What is Digg?132 Comments
- KokomoNYC, on 09/30/2008, -0/+50I thought this was an Onion article that would feature a picture of a tree or some other plant.
- inactive, on 09/30/2008, -5/+32Scientists invented trees?
- life38, on 09/30/2008, -5/+26Humans can fix anything given enough time, money or both.
- benska, on 09/30/2008, -2/+21Sounds good as long as it doesn't go from suck to blow.
- inactive, on 04/03/2009, -1/+16Sounds fantastic. Of course, I can't even imagine the size of the hepa filter this thing will take...
- SpongeBad, on 09/30/2008, -0/+14FTA: "In a recent test, Keith and his team demonstrated that they could capture CO2 directly from the air, using less than 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and capture the equivalent of about 20 tons per year of CO2 on a single square meter of scrubbing material. “This means that if you used electricity from a coal-fired power plant, for every unit of electricity you used to operate the capture machine, you’d be capturing 10 times as much CO2 as the power plant emitted making that much electricity,” Keith says. "
So, make it a regulatory requirement that scrubbers like this be hooked to all coal power plants and then coal power ends up cleaning the air. Drive 20% of the power generated to cleaning, and the other 80% to the grid. - doiveo, on 09/30/2008, -0/+14"20 tons per year of CO2 on a single square meter of scrubbing material."
A tree doesn't even come close. http://svc237.bne113v.server-web.com/calculators/t ...
Trees are part of the solution but they won't act quickly enough to actually clean our pollution. - OneLess, on 09/30/2008, -3/+14There is absolutely no question that carbon dioxide causes global warming. If there is in fact any sort of debate, it's about whether or not humans are releasing enough into the atmosphere to be causing the recent warming trend.
- AsgardsAvenger, on 09/30/2008, -1/+12And don't forget to tickle the balls while you're at it!
- xedd, on 09/30/2008, -1/+10Unfortunately, not if there's a lot of money to be made by some by keeping it broken.
- Pstmann, on 09/30/2008, -2/+10Sounds like a multi-million dollar tree!
Never underestimate the human desire to complicate and market even the air we breath. - eSentrik, on 09/30/2008, -4/+12Its just a giant toilet paper roll with a tree inside.
- Pstmann, on 09/30/2008, -0/+7Yeah multi-million dollar trees without the oxygen production.
- TonyCubed, on 09/30/2008, -0/+6People can burn as much fossil as they want, but one day, they'll wake up and find out that their is no more oil/petrol left, which in the long run is a good thing.
The problem with the human race is that we like to leave everything until the last minute. - Memnochxx, on 09/30/2008, -1/+7Funny thing about machines, we can turn them off.
- doiveo, on 09/30/2008, -1/+6For those stuck on the "tree" theme. Trees won't perform near to the same degree.
Compare 20 tons a meter per year to ...
http://svc237.bne113v.server-web.com/calculators/t ...
(one 300 cm round hardwood tree holds 20 tons.)
If it comes that humanity must remove CO2 to survive, this could be a viable machine. It also looks effective at offsetting the pollution current being spewed. Trees still should be planted rigorously but this might buy us some time. hopeful it doesn't "bail out" the polluters. - avianeddy, on 02/17/2009, -7/+12That's right Kokomo... instead of wasting millions in making machines... here's a bright idea:
PLANT MORE TREES!!! - inactive, on 09/30/2008, -1/+6Hemp For Victory.
- AndrewMoyer, on 09/30/2008, -0/+5"Our services come in fast, cheap, and correct. You can pick any two."
/ something like that. - Smuikas, on 09/30/2008, -0/+5Yeah, fast growing plants that fertilize the soil as they grow and can be used for multiple purposes once harvested are a better bet than trees.
(point:
Crop rotation was made 'obsolete' by chemical fertilizers. Crop rotation involved rotating crops that deplete and restore different parts of the soil chemistry as they grow, so that whatever is growing in a field will have fertile soil. For example; soy beans one season, corn the next, and so on.
What plant can be harvested every 13-14 weeks, replenishes the soil, and is suitable for rope, clothing, paper, CO2 sequestering, and biomass ethanol creation? Hint: it's something not able to be legally grown in the united states.
) - doiveo, on 09/30/2008, -1/+6Removed 10 times the CO2 as created in the coal electrical production. decent return on energy.
- Smuikas, on 09/30/2008, -1/+6This just in:
Humans create machine to accomplish what nature did over 500 million years ago... - inactive, on 09/30/2008, -1/+5Next you'll be telling us that fresh water sometimes magically falls from the sky in little drops.
- marcusbrutus, on 09/30/2008, -0/+4If we hook this up to a solar/wind power source we could clean the atmosphere for mere maintenance expense!
- 955701, on 09/30/2008, -5/+9And I shall call our invention... the "Tree".
