets, or whatever. What we're really doing is combining the HC's with oxygen in the air in a reaction like this: HC + O2 = CO2 + H2O + energy. (I haven't bothered to balance the equations here, just want to get the idea across) The reaction is exothermic, meaning it releases heat. You have to kick-start it with a little heat input, but once started it continues as long as fuel and air are available. To dissassociate the CO2 we need the process that plants use: CO2 + H2O + energy = HC + O2. That's how they grow, by adding HC's. Yep, it's the exact reverse of the first formula, except it's endothermic instead of exothermic. So it's easy! Just put the energy back in and turn the CO2 back into carbon or HC's! But then we'd end up with cold homes and stationary cars & rockets and, because of less than perfect effieciency of each process, it wouldn't work anyway. Too bad. Ok, so use solar to power the billions of trees we need to plant. BUT: I've read that if you covered the Earth with solar cells, you wouldn't get enough energy to satisfy our demands. Now trees are probably more efficent than solar cells, but how much so? Just how many trees would we need? Where would we put them all? Is there really another process, undiscovered as yet, that could do the same job? I don't have answers to those questions, and frankly, I'm skeptical. So what's the answer? Stop burning so much HC's. Then where do we get our energy? Wish I knew. Solar & wind will never be sufficient, imo. I like nuclear, but that's very unpopular after TMI and Chernobyl. Can we make nukes safe? I think we can IMPROVE their safety. In fact TMI did prove to be safe, with only a miniscule amount of radiation released (I know some people who refuse to believe that). Chernobyl was a disaster caused by total lack of concern for safety - which I doubt will happen again. So, the search goes on...