Re: [Phys-l] Climate change?

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@mindspring.com>]

At 14:35  -0400 4/5/08, chuck britton wrote:
> Does anyone know of any analysis that has been done on the 
> feasibility of liquifaction and sequestration of CO2?
>
> I propose storage that is essentially limitless and free in deep 
> oceanic trenches.
> It doesn't take much depth to rule out the 'Lake Nyos' effect
> 	and the cost of keeping GreenPeace away from the dumpsite could 
> probably be handled easily.
I don't remember where I read it, but there have been several pieces 
recently that talk about CO2 in the ocean, pointing out that one of 
the things that happens to CO2 in sea water is that part of it 
becomes carbonic acid, so I think we'd find that deep ocean CO2 
sequestration would have the long-term effect of gradually lowering 
the pH of the ocean to the point where it will become even more 
dangerous to marine life than it has already become.

It may take a while for it to diffuse back to the shallower water, 
but once it becomes a dissolved agent in the water, I think that it 
is inevitable that it will diffuse throughout the oceans.

I have also read some estimates of the cost of deep ocean 
sequestration, and the conclusion is that it would be very expensive.

I suspect that the best thing we can do with coal is to leave it in 
the ground and get our energy from other sources. This will improve 
the land environment in the coal mining areas, and we can employ the 
former miners to do the necessary restoration work on that blighted 
mountaintops that the coal companies destroyed in their rush to 
scrape up the cheapest coal resources.

As you know, I'm no fan of nuclear power, but it certainly is less 
damaging than coal, at least in the short term. Whether the long term 
effects are more or less depends on how we manage to deal with the 
radioactive waste problem.

Of course there are lots of possibilities that are better than 
nuclear as well, and much cheaper.

Hugh
--

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Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Hard work often pays off after time. But Laziness always pays off now.

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