This Battery Uses Up CO2 to Create Energy

[Rob Plant + 2,601]

19 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

On 1/28/2020 at 8:52 AM, Rob Plant said:

Yep I was wondering how you get a rain forest growing in sand?

Being done right now on the front edge of the expanding Gobi Desert, now only 30 miles from Beijing.   Works fine.  The Chinese have developed a chemical that leaves sand porous to air, but impermeable to water.   Great stuff. 

Jan I hardly think this is a rain forest!!!

This is the project next to the Gobi desert you were speaking of.

https://www.freshplaza.com/article/2193557/china-hydroponic-soil-free-farming-in-the-gobi-desert/

When you dont have rain every day and there is no leaf mulch to speak of you ain't getting a rain forest!

Why do we always look at doing the very difficult when the easy solution is staring us in the face?

I was talking about saving 78 million acres of rain forest every year and you come up with this

Edited January 29, 2020 by Rob Plant

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

22 minutes ago, Rob Plant said:

It has frankly less to do with the "locals" (who have been living there for centuries) than it has to do with "consumer patterns"

 

19 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Nope.  Deforestation in the sub-sahara  ("the Sahel") takes place because of poor practices of subsistence locals, that wreck the fringe areas of the Sahel.  Has nothing to do with "consumer patterns in the West."

Deforestation of the Amazon has everything to do with consumer patterns in the West. The Amazon is being cleared to make way for farmland to bread cattle for Western markets. 

[Rob Plant + 2,601]

2 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

 

Deforestation of the Amazon has everything to do with consumer patterns in the West. The Amazon is being cleared to make way for farmland to bread cattle for Western markets. 

Yep exactly (sorry Rasmus I dont think my previous point came across correctly) and the deforestation leads to changing climate patterns that then f*ck over the people living next to the expanding Sahara, and yet we try and blame them, brilliant!

[ronwagn + 6,290]

16 hours ago, OHMO said:

 

Flaring (or even worse, venting) of NG because oversupply of gas has driven the price so low.  This waste of a precious natural resource needs to be stopped.  The industry refuses to control itself resulting in diminishing margins.  A severe penalty for wasted gas is required to stop this practice because the lost opportunity profit is so low there is no motivation to capture this current overabundance.  A better alternative would be methanol plant near the source of the excess methane production.  Normally I would abhore government involvement but large tax advantage granted to the first x% of new methanol production facility would seem to be worthwhile.

Methanol, other chemicals, electricity, gasoline, etc.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 1/22/2020 at 9:25 PM, PE Scott said:

Mind blown!

Funny, this is super obvious yet I never hear it mentioned.

I wonder what it would take to offset human produced CO2 in terms of trees/acreage

 

On 1/23/2020 at 2:41 AM, Rob Plant said:

On a different thread @Douglas Buckland has been stating population growth and climate change are inextricably linked. I cant see an argument against that.

Some pressure on Brazil and their deforestation might just help, although that's not newsworthy anymore apparently.

However I still dont believe Co2 is the main problem, I'm more concerned with pollution than Co2.

Trump is on board with tree planting apparently, where the hell they will all go I have no idea. The world is becoming overcrowded.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/21/trump-hails-1tn-trees-plan-but-ignores-roots-of-problem

Rob, it seems like you are not familiar with the rural areas of America. There are about as many wastelands as there are productive areas.  With effort much of this area could be planted with trees that would do very well in the long term and be useful to mankind. The Arbor Day Society has been preaching this for decades. https://www.arborday.org/ America is not overpopulated it is just that there are too many people jammed together IMHO. We need better land use planning and we need to think smaller when it comes to the size of homes and larger when it comes to lots. Just my opinion. 

[PE Scott + 563]

58 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

America is not overpopulated it is just that there are too many people jammed together IMHO. We need better land use planning and we need to think smaller when it comes to the size of homes and larger when it comes to lots. Just my opinion. 

I would have thought this too. Interestingly enough I got roped into a presentation on "green" cities at one point in college. The gist of it was that higher population density = 'greener'

There are obvious drawbacks in terms of higher concentrations of pollution and trash. However, the commutes are a lot shorter, house are generally smaller, apartments and high rises use less energy per capital than individual households, public transportation is more feasible and more widely used, etc. When we sat down and really thought it all through, the results were surprising to me. Perhaps I was duped.

 

[Rob Plant + 2,601]

2 hours ago, PE Scott said:

I would have thought this too. Interestingly enough I got roped into a presentation on "green" cities at one point in college. The gist of it was that higher population density = 'greener'

There are obvious drawbacks in terms of higher concentrations of pollution and trash. However, the commutes are a lot shorter, house are generally smaller, apartments and high rises use less energy per capital than individual households, public transportation is more feasible and more widely used, etc. When we sat down and really thought it all through, the results were surprising to me. Perhaps I was duped.

