What if we could extract carbon from the air and use the extracted carbon to make carbon nanofibers or even diamonds and do it inexpensively? Some researchers at George Washing University say that we can:
A new method for taking carbon dioxide directly from the air and converting it to oxygen and nanoscale fibers made of carbon could lead to an inexpensive way to make a valuable building material—and may even serve as a weapon against climate change.
Carbon fibers are increasingly being used as a structural material by industries like aerospace and automotive, which value its strength and light weight. The useful attributes of carbon fibers, which also include electrical conductivity, are enhanced at the nanoscale, says Stuart Licht, a professor of chemistry at George Washington University. The problem is that it’s very expensive to make carbon fibers, much less nanofibers. Licht says his group’s newly demonstrated technology, which both captures the carbon dioxide from the air and employs an electrochemical process to convert it to carbon nanofibers and oxygen, is more efficient and potentially a lot cheaper than existing methods.
But it’s more than just a simpler, less expensive way of making a high value product. It’s also a “means of storing and sequestering carbon dioxide in a useful manner, a stable manner, and in a compact manner,†says Licht. He points out that if the process is powered by renewable energy, the result is a net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In a recent demonstration, his group used a unique concentrated solar power system, which makes use of infrared sunlight as well as visible light to generate the large amount of heat needed to run the desired reaction.
That’s exactly the sort of solution I’ve been talking about. Start looking around for applications for carbon nanofibers.
Lithium is not all that uncommon. It can be produced from seawater. You produce lithium carbonate by an interaction of lithium peroxide and carbon dioxide. Lithium peroxide can be made from the interaction of lithium metal with water.
If G*d had intended for carbon dioxide to be converted into oxygen, he would have made such things.
Neat tech if it pans out. Maybe employ thermoelectric to capture lost heat. However, when he talks about an area only 10% the size of the Sahara, he is talking about an area larger than Texas. On the plus side, carbon fiber has a very high melting point so maybe you could fabricate the containers for holding the molten lithium compound out of it.
The large area is being cited as reversing the last two centuries of carbon emissions over a ten year period or, in other words, it’s a maximum solution rather than a minimum one.
I don’t see any obvious reason that many more much smaller deployments would not be just as efficient or less economical.
If G*d had intended for carbon dioxide to be converted into oxygen, he would have made such things.
PD, you’ve been on a role this year!
Have to many things to do to read the article right now, but …
I don’t see any obvious reason that many more much smaller deployments would not be just as efficient or less economical.
Shouldn’t it be more economical if the distributed sites are closer to where the carbon fibers could be used? Some in the US, some in China, some in Brazil, etc.
One other note: Those using the process would have to be careful to not extract too much CO2 from the atmosphere, wouldn’t they?
@Icepick
One other note: Those using the process would have to be careful to not extract too much CO2 from the atmosphere, wouldn’t they?
CO2 is a dangerous and toxic pollutant. There is no amount that is too much.
The idea that humans have the ability to control the earth is absurd. The earth is between ice ages, and it will continue warming until it starts cooling. Period.
Humans can begin sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere and whatever else they want to do. When the earth begins its cooling cycle, they can claim victory, but this is not science. It is witchcraft, and no amount of sacrifices before any unseen forces is anything other than pagan worship.
At least the pagans were not in denial. They were a fun bunch and not the sad sacks we have today.
What ellipses said about removing too much is especially relevant if we are naturally entering a cooling cycle- I’ve long suspected that we might be in the ironic situation where the greenhouse gases become a net protection against a looming ice age. And of course, the problem would become how to know how much is the proper amount to remove, if any.
Regarding lithium- maybe we have enough of it at the moment but I know it’s been cited as a potential problem for converting to a fleet of electric vehicles. Do we really know that it wouldn’t become too scarce for use in a process like this?
Just playing devil’s advocate, of course…..I do think the concept sounds promising. Even if this idea doesn’t pan out, it makes sense that we should be looking at potential carbon sequestration processes even with the caveat that there’s a risk of overshooting the mark.
The Ice Ages have to do with the wobble in the Earth’s axis. It is not perfectly balanced, and it causes the Earth to tilt at different angles over its cycle. There are other forces in play also.
Having removed too much is a very easy problem to solve.
I’ve long suspected that we might be in the ironic situation where the greenhouse gases become a net protection against a looming ice age.
Larry Niven has long pushed this idea in the sci-fi community.
Having removed too much is a very easy problem to solve.
it would be if releasing carbon into the atmosphere didn’t violate the religious sacraments of a growing portion of the population.
The key phrase in the argument is:
“He points out that if the process is powered by renewable energy, ….”
Anything is possible if powered by renewable energy. The problem is that renewable energy is prohibitively expensive, especially in view of the inviolable Second Law of Thermodynamics.
What we have here may be a wee debasement of language. I think it would be more accurate to say “energy that wasn’t produced by burning fossil fuels” rather than “renewable energy”. Nuclear isn’t renewable but it would do just fine for this purpose. In the example they use solar.