- FortyCaliber, on 09/30/2008, -0/+4This was on Discovery Channel's "Project Earth." The system uses an aqueous solution of Sodium Hydroxide circulated through contact medium, usually a column of anodized aluminum fins) and the CO2 is pumped through column to the top where the air that is released contains far less CO2. The waste product is sodium carbonate:
2(NaOH) + CO2 = Na2CO3 + H2O
Sodium Carbonate, or soda ash, is combined and heated with sand to produce glass.
The Sodium Carbonate and Water then still reacts with CO2 to produce Sodium BiCarbonate (Baking Soda):
Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2 = 2NaHCO3
The latter reaction requires very high concentrations of CO2, so it probably doesn't take place much, if at all.
IN the episode, that team used a Honda Gasoline Generator, which is very inefficient. More efficient sources of power would create an even larger negative footprint... the problem, however, is the amount of CO2 used to create the sodium Hydroxide. Sodium Hydroxide requires the electrolysis of salt and water to create NaOH and H2 and Cl2 ions. Electrolysis requires energy... and the material to power ratio is unknown to me.
The space program has used lithium hydroxide canisters since the 50's for this same purpose, they are dry and use lithium instead of sodium, which makes them far less efficient. - Fordi, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3 95.32% Carbon Dioxide
2.7% Nitrogen
1.6% Argon
0.13% Oxygen
0.07% Carbon Monoxide
0.03% Water vapor
In order to get a non-toxic atmosphere, you'd need to up the nitrogen concentration significantly, and electrolyze a lot of the CO2 to O2. Also, you'd probably have to boost the water vapor to near 100% humidity in order to maintain a temperate climate, and you'd almost certainly have to cultivate the planet before opening the planet to free colonization (as opposed to domed colonization). - Chachuka, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3No you don't.
- bobbinika, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3they had this on the discovery channel on "Project Earth"...... was pretty cool
- LeviTheSmith, on 09/30/2008, -5/+8Don't we need Co2 to stay alive?
Co2 > Tree > Oxygen > Human - Powder, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3Yeah, I watched that to. Only I think these are the same people. I wonder if the one they showed on there was an early prototype.
Edit: It was in fact them. I found a picture of him at his home page.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/%7Ekeith/
here is a link to the show on discovery channel
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/lab-book ...
prototype page
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/lab-book ... - inactive, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3Meanwhile, we'll continue to militarily occupy the countries with most of the oil, leading them to want to blow us up, which causes us to want to blow them up, and so on.
Screw oil. - twistaspliff, on 09/30/2008, -2/+5"There is absolutely no question that carbon dioxide causes global warming."
Wrong. Learn to do your own research instead of letting Gore spoon feed you your reality. Carbon follows warming by about 800 years, not the other way around. While the owners of the world get all the sheeple believing carbon is the problem they can continue dumping pure death into our air and water without anyone caring. Wake up. - seedsofwar, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3I think you're on to something there. The guy they sent out to "fix" my cable looked like a sloth in a set of overalls.
- Garofoli, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3Genetic engineering of trees sounds kickass.
- Pstmann, on 09/30/2008, -4/+7Fixing something that wasn't "broke" originally, isn't really fixing it. Usually it just causes other problems later on.
- eSentrik, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Upton Sinclair
This quote was used by Al Gore (I think) in an Inconvenient Truth to describe the administration's ignorance towards global warming. - inactive, on 09/30/2008, -1/+4But what if the machine operator falls asleep? We may end up with an atmosphere too rich in oxygen, where the smallest spark will engulf the globe in flames.
- doiveo, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3we're doing that now. best to try an reverse the trend no?
- Modiga, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3Ditto, and with a little tweaking, the old natural method can be made to work pretty well. You plant a large amount of fast growing plants, when they mature, cut them down and process them to make paper, furniture or whatever. You can then sell it or even bury it, the carbon contained within the wood/paper will stay locked in there as long as it's not allowed to rot or be burnt.
The main difference is probably size though, I doubt the device requires acres of land to be effective. - zerton, on 09/30/2008, -1/+4This works a lot better than trees.
- Logicexe, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3Oh my God, you're like so right! Wow, you're soooo smart.
Did you think of that one all by yourself or were you inspired by the dozen other comments that say the exact same thing? - roddack, on 09/30/2008, -0/+3Trees overall are pretty craptastic in regards to CO2 removal
- doiveo, on 09/30/2008, -1/+4FTA - anywhere.
- inactive, on 09/30/2008, -0/+2I wasn't any scared.
- expert01, on 09/30/2008, -0/+2I thought this thing was invented decades ago. Kind of like wide-scale wireless power and those MemJet printers that do 60p/m
- doiveo, on 09/30/2008, -0/+2no. Does your rhetorical questions or grim demeaner?
- rezonq3, on 09/30/2008, -1/+3Dugg for Spaceballs reference.
Whoever dugg you down needs to get a better movie collection. - pleasureismine, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2Dugg for craptastic.
- eblues200, on 09/30/2008, -0/+2dugg b/c I live in Calgary
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