 

Who wants to live in a high rise when they dont have to??

I have a dog I dont want to be catching a lift down 30 floors (and then back up) to let it out for a p*ss!

[OHMO + 9]

7 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Methanol, other chemicals, electricity, gasoline, etc.

I agree that ethanol is a net negative but didn't think methanol was since the base component has a higher energy density as a starting point.  Just looking for a way to avoid wasting this energy source to flaring and venting while the price of NG is so low.  The power required to support the process would be provided by using even more of the NG currently going to waste.  The process would also use the concentrated CO2 generated from power plants or even the batteries described here.  The oil industry will not give up or even curb production so it seems necessary to develop more and better uses of methane.

[OHMO + 9]

7 hours ago, ronwagn said:

 

On a different thread @Douglas Buckland has been stating population growth and climate change are inextricably linked. I cant see an argument against that.

Some pressure on Brazil and their deforestation might just help, although that's not newsworthy anymore apparently.

...

I also believe that worldwide population has long since exceeded the reasonable carrying capacity of the planet - even if zero population growth was achieved now, as other parts of the world seek improved conditions the energy needs and consumption with the resulting waste production will become unmanageable

[Rob Plant + 2,601]

34 minutes ago, OHMO said:

I also believe that worldwide population has long since exceeded the reasonable carrying capacity of the planet - even if zero population growth was achieved now, as other parts of the world seek improved conditions the energy needs and consumption with the resulting waste production will become unmanageable

I disagree as you are presuming that there will be no improved efficiencies in current technology and no new technology at all. if you couple advancements here with people being more responsible in recycling, less wasteful with foodstuffs and managing waste then I believe the population can still grow. However how that is implemented around the world particularly poorer countries I don't know.

I do agree that the planet is becoming a very small place though.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

On 1/28/2020 at 1:17 AM, Rob Plant said:

Agreed 

However the cost on a large acreage would be astronomical and for what payback?? A very small impact on Co2.

Surely its a lot easier and cheaper to just stop the deforestation in existing rain forests like the Amazon.

FYI

"More than 150 acres are lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres lost every year! More than 20 percent of the Amazon rain forest is already gone, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year."

4.6 million acres of irreplaceable Amazon rain forest burned between Jan 19 - Sep 19 and this is ever increasing year on year (Australian fires have burned 12.35 million acres in total). Every 3 years we burn more of the Amazon than this.

It would be way cheaper to pay the loggers in these areas a healthy salary than start hydroponics in the Sahara

I get Jan's idea but its not practical

If you want to help with reducing Co2 then this needs to stop and quickly! We need to get our heads out of our backsides and put pressure on the Brazil government to stop this immediately. We should also come up with economical solutions for the Brazilian loggers to ensure that the Amazon is protected long term.

Rant over, and I now sound like Sting! God help me!

The amazon rain forest has been getting denuded since I was in junior high. The reason is clear as I was taught back then. The rainfall is so high in that region that soil loses its nutrients immediately upon exposure. The choice of crops Brazil grows don't help matters much. 

So the locals Illegally burn rainforest as their soil depletes due to leeching. Immediately after a burn, the newly created farmland is exceptionally rich in nutrients and will have massive production for about three years. Then it's ruined and they burn more rainforest; lather, rinse repeat. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

4 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

The amazon rain forest has been getting denuded since I was in junior high. The reason is clear as I was taught back then. The rainfall is so high in that region that soil loses its nutrients immediately upon exposure. The choice of crops Brazil grows don't help matters much. 

So the locals Illegally burn rainforest as their soil depletes due to leeching. Immediately after a burn, the newly created farmland is exceptionally rich in nutrients and will have massive production for about three years. Then it's ruined and they burn more rainforest; lather, rinse repeat. 

True.

Thankfully much of that Saharan PM we were discussing in another thread lands there as fertilizer.

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Personally, I think it is folly to address an environmental situation such as the expanding Sahara (whether it is due to climate cycles or people’s behavior on the fringe) by humans undertaking the role of Mother Nature and doing something crazy like diverting rivers.

From what folks are posting, the root cause is once again over population. I’m sure that they addressed this in Davos.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

6 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

True.

Thankfully much of that Saharan PM we were discussing in another thread lands there as fertilizer.

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants

How much nutrient material is in dust blown off the surface of a desert? If it is rich in nutrients wouldn’t something be growing in the desert?

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

15 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

How much nutrient material is in dust blown off the surface of a desert? If it is rich in nutrients wouldn’t something be growing in the desert?

Not without water.  The nutrient dust is from long dried up lakes.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 1/29/2020 at 10:15 PM, PE Scott said:

I would have thought this too. Interestingly enough I got roped into a presentation on "green" cities at one point in college. The gist of it was that higher population density = 'greener'

There are obvious drawbacks in terms of higher concentrations of pollution and trash. However, the commutes are a lot shorter, house are generally smaller, apartments and high rises use less energy per capital than individual households, public transportation is more feasible and more widely used, etc. When we sat down and really thought it all through, the results were surprising to me. Perhaps I was duped.

