Re: [Phys-L] carbon wars

["Anthony Lapinski" <Anthony_Lapinski@pds.org>]

Interesting discussion!

Just saw part of Frozen Planet on the Animal Planet channel.
It might be playing right now, depending on where you live.

What they were saying and showing was very dramatic. They
said that Antarctica is 50% larger in area than Australia, and the ice
is about 3 km thick. And if all the ice in Antarctica melted, global sea
levels would rise about 60 m. It's already happening...

Phys-L@Phys-L.org writes:
> On 10/6/2014 2:37 PM, John Denker wrote in part:
> > ///The only process I know of for effective long-term carbon 
> > sequestration is the weathering of silicate rocks. This was mentioned 
> > a couple of days ago under the heading of "carbon sequestration, or 
> > not". On 10/04/2014 01:50 PM, I wrote:
> > >     CO2 + CaSiO3 --> ... --> CaCO3     + SiO2
> > >     CO2 + wollastonite   --> limestone + sand
> > >
> > > This happens naturally on a timescale of hundreds of
> > > years.
> > ///
> John's note brought to mind a delightful property of silica sand, when 
> moistened with water-glass (sodium metasilicate, Na_2 SiO_3 ) and formed 
> to some desired shape such as a foundry casting mold.
> When infused with carbon dioxide gas from a bottle (or more slowly from 
> the atmosphere) the sand shape turns into what is essentially sandstone.
>
> Brian Whatcott
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