Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Chondrally on 06/09/2015 17:48:11
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Dear Reader,by 2040-2060 the magnesium carbonate buffer will break around 493 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere causing a pH oscillation and eventual drop in pH that could threaten phytoplankton in the ocean, which is responsible for half the worlds oxygen and is the base of the food chain in the ocean. This article also describes that since approximately 70% of the worlds CO2 comes from coal and natural gas power plants how a natural gas power plant or engine using a Space Station Chemical Reaction(Sabatier Reaction) or a catalyst driven CO2 to SynGas conversion will emit no CO2 and is net oxygen neutral and can save the oceans,lakes and rivers from an acidity death! By 878 ppm CO2, the Calcium carbonate buffer will break, causing the oceans to become very basic. The Oceans would die, and all the plants and trees would die quickly from a caustic water cycle, causing the cessation of all life on Earth. We have until about 2050 to stop or convert the CO2 emissions and save the Planet!
University of Illinois at Chicago:Amin Selehi-Khojin: Breaking news, July 31,2016:Solar capture technique turns CO2 into burnable fuel (SynGas)....
http://www.hngn.com/articles/203021/20160731/solar-device-carbon-dioxide-burnable-fuel.htm (http://www.hngn.com/articles/203021/20160731/solar-device-carbon-dioxide-burnable-fuel.htm)
http://gizmodo.com/solar-capture-technique-turns-co2-into-burnable-fuel-1784522575 (http://gizmodo.com/solar-capture-technique-turns-co2-into-burnable-fuel-1784522575)
The catalyst here is in the Tungsten family or really transition metal dicalcogenides (TMDCs). and is 1000 times more effective than traditional catalysts and much less expensive and abundant.
University of Toronto-Canada: Ted Sargent, How can we turn CO2 back into bufnable fuels (SynGas) with catalysts!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/carbon-dioxide-electrolysis-1.3707570 (http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/carbon-dioxide-electrolysis-1.3707570)
The catalysts being pursued here are nanoneedle gold and platinum, but they are too expensive and too rare for commercial use!
Scientific American: Scientists are pumping CO2 underground and turning it into Stone by mixing it with Basalt.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-storage-projects-turns-co2-into-stone/ (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-storage-projects-turns-co2-into-stone/)
American News Report
Article Published in Nature Has Scientists Saying They’ll “Save Planet from Climate Change with Grain of Sand”
http://americannewsreport.com/article-published-nature-scientists-saying-theyll-save-planet-climate-change-grain-sand-8822591 (http://americannewsreport.com/article-published-nature-scientists-saying-theyll-save-planet-climate-change-grain-sand-8822591)
Thorium based Nuclear Power - is the only approach that is feasible and on the right scale and technologically smarter.with no weaponization, but time scale for implementation is too long
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power)
MIT PRESS: Ocean acidification could have severe impacts on phytoplankton!
http://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-0720 (http://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-0720)
Proceedings of Royal Society B:Warming will affect phytoplankton differently: evidence through a mechanistic approach
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/04/19/rspb.2011.0160 (http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/04/19/rspb.2011.0160)
ScienceDirect: Ocean Acidification and marine organisms!
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0078323415000925 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0078323415000925)
Monsanto or The national institutes of Health might be able to contribute by genetic engineering phytoplankton to be temperature and pH resistant!
Detection of Gene Expression in Genetically Engineered Microorganisms and Natural Phytoplankton Populations in the Marine Environment by mRNA Analysis
http://aem.asm.org/content/57/6/1721.short (http://aem.asm.org/content/57/6/1721.short)
Impact of a genetically engineered bacterium with enhanced alkaline phosphatase activity on marine phytoplankton communities.
