Global warming “can be reversed", scientists claim
The solution to the global warming crisis? Roll out the factories!Yes, according to a study out of Chalmers University, Sweden, an answer to looming ’global warming*’(citation needed) could be to pump collected CO2 back down into the ground from whence it came.
A biofuel plant, Lockerbie
From Yahoo News UK:
Hi-tech new bio-energy plants could “reverse” global warming by pumping carbon dioxide into old gas wells - lowering temperatures by 0.6°C per century, according to a study.
There are already 16 projects around the world working on the technology - aiming to generate power for local homes by burning vegetation such as wood or straw and then burying the carbon dioxide it produces deep underground.
“It’s like drilling for natural gas, but in reverse,” says Niclas Mattson of Chalmers University, Sweden, co-author of the study.
Because trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide while they grow, the technology, known as BECCS - Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage - is “carbon negative”.
The bio-energy plants will capture thousands of tons of CO2 per day, and then pipe the gas down into rock formations, or depleted oil and gas wells. By 2050, the researchers believe, the BECCS plants could bury billions of tons of CO2 per year.
The first BECCS plants will be here within a decade, Mattson says. They are likely to be expensive relative to coal-burning power stations - but the researchers say that even if the technology only becomes widespread in 2050, it would enable governments to beat current climate goals.
Study author Professor Christian Azar said: “We can reverse the warming trend and push temperatures back below the 2°C target by 2150.”
[...]
So we’ll force the CO2 back down into the earth like fracking with high-pressure gas instead of water. And there’s nothing dangerous about such a plan? What is the expected local (or global) environmental impact?
Citizens Against CO2 Sequestration suggests it’s not a fool-proof plan, even though Carbon Sequestration plants have gone up in many countries:
The issue of leakage is critical from both global and local perspectives. Even gradual leakage from numerous sites may provide enough CO2 reentering the atmosphere to undermine efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations. Locally, leakage from an underground storage site could present an immediate hazard to humans and ecosystems.
The most dramatic type of CO2 release would come from a blow-out at an injection well, which could produce high enough concentrations (7–10%) of the gas in the vicinity to endanger human life.
Undetected leakage from a faulty well or through ground fractures would probably be more diffuse and primarily affect groundwater and surface ecosystems. In particular, aquifers used as a source of drinking water could be harmed, either by acidification resulting from direct contact with large amounts of CO2 or by the seepage of brines displaced by CO2 during the injection process.
And what of the recent study that suggests that CO2 is not making the earth warmer, only greener? Or that study that suggests that CFC’s might be a bigger issue than CO2, and climate scientists could be barking up the wrong tree?
In no way is the ’science settled’ it would seem.
To suggest starting up big, expensive factories which pipe gasses down into our earth’s crust and into gas wells so that in in the next century the global temperature might, might, go down by half a degree (when we’re not even sure that that’s desirable)....
Well, even Al Gore himself might hesitate a little on this idea, especially after his comments on the actual impact CO2 has played in ’global warming’ over the last 15 years.
* http://redicecreations.com/article.php?id=22115
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