These kinds of experiments can have beneficial effects...not because carbon dioxide is harmful but because it is vauable..we could pipe CO2 to giant greenhouses to grow food and plants that benefit mankind.

But remember, 94% to 97% of all CO2 in the atmosphere is not manmade but occurs through the natural exchange between the oceans and the atmosphere and vegetation and the atmosphere. The small amount of CO2 produced by mankind can be handled very efficiently by these natural forces. We need to quit obsessing about this wonderful, life giving compound and be thankful it is here to benefit mankind.

Might be nice if before they devised ways to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere that there was (1)any evidence that there is anything harmful about the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and (2) any harm that may be caused in removing it from the atmosphere. "Science" is discredited when the Scientific Method is abandoned and replaced with the acceptance of unproven dogma.

Yesterday's post on using algae to capture carbon dioxide makes much more sense as a solution to this non-problem.

When we use plants such as algae to capture carbon we at least have the benefit of being able to use the plant for something. With these types of solutions, we get the costs but no measurable benefits.

The greens will never support this, expect immediate attacks against this technology.

The point of global warming is economic planning legislation, actually trying to "solve" the problem doesn't interest them.

1) The hubris that the current climate is optimal. Perhaps a few degrees warmer, if that's the NATURAL tendency might be better for man kind?
2) Ever hear of the Law of unintended consequences? What if all these silly carbon reducing measures actually work and throws off the Earth's balance into a little ice age? We'd rather have Greenland become green than the northern US become glacier covered again!
2) In the past its COLD that has caused the major catastrophes, not warming. Not to mention that we reject that there is any evidence that man is responsible for the very mild warming we are seeing in some areas of the world

I have an ingenious machine in my yard which captures CO2. I call it the lawn.

This is a good idea and I am only saying this part tongue-in-cheek.

If we store the CO2 we take out of the air, then we have a resevior of it under the ground, if we take too much out, at least we can try to release it back in the atmosphere at a later time if we decide it is "too cool." Of course, since we don't really have any specific numbers on exactly how much global temperature is affected per part of CO2, it should be interesting to see what happens if we ever decide to start controlling the atmosphere like thermostats control buildings.

I can see the Deniers' response now...."B-b-b-b-but the plants NEED CO2!!!!"

Yeah, but the plants did quite well while CO2 levels were 280 ppm. If you're concerned about vegetation, you'll do better to focus on conserving forests and increasing coverage for our parks.

Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me.

A machine that captures CO2 - would that be called a 'tree'?

I wonder if the world can get enough of these running before we figure out we don't need them.

How much does the machine cost, and how much is it projected to cost on a mass-produced scale?

This would be an interesting idea if someone had found a way to store the carbon sequestered. Depleted oil wells can only be used for a fraction of the carbon we would have to sequester, so this is not a solution. The carbon could be stored in saline formations but this is too risky, given that even a small leak would be enough to jeopardize all of the efforts to control climate change. Personally I see these tecnologies as something we have to try when we've tried everything else, like a dying cancer patient who accepts being given a experimental drug after all treatments have failed. We aren't there yet, but if we don't decrease our emissions we will get there very soon.

If we were able to efficiently harvest CO2 from the air, we should be able to fix the CO2 ( I use fix inthe technical sense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fixation)

into organic molecules which we could then convert to useable fuel.

Sequester the captured CO2 in deep saline formaltions; the central U.S. has lots of these; they occur eleswhere in the world.

Assume that the seuestration can be done for $20 per tonne of CO2; this is about the price that DoE is aiming for. Assume electricity is $0.10 per kwh. THen to capture and sequester one tonne of CO2 is

$0.10x100 + $20 = $30

and this translates into

$30(44/12) = $110 per tonne of carbon.

This is quite a low price compared to other means; perhaps I've underestimated (the cost of piping to sequestration site or something). Notice that cap-n-trade credits are around $45 per tonne of CO2 now.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is roughly .038% of CO2 in the atmosphere (380 parts per million). I feel like I'm missing something in this debate. Did I do my math wrong? Not being facetious, but I don't get all the hubbub. Brett, a little help maybe? Thanks.

Reply: You are close.........384 ppm

How many of these absurd machines would be needed to produce a significant change? Assuming anthropogenic CO2 is something to worry about, which I don't believe for a moment, it would make far more sense to capture it where it's produced.

To deal with global warming, the government needs to immediately plant more trees, and stop cutting them down. It is a major problem they need to deal with. The importance of trees has been understated by "scientists" that truly dont understand the relevance of trees. Dont criticize the importance of the concept until you know all the facts. On top of deforestation, we are polluting the environment. Another contributing factor is modern day energy systems rely on explosion rather than implosion, and this generates heat. Every systems need to be more efficient and work on implosion, so they stay cool. The non-profit energy research organization at http://www.universalsymbiosis.org is active in these areas which will help reverse effects of global warming. I suggest everyone also read "Living Energies" by Callum Coats which explains the work of Victor Schauberger and the importance of trees to our planet. Dont rely on information from the authorities as their advisors dont fully understand the life cycle of the planet. We need to push the authorities to develop forest management and sustainability plans, and this will solve at least part of the problem.