http://aem.asm.org/content/62/1/6.short (http://aem.asm.org/content/62/1/6.short)
Natural Gas or SynGas or kW-h or digital bits to become new currency. Ammonia for farms. Electric vehicles on the road and power plants that emit no CO2
SynGas,Natural Gas, or rather methane, along with ammonia and kW-h are likely to become pegged to the US Dollar soon, as the climate initiative gathers steam into the December Paris negotiations in the race to save the oceans and the atmosphere! Methane can be used to make gasoline and plastics (SASOL Ltd), and it can be gotten cleanly with bacteria from coal. Fracking is still a problem, but the glut of cheap natural gas is here to stay. A natural gas or propane power plant supplemented by wind and solar or hydro and nuclear to electrolyze water, can achieve a zero carbon footprint and still generate electricity from gas turbines and steam turbines at high efficiency. It can be oxygen neutral as well. The space station Sabatier reaction of CO2+4H2 -> CH4+2H2O catalytically with nickel or rubidium alumina as catalyst (the catalyst really is the problem and research into better catalysts is under way) is exothermic and can power steam turbines.Alternatively, The SynGas reaction CO2->CO+.5O2 where the CO is separated with a molecular sieve (PolyTetraFluoroEhtylene-PTFE similar to GoreTex with pore sizes that separate CO from O2)and a Tungsten cAtalyst is used with nano needles to break CO2 to CO and 1/2 O2. The water can be recycled to the electrolysis plant and the whole process, from carbon capture and water capture can produce electricity VERY EFFICIENTLY, while Regenerating its Own Fuel. SynGas : 2H2O =2 H2 +O2 and CO2= CO + .5O2 via tungsten family catalyst. SynGas is more energetically favourable and likely to be the fuel of choice that recycles CO2. The only emissions are nitrous oxides in trace amounts, which can be further reduced with catalytic converters just like in automotive vehicles. Clean coal with scrubbing and carbon capture and water capture to electrolysis to methane production to plastic production is possible, with no net CO2 emissions. Due to subsidies to the Oil companies and fracking companies and the cost of the Wars for Oil (Iraq,etc) the cost of producing SynGas with Solar or Nucear electricity is cheaper per Gallon of Gasoline equivalent than refining from Crude. Ammonia will work on farms as they need ammonia and phosphorus as fertilizer. Ammonia has no CO2 emissions but does consume oxygen, unlike the natural gas or SynGas power plant. but on small scales on farms it is more economical with zero CO2 footprint. Electric vehicles (eg. TESLA,SCTY) in this scenario become favoured as the transportation mode of choice because of their efficiency and power to weight ratio. Charging problems will be solved in the near term because of all the research into batteries and supercapacitors. No amount of tree planting will solve the problem as the biosphere is not big enough to absorb the extra CO2, similarly no amount of conservation of fuel in hybrid vehicles can solve the problem either in isolation. All of this helps, but it won't beat the problem strategically. Thorium Nuclear should not be dismissed in the long term but it takes 20 years to get planning permissions for nuclear plants. That time frame is simply too long for what i will tell you in the next paragraph!
They had all better be prepared to drink a djinn(engine) and tonic(CO2 in water).
If you read the articles below, you will see that there is evidence the oceans could die by 2040-2060, at around 493 ppm of CO2 in the water, at possibly a slightly higher ppm in the atmosphere. The pH discontinuity, oscillation and drop in the oceans is predictable from ocean chemistry leading to more acidity, and when it happens, the krill and phytoplankton will be at even more risk than they are today. Since they represent the base of the food chain in the ocean, all life in the ocean will be at risk. Similarly, phytoplankton photosynthesizes and if its population collapses due to the acidity change, half the world's oxygen supply could be at risk and an imminent threat to human populations and all oxygen breathing animals on Earth. Also, if the oceans die, there is not much point to anything else. One potential solution is the SynGas-solar or nuclear hybrid engine that emits no CO2. It could get between 3000 and 8000 km per 55 litre tank fill up of natural gas, with only trace emissions of Nitrous Oxide and a net zero consumption of oxygen, leading to fresher air for everyone, especially in the cities. This engine could cause the oil companies to go bankrupt, which would cause economic chaos and a disruption in the balance of power world wide. So great care must be taken to phase it in carefully. Because the oil companies are so powerful, it is unlikely that this engine could be developed in North America. The UK is a likely location for its development and so is China or maybe with an outside chance, India or Pakistan. If it is not developed, the oceans and life on the entire planet could be at risk. Electric cars are to be promoted as well, but only if their electricity comes from Nuclear Power or preferably Hyrdro, wind and solar. The predominance of coal and methane power plants makes electric cars infeasible due to the amount of CO2 they continue to emit, however they will clean up smog in cities. This engine could be the basic design for a new type of SynGas or methane power plant that emits no CO2, is lower tech than nuclear, and has the capacity to produce electric power for communities with no CO2 footprint. The techniques I developed for predicting the stock market , weather and water cycles could prove very important to the climate change forecasting, and economic forecasting and we cannot underestimate the usefulness of probability distributions with thick tails for forecasting rare events in the long and medium terms.