 

I am a person who grew up in Los Angeles from the fifties on. I left in 1986 and visit frequently but am always glad that I went to rural central Illinois back then. Unfortunately Chicagoland has caused our state to be taken over by regressives and we are suffering some of the same problems Californians are. I think big dense cities are an abomination. Drive around America and see how much room we have. Much of it is wasteland that could make room for more liveable small to medium size cities. 

[Rob Plant + 2,601]

I'd stay away from these cities then Ron!

The World's Most Densely Populated Cities
Rank         City               Population    Density (Per Sq Km)
1              Manila             1,780,148       41,515
2              Mumbai           2,478,447       28,508
3              Dhaka              8,523,137       28,410
4              Caloocan        1,489,040       27,916
5              Chennai          4,681,087       25,854
6              Kolkata           4,486,679       24,252
7              Kathmandu    1,183,000       23,923
8              Subang Jaya  1,683,589       23,911
9              Paris               2,265,886       21,498
10            Macau                643,100       21,224

[Boat + 1,315]

On 1/22/2020 at 10:25 PM, PE Scott said:

Mind blown!

Funny, this is super obvious yet I never hear it mentioned.

I wonder what it would take to offset human produced CO2 in terms of trees/acreage

Some of us have mentioned overpopulation as a root cause. One gain would be much less infrastructure. 

[Boat + 1,315]

Can’t carbon be used in concrete? Several years ago I was reading about how many concrete plants and steel plants were going to nat gas with huge carbon improvements. Capturing additional carbon with batteries in these high energy, high electricity processes seems like a fit. Refineries adding batteries to CHP would be cool. Are they not the top 3 pollution emitters?

[Rob Plant + 2,601]

19 minutes ago, Boat said:

On 1/23/2020 at 4:25 AM, PE Scott said:

Mind blown!

Funny, this is super obvious yet I never hear it mentioned.

I wonder what it would take to offset human produced CO2 in terms of trees/acreage

Some of us have mentioned overpopulation as a root cause. One gain would be much less infrastructure. 

Surely instead of planting a billion trees why dont we just stop chopping them down!

Again people 78 million acres of the Amazon are cut down every year! That's more than double the size of Illinois! Why is this a hard concept to understand?

If you want to plant an additional billion trees then yeah I'm all for it, but its not solving the problem!

Deforestation of the Amazon has nothing to do with population growth/density but it is all to do with money and greed!

Edited January 31, 2020 by Rob Plant

[GunnysGhost + 157]

Consider the Pacific Wild Salmon.  It is at 1% of its historical breeding population. 

The 3 'greenest' states and one big 'green' Canadian territory in one of the 'greenest' (most developed) regions of the world have reduced salmon levels by over 99%. 

We needed 'green' energy for all those people living in these 'green' states so we built a series of 'green' dams which have effectively put the salmon on the pathway to extinction.

Also effectively already dead are the Resident Orca.  They are living on borrowed time.  Like a chicken with its head removed and the legs keep kicking.

And somehow, while the  west coast are still busy killing the Orca... we're expecting Africa, Asia, and South America to do BETTER than the US/Canada?   I call BS.  If fre**ing Oregon is overpopulated enough to drive Grizzlies and Orcas to extinction, you can consider all megafauna the world over on borrowed time as well. 

 

Am I saying this to rub salt in the wound?  No, it is killing me.  And this is one example of literally millions of species that our urbanization and sub-urbanization has made non-endemic, limited only to 'reservations' a few acres across. 

"Well its true my neighborhood used to house deer, foxes, wolves and bears, and now its a row of townhouses, but I drive a Hybrid!!!! So I'm literally saving the planet".  

Carbon is a proxy argument for ecological damage.  Our presence is what is devastating.  Hybirds are the solution to the proxy argument... which they can SELL you while you think of yourself as not doing damage, when in reality you are.  But no more than the other 8 billion presences on the planet.

 

The argument of overpopulation should not be about 'how many more people can we cram into this space and feed / remove the sh** they produce on a weekly basis'.   It should be about the fact that we are headed at blinding speed towards a world of humans, cockroaches, pigeons and city rats. 

This will happen 1000s of years before 'OMGCarbon'

 

Ironically, if Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and N. California could learn to burn some oil... they could feasibly save the fish, orcas, and bears. 

"Mr. Inslee... Tear Down This Wall [Dam]"

Edited January 31, 2020 by GunnysGhost

[Rob Plant + 2,601]

5 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Surely instead of planting a billion trees why dont we just stop chopping them down!

Again people 78 million acres of the Amazon are cut