The machine appears to convert sodium hydroxide and carbondioxide into sodium carbonate; it does so quite efficiently.

The problem is in reversing this reaction. It seems that one 'roasts' the sodium carbonate to release the carbon dioxide:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hydroxide

which will require some considerble process heat. Looks expensive to me.

It would make more sense to capture the main greenhouse gas, H2O, directly from air and pipe this (or sprinkle as precipitation) to dry land areas which could benefit from higher rainfall!

LOL! Lets make more alage with this Co2 and make more bio diesel and ethanol then burn it and make more Co2!!LOL!

They claim it takes 100 kw to scrub a ton of CO2 out of the air. Right now my electricity costs 7cents per KW so we are talking $7 per ton.
The carbon credit folks are currently buying carbon credits from producers at $ 4.02 a ton.
So we need to make billions of these machines which use caustic lye (drain cleaner- no doubt very good for the environment when they have to dispose of it) at twice the price of the current rate for carbon credits????????????
These folks must have entered the Hansonian World of math, statistics, and temperature adjustments to think that this is a viable economical alternative unless they want the price of electricity to double.
Hey I got an idea.
How about we grow plants which naturally scrub CO2 from the air and don’t need to use caustic soda (sodium or potassium hydroxide)?
Hmmm a man made machine using toxic chemicals or a tree? Which one should we pick?
Climate scientists say a machine and who are we to doubt the veracity of AGW science when they have consensus behind them???
The problem is we are expecting the Climate Experts to use their brains and make intelligent adult decisions. Unfortunately in the world of Climate Change experts while they got plenty of hot air and CO2, they seem a bit short on intelligent decisions.

If the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is "384 ppm" at the present time, isn't the question to be answered is, "what has been the historical record of CO2 levels and variations from this level?".

Not really on topic, but as there are a number of contributers here who repeatedly accuse one another of having ulterior motives for promoting or opposing belief in AGW, you might like to read up on "Bulverism", a term that was invented by the writer C.S.Lewis to describe a similar form of attack. There is a summary of it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism, which also has links to Lewis's original essay on the subject.

This is a silly idea. Do some simple math. In order to remove 380 lbs. of CO2, you would have to pump a minimum of 1,000,000 lbs. of air. Since efficiencies of industrial processes usually run at 30% when you are lucky, that means it is more like 3,000,000 lbs. of air. Where will the electricity come from to pump the air? And, it gets even worse. The exhaust from this plant would be free of CO2. How do you keep this exhaust from getting sucked back into the feed side of the plant? Maybe build it on top of a mountain where prevailing winds carry it off? Hope the wind doesn't shift. And then you have to store the CO2 somewhere. Pipelines cost about $1,000,000 per mile, plus the electricity to pump the CO2. Bad idea. The algae idea looked better, except I would want some more info on the "cooling" pipe. You see in the video he points where the cooling was hooked up on the glass columns. How much energy is sucked up by "cooling"? Still, if you can get bio diesel you back out crude oil. And you might get cattle feed and starch. It deserves a look, which the free market is doing based on high crude oil prices.

[There are still some major issues with this project.........]

Yeah, like no one has EVER proven that CO2 has a significant effect on the earth's climate compared to natural forces. Those who claim that it does are no more than modern-day pirates, hoping to profiteer on the fear they have generated through the media. BTW, recent evidence shows that the earth has cooled significantly over the last 18 months.

See the comments by Dunn and Dietz in

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/005592.html

From Dunn's comment, the total costs can be determined to be rather high, about twice the costs of burying biochar deep underground.

jack m love your enfatuation and appreciation of carbon dioxide somehow the other side sees it as some evil gas thats going to reek havoc on the world imagine what the planet would look like without c02 i can the whole planet would look like the sahara desert wouldnt it be just like man to invent a way t to reduce c02 and that became irreversable first all the plants and trees would be eaten thenall the fish and other mammals until cannibalsm set in until the last tough man standing

the idea of the pipeling to greenhouses might be alittle expensive but what about locations aroung the country and trucking c02 cannisters to the greenhouses

with increases in both population of man and increases in the amount of vegetaion on the planet who's to say that 384 ppm is the new balance number of c02 for the planet

Here is a poster about an olivine solution, the most cost-effective solution I have found so far:

ftp://ftp.geog.uu.nl/pub/posters/2008/Let_the_earth_help_us_to_save_the_earth-Schuiling_June2008.pdf

wait, wait, wait wait!