Phytoplankton photosynthesizes, it absorbs CO2 in the presence of sunlight, and in sunlights absence it emits CO2. There is a net daily absorption, so over time it will be a net absorption. So, because the phytoplankton absorbs CO2 net, the pH might not change in the oceans as much as we think from the chemistry. However, temperature and pollution will affect the ability of the phytoplankton to survive. There were times in the Geological past when CO2 went very high, and temperature went high too, and the phytoplankton thrived and there was then a net sink of carbon as the trees thrived and biomass in the oceans increased and limestone and Carbon sink were apparent. What is different this time is the pollution from the industrial era and human activity like fishing. It could throw all these mechanisms off, and produce very different results than the geological past experienced. So the past is no guide to what will happen now. We need to catalogue all the pollutants and all the human activities that affect the ocean, from the giant plastic dump and micropellets of plastic in the pacific to oil slicks, dead zones and toxic spills that have happened like the Exxon Valdez, and the BP oil rig. As well as all the pollutants reaching the water cycle from the petrochemical and nuclear industries and overfishing. Once the catalogue is made, we have to get our chemists to analyze and simulate how this will affect phytoplankton and ocean chemistry as CO2 increases! The genome of phytoplankton will remember the CO2 and temperature and respond appropriately, but not the pollutants or the overfishing! We need pollution resistant phytoplankton! And need to stop the fishing of krill for krill oil!
It might not be exactly at 493 ppm CO2 in 2040-2060 the air that the pH becomes disrupted, it might be at a higher ppm, like 550 ppm or 600 ppm in the air at sea level as the phytoplankton reduce CO2 in the water when they photosynthesize. The disruption due to the breakdown of the magnesium carbonate buffer occurs when the ppm in the surface of the water is at 493 ppm CO2 after the phytoplankton have removed some CO2 from the water but the fish add CO2. When this occurs, the ppm CO2 in the atmosphere above the water will be higher than 490 ppm CO2. It is difficult to predict exactly at what ppm CO2 in the atmosphere at sea level this will occur at, as the discrepancy is due to a biological entity in the water. Also all fish and krill emit CO2 into the water, so that doesn't help.
I believe the reduction in phytoplankton populations by 40% from 1950 is due primarily to pollution,temperature changes and overfishing of krill and fish in general. Krill poop and fish and whale poop fertilize the phytoplankton, and help buffer the ocean acidity as CO2 increases, because phytoplankton photosynthesizes, it absorbs CO2 during the day and is likely to flourish if there are enough nutrients for it. Perhaps we should fertilize the phytoplankton populations in the ocean to produce more oxygen and reduce the buffer breakdown threat. At least we should stop the fishing of krill and fish in sensitive areas, as they will help sustain the phytoplankton with nutrients, and krill have also diminished 40% from 1970 levels due to overfishing!
Actually when you add CO2 (gaseous) to water by diffusion (Henrys law), 2 electrons are stolen from the environment causing magnetic storms and charge imbalances. The CO3(2-) (aqueous) is actually a base that will steal first one proton then a second to create carbonic acid in the water H2CO3. The theft of the protons, causes other charge imbalances and magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate and magnesium bicarbonate and calcium bicarbonate are formed from excess magnesium ions and calcium ions which steal the CO3(2-) and HCO3(-) forming sea snow which falls to a greater depth and redissolves stealing again protons at a deeper depth. The disappearance of CO3(2-) and HCO3(-) in the shallow water causes the H2CO3 and HCO3(-) to give up protons if the conditions are correct and create more acidity locally and creates more CO3(2-) (carbonate) locally. The phytoplankton absorb CO2(acqueous) and sea snow occurs stealing CO3(2-) from the shallow water preventing further theft of protons and acidity increases. The process is continous and evolving. The whole effect is very complex and many equations need to be solved in parallel to model it properly. Chaos Theory (similar to the Beloutsov-Zhabotinsky reactions) is involved and so is Quantum Mechanics. At first when the magnesium carbonate buffer breaks, an oscillation of acidity will be observed with a net increase of acidity, but when the calcium carbonate buffer breaks around 2100 at 878 ppm CO2, a dangerous decrease in acidity will occur that will threaten life in the oceans possibly terminally, unless real magic exists. Quantum Mechanics proves that there is a finite probability that real magic can occur even on a large scale. The collective unconscious of Carl Jung might be enough to prevent this disaster, especially if chemistry itself is conscious. Supernatural events can and have occurred. If enough positive thought and feeling can be amassed with technical detail then reality can be changed for better or worse. Fear is the real enemy. Check out Avaaz.org. Nuclear Power itself might be harnessed to prevent geomagnetic storms at sea, and to balance charges. Tibetan Buddhist monks have demonstrated that matter can be made to appear or disappear if the conditions with the universal consciousness are correct. Tibetan monks have told me it mightl be the sea snow that disappears when it forms and falls deeper. That might be how mammals produce milk, especially cows. There is still a mystery surrounding the calcium balance in a cow's life. This morning i personally witnessed along with one other person who was also a witness, a piece of cellophane disappear completely when it fell to the ground. Maybe David Copperfield, Penn and Teller and David Wilcox and Chris Angel know something after all. Check out the movie 'Sphere' with Jeff Goldblum. Imaginary or Complex numbers can also be valid. Creatures and children and kids do not initiially even know that Money exists! It might be the innocence of a child and compassion that save the planet from the tyranny of scientific certainty and simultaneously the tyranny of Money and Politics!
At the end of the day, we might just have to hope that Quantum Mechanics itself solves the problem for us with the many universes and Schrodinger's Cat! ;-) We might have to admit that chemistry itself might be conscious on some level along with biology and supports a will to live in an ecosystem! Genetic Engineering might have to be employed or hybrid selection practices and natural selection to find a subspecies of phytoplankton that can survive a pH change in the ocean of 1-2 pH units. If we can find such a strain or several strains, it would then be necessary to seed all the oceans with it and hope to save the life in the ocean and the oxygen that the planet needs! The deadline is 2040-2060 at 493 ppm CO2, and the sooner the better. The second deadline of 2100 is more serious when the calcium carbonate buffer breaks in the ocean and we will have to limit all CO2 production well before then to prevent a complete cataclysm in the environment! A real challenge is lack of education in the third world and 2nd world. India still has 818 million people without toilets and not enough water and food! Some places in Africa are even more primitive! And they don't realize that all our lives hang in the balance!
Can we build an efficient hybrid (nuclear or solar)-natural gas power plant or engine that emits no CO2 and is oxygen net neutral? http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53180.0 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53180.0)
Would the magnesium carbonate buffer in the ocean break as CO2 increases,When? http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53181.0 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53181.0)
Would the Calcium Carbonate Buffer break in the ocean as CO2 Increases,When? http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=57219.0 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=57219.0)
If E=mc^2=hf, Does light itself possess gravitional attraction? http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53505.0 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53505.0)
How do we forecast the stock market and water cycles? http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53592.0 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53592.0)
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/56446-bayesian-markov-stochastic-monte-carlo-valuation-of-price-volume-action-with-kelly-criterion (http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/56446-bayesian-markov-stochastic-monte-carlo-valuation-of-price-volume-action-with-kelly-criterion)
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/56352-bayesian-markov-stochastic-monte-carlo-path-integral-american-option-pricing-with-kelly-criterion (http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/56352-bayesian-markov-stochastic-monte-carlo-path-integral-american-option-pricing-with-kelly-criterion)
What is the StateSpace Method of Information Theory?
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=60301.msg468049#msg468049 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=60301.msg468049#msg468049)
Tiny Ocean Bacteria Have Massive Role In Regulating Earth's Atmosphere - See more at: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/158949/2 (http://www.techtimes.com/articles/158949/2)
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/158949/20160518/tiny-ocean-bacteria-ha (http://www.techtimes.com/articles/158949/20160518/tiny-ocean-bacteria-ha)...
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The oceans with care might not be dying from Carbonic acid....!!!!
Due to classical physics and gravety..and the GAIA theory. it may be that , the weight of the CO2 and HCO are enough to cause them to sink under Brownian motion of their own volition such that they accumulate in the deep trenches of the oceans and and are sequestered there, under all that pressure, they might even turn into O2 and carbon deposits....but now i'm not holding my breath, but it needs some care and feeling and thought to see that this is indeed happening.
