tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post2134610688109483240..comments2024-03-27T16:08:30.313-05:00Comments on The Great Change: The Great Pause Week 52: Climate FatigueAlbert Bateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627996921976501534noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-23221064569344724072021-03-14T14:09:46.950-05:002021-03-14T14:09:46.950-05:00one that goes beyond zero emissions and runs the i...<i>one that goes beyond zero emissions and runs the industrial carbon cycle backwards — taking CO2 from the atmosphere and ocean, turning it into coal and oil, and burying it in the ground.</i><br /><br />I agree that this might be technically possible, but the scale required is stupendous. <br /><br />Every atom of carbon burned produces a molecule of CO2 that is 3.7 times heavier than the carbon. Since coal is almost pure carbon, for every ton of coal that has been burned in that last 300 years 3.7 tons of CO2 need to be removed from the atmosphere and sequestered. If we use trees to do the removal, and since tree wood is about half carbon, over seven tons of trees need to be grown, transported, processed and buried in the ground. <br /><br />Even if we took the next 300 years to do it, an industry seven times the size of the coal industry needs to be created. But since we don't have that long, we must create an industry seventy times as large as the current coal industry in order to get all that burned coal removed in the next three decades or so. <br /><br />Now imagine adding the effort required by the carbon (albeit a lesser percentage carbon than coal) burned from oil, gas, wood, and soil carbon oxidation. All that removal infrastructure also needs to be created without causing a final gigantic pulse of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Since our primary energy supply is still 85% fossil fuels, I wonder where the <b>non-carbon</b> energy is going to come from to create this gigantic new carbon removal infrastructure? Joe Clarksonnoreply@blogger.com