Just like bendy wavy light in the Britain of old, the mists allowed the light to diffuse and filtered out the bad light,that was too blue or higher frequency, and shifted towards reds greens and oranges, such that eventually, what reached the mind and body was filtered light that had a smooth gaussian character and was the product of Brownian motion and refraction and reflection off all the zillions of wa-ter droplets suffused in the atmosphere, it also was healed by the water itself, and it healed the minds and bodies and brains of the inhabitants....
Just like it, because CO2 weighs 44 g/mol and HCO weighs 29g/mol and H2O weighs 18g/mol, so the CO2 will descend under henry's law and gravity of 9.81 m/s^2 under brownian motion and filtering until it reaches the trench at the bottom of the ocean... and the ocean breathes... CO2 back out as temperatures and weather fluctuate during the day and during summer, and breathes in during winter and and at night.... so that these heavier molecules will sink to the bottom of the trenches, and coalesce and stay there... immiscible from wa-ter (see attached reference from 1956 by Baker and Anderson), there it will gather, and it may have already gathered... it would by capillary action in a porous media, and changes in temperature and pressure , float back up as the ocean breathers during summer... but we need to conserve energy to save money and time, and we need to maybe think about hydrogen or humidifier of the exhaust in conventional engines, as gasoline and diesel cause smog, and the less CO2 we pump up the better.
if we use Hydrogen in fuel cells or humidifiers, we produce H2O and mists that can save us... and heal us... and less bright light...
and we may need to separate methane at source from the atmosphere and use it for energy... by semi-permeable membranes...
and use just enough CO2 from time to time, to balance the climate... but H2O in the atmosphere is much more superior for climate regulation and more healthy.. due to its superior heat capacity...
If someone can solve the Brownian motion equations, and figure out the rate of separation, drift and sinking, then we would know for sure...
however, due to turbulence, currents and drift, it may take way too long for the CO2 to reach the trenches... has anyone in a bathyscape ever taken a sample of the water in the trench to see the concentration their of CO2 and carbonic acid?
With some initial calculations done, it appears, that because of classical physics and other factors due mostly to gravity and the Coriolis force... that the Co2 and carbonic acid may indeed sink on their own...
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March 05, 2007 #2
Donald Fletcher
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If this happens, it appears to have rate limits
Lambton Kent Middlesex EDA (SW Ontario)
Try this reasoning on for size: If CO2 of its own will sink to the bottom and simply stay there, we should expect that as the amount of CO2 dissolved in the seas increases, the amount of sequestration will rise, so that we get only a negligible increase in carbonate and hydrogen carbonate ion plus dissolved CO2 unless the tonnage of CO2 entering the water exceeds some limit to spontaneous sequestration.
Even after we exceed that limit, we get faster sequestration, but the remaining CO2 levels in the upper layers of the sea will rise more abruptly, and hence the atmosphere will be less able to dump its CO2 into the water.
If in the upper parts of the ocean there were vertical membranes, able to trap CO2 on either side as water happened to move, the CO2 would likely form a liquid heavier than sea water, which would then slide off the membrane and descend to the bottom as the water direction reversed, its molecules stuck together.
Now, because materials other than CO2 would also be prevented from passing through the membrane, we expect that the impurities would reduce the effectiveness. Capturing most of them before they reach the membrane might help.
Deep regions of the ocean are known to have higher CO2 levels than upper regions, but there could be other explanations for that, such as sinking vegetation using up every last bit of oxygen and emitting CO2. Both explanations could be working together.
We should cut deeply the CO2 we are dumping into the oceans(via the atmosphere) even if we may be able to accelerate the rate of deep trench sequestration. Most of the CO2 will not find its way into the deepest trenches, but into relatively shallow ocean bottom. It can be disturbed by many events, and put back into the upper waters. I expect that even the deepest trenches may be disturbed by volcanic or seismic action.
Not to mention that we should be conserving that fossil fuel for a later generation, or even priority uses in our own generation.
March 06, 2007 #3
Richard Belshaw
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issues with Brownian motion....
Brownian motion as applied to the oceans is flawed, and deeply so.
1) It assumes there is a t0 time from whcich all calculations are performed. When is that? does t0 happen over and over again...?
2) It assumes that there will be a heat death as all the molecules slow down over time and irreversibly so... this is not the case, because in fact if anything the oceans are warming up slightly.
3) The velocity of molecules is related to the temperature, and there is a huge heat bath there... so as fluid moves out of one 'sphere' other liquid moves in at the same depth and pressure approximately. And under gravity some of the molecules locally will fall more than the others.
4) Wrinkles... currents and drift and pressure differentials.
5) with increasing depth... the increasing pressure may act as a barrier to dropping molecules... however the density below about 1000 m is relatively constant at 1.028 g/ml and stays so right to the bottom (as liquids are relaitively incompressible beyond a certain pressure... up until very very great pressures, where they break down... which doesn't occur in the oceans even in the mariana trench.)
So the amount of liberty a molecule has at 1000 metres is likely to be the amount of liberty a molecule has at great depth...
if we had semipermeable membrane pipes, that allowed both water and CO2 only into them, and dropped them to the bottom, and the upper 500 to 1000 metres of pipe allowed only H2O to flow through (in and out, but not the CO2), this would create a kind of lower pressure in the pipe, that would permit more CO2 to enter at the bottom, and because it is heavier, it would sink, while the H2O would flow up and out the top...., if we had membranes along the way... diaphragms, that only permit H2O to pass up, and not the CO2, then we would create baffles, that would selectively prevent the CO2 from flowing up, but we need a one way valve that permits it to flow down..., some kind of pump at each diaphragm that pumps the liquid just above, to the next section below.... perhaps some kind of inner tube section (i really wish i could draw a diagram here.... i have the design in my mind) and it would work...The H2O would flow upwards, and the CO2 would flow down, and all you need are semipermeable membranes to do it...!!!!
Without constraints it is unlikely that anything of any value will ensue
Richard Belshaw
Wellington-Halton Hills EDA
March 06, 2007 #4
Donald Fletcher
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Last seen: 7 years 11 months ago
Joined: 2007-02-21
If we increase the concentration of CO2 within vertical pipe
Lambton Kent Middlesex EDA (SW Ontario)
Depending on the pressure within the pipe, CO2 molecules will stick together to become droplets when they meet, and If we increase the concentration of CO2 within vertical pipe, we should expect a general shower of dropplets to form and begin migrating downward far more rapidly than would be expected under the assumptions of Brownian motion.
If instead of a pipe we have just a semi-permeable membrane that prevents CO2 passing through it, random motion of CO2 in the seas will bring CO2 into contact with the membrane.
If the membrane is at an appropriate depth, the CO2 lining up along the membrane will form those droplets whidh will then fall off the membrane the next time the sea movement permits it, and will shower down, meanwhile the other side of the membrane will collect its share of CO2 molecules.
The role of the membrane is to allow molecules to group together on the upstream direction, whichever that is.
If the location of the membrane is such that the movement of the sea is always in one direction, CO2 molecules would clog the membrane? invention to deal with that would be a cylinder that gradually rotates as the sea passes it. The CO2 molecules would congregate on the upstream side which would then become the downstream side after a while, to drop the deposited liquid.
Conceptually what this would do would be to reduce the amount of CO2 in a volume of sea around the installation, but the cascade of droplets would be expected to pick up more CO2 molecules as they descend to the bottom.
Thinking a bit further outside the box, if the membrane were deployed almost horizontally, but the outer edges a bit lower than the middle, going down like a mighty parachute, but of course starting at a depth where pressure would liquify CO2, the descent would move only a short distance when a lot of droplets of CO2 form on the under side. then those droplets can be dislodged with any shock, so that they form a CO2 rain that will sink down collecting more and more molecules.
The membrane moves over to the next area and repeats that performance.
Should this hair brained idea work, it would change Brownian motion of CO2, in that the deeper concentration, from the depth used for this activity downward, is so much lower, predicting motion at that level to be almost all downward.
March 06, 2007 #5
Richard Belshaw
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There are some problems with this, but also opportunity.!
This hare brained idea might just work... the problem would only be due to extreme currents or storms.
However ifthe 'parachute' were deep enough.... then yes, it would be resistant to storms or extreme currents. Farther offshore, where there is still a groundswell of flow, is recommended. Tides and tsunamais would wreck it.... but that might be a risk we have to take. also there could be algae growth on it. which would hamper its ability to form droplets... or would it? questions. It would definately prevent water from flowing through... if we make them impermeable to CO2, they could still be permeable to water, however, the flow would be seriously hampered, i still think my pipe idea is best... it would definately create a positive flow, and would be resistant to storms, however just the membrane, with any appreciable current flow at all, would be blown way off course, and problematic as to depth and force on it due to currents and stroms. I think we are making some progress! I still favour the pipes with an inner and outer circumferance, with CO2 flowing down, and H2O flowing up....!
Without constraints it is unlikely that anything of any value will ensue
Richard Belshaw
Wellington-Halton Hills EDA
March 06, 2007 #6
Richard Belshaw
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Joined: 2007-02-27
Its the jump-diffusion model thats the real problem.
Sometimes belief in mathematics creates real effects....
I want to believe now in Einsteinian - Smoluchowski Brownian motion, because in society, we'd better hope that not everything is a jump-diffusion process.... We'd better hope that our food from the grocery store or garden or farm is safe to eat, and that it gives us enough biological fuel and nutrients to get through the day and night, and gives us enough get up and go to get some exercise... and hope that we can be valued in the community... sometimes our seniors don't get enough care and attention , but our youngsters may need more, especially as the boomers are aging and we may not be able to support all of them in a Golden retirement, while there is still so much to do in order to survive.... yet somehow we must struggle to give them meaning and purpose and connection, we need their wisdom, and we must somehow pass it down to the younger generations, without losing our livelihoods and self worth and community worth... yet we need to know when to shut up and stop what we are doing, and still find some pleasure in life rather than a workaholic 24-7 routine, we need some equilibrium and intimacy in our lives too... in a safe way.
Without constraints it is unlikely that anything of any value will ensue
Richard Belshaw
Wellington-Halton Hills EDA
March 26, 2007 #7
Donald Fletcher
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Last seen: 7 years 11 months ago
Joined: 2007-02-21
CO2 under pressure above sea water in pipe?
Lambton Kent Middlesex EDA (SW Ontario)
If we have a deep pipe in which relatively pure CO2 is under pressure such that it is rapidly dissolving into the sea water, and the pipe continues deeply enough, teh CO2 will form droplets before it reaches the bottom of the pipe.
From there on down we do not need the pipe and because of the droplets collecting more CO2 on the way down, the surrounding ocane water can have a reduced Co2 content.
That big pipe is however going to want to pop up worse than a cork in a bathtub. Keeping it down so deep is going to require a lot of wieght deep down.
There would be no need to have a membrane in the water, that is only needed to allow the other gasses to escape before final compression.
Hopefully we can use wave power to do our separation and compression... possibly a big wind machine too? We need to do this with no additional CO2 if possible.
March 26, 2007 #8
Richard Belshaw
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Liquid CO2 and solar....
With the other article 'cheap solar power' we may be able to do this with electrical compressors powered by the sun... Liquid CO2 does not 'dissolve' in water, see the paper by Baker and Anderson ... We can also use wind or wave.... or all three.... if we liquify the CO2 prior to pumping it into the pipe... it will be more efficient pumping, and it would weigh more than the surrounding sea water, so it wouldn't float and wouldn't need to be weighed down... we need to do an anaylsis to determine if it is more economical to liquify before pumping, or more economical just to pump it down the pipe as a gas (that is weighed down). if we liquify it, the pipe might need to be insulated.... extra costs. Yes it would form droplets of CO2 on the way down, which would flow downwards under gravity... agreed. Not a bad idea Donald. Liquid CO2 is immiscible in Sea Water, however, Sea Water can only hold so much gaseous CO2 (henry's law).... so if the the carrying capacity of sea water is not very high, however if the flow rate down were high enough, it could be useful. At any rate , when it got to the bottom, they would separate. Once the pipe were full.... there would automatically be a pressure differential in the pipe. Since the liquid is relatively incompressible, all it takes is enough pumping force at the surface to move the whole volume downwards, and gravity will help... At the rate that we have to process CO2 from the atmosphere (16 trillion cubic feet per second of air for one GT per year of CO2) we may need to saturate the sea water (and cool it down to increase its carrying capacity 2 degrees C or thereabouts) in many parallel pipes going down with CO2 and pump them all down in concert. This would be inefficient, but possible, we would end up spending a LOT of extra energy pumping the saturated sea water to the bottom. It might be more efficient energy wise, just to liquify it at the surface, and then pump it down an insulated pipe to the bottom. Beyond a certain depth, the pressure would keep it liquified and it would no longer need to be insulated.
Also I've come to the conclusion that CO2 dissolved in sea water, would not on its own fall to the bottom very much. The highly pressurized and compressed liquid water acts as a sieve, and holds the CO2 molecules up. There is brownian motion and jump diffusion going on, but it is not like a gas... the high contact between molecules provides a lot of friction and the sieve effect prevents it from falling. Thus we DO need to pump it down there....
Without constraints it is unlikely that anything of any value will ensue
Richard Belshaw
Wellington-Halton Hills EDA
March 29, 2007 #9
Donald Fletcher
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Liquid CO2 in contact with water?
Lambton Kent Middlesex EDA (SW Ontario)
If I remember it correctly, liquid CO2 if not under extreme pressure becomes dry ice,
If we have liquid CO2 on top of sea water, the sea water must be a long way down the pipe to retain that much pressure on the CO2,.
Now getting that much pressure on top of water to force the water down would immediately freeze the water unless there is an insulating plug separating the CO2 from the water.
Even when the depth of the water is deep enough to maintain enough pressure on teh CO2 to keep it liquid, I expect we would see ice form and CO2 boiling from the heat of water freezing.
Yes, water outside the pipe would be causing the CO2 to boil all the way down.
If instead of liquifying the CO2 at surface, it be pumped as a gas pressure will cause it to be heated and the sea water would then cool the gas down. The pressure of course is not constant from top to bottom there are pumps all down the shaft to keep the gas pressure roughly equal to sea pressure as we go down to liquification pressure at sea temperature.
We know from observation that CO2 absorbs at one atmosphere, interactse chemically and drifts downward through the water. We expect that it may at some great depth become sticky as a dissolved gas, allowing it to form droplets, but will it have been mostly disolved gas or reacted at that depth?
Might we bring the molecules together via a centrifuge, with CO2 drifting outward to an exit while less dense water moves to the centre. It seems to me we should be able to cause a rain of droplets that would clear away most of the molecules below it. Then moving it through the water it repeats that for each area it passes over. This would only accelerate brownian effects.
Of course if done at too shallow a level, the CO2 would act like a gas separated from the liquid in the pop bottle. I have not decised how carbonate or bicarbonate would react to being centrifuged.
If we can come up with a way to bring CO2 molecules together at that depth, without having to force them down there
Part of the puzzle has to depend on the diametre of the pipe. If there is some boiling of liquid CO2 around the perimeter of a very large pipe, it uses up extra energy, but
December 14, 2007 #10
Richard Belshaw
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Brownian Motion, Jump Diffusion, Gaia and Stat. Thermo(QM)
Something we don't fully understand, but according to the combinatorics (Boltzmans equation)for entropy, at small numbers of entities... like under 200000 molecules, negative entropy is apparant, and the effect gets stronger as the numbers get smaller. Similarly, water is a major conduit for life, and if life force exists (not young Liebig) then Quantum thermodynamics says that on small scales, the molecules can spontaneously arrange themselves if Gaia believes it is in the planets best interest to save some huans... if so then it seems highly probably that the sieve effect might disappear locally in local nonlinear vortices or swirls that syphon the CO2 and heavier minerals downwards towards thedeep trenches.. this process may be assissted by pumping gaseous CO2 down there as well, butif we can study and understand this effect, observe understand measure and see and aid it to happen, then there might not be too muchpummping to do....
Also the phytoplankton which absorbs CO2 and the algae can help to reduce acidity at the oceans surface.
The ocean, if convinced that itsnecessary and withsome coaxing, may be the mother ocean that saves the whole life web on the planet...
Without constraints it is unlikely that anything of any value will ensue
Richard Belshaw
Wellington-Halton Hills EDA
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the following is a summary with links that since 70% of all CO2 emissions come from power plants (coal,NG)
Human emissions of CO2.
I obviously did not reaqd much further. Did he ever get to the point? If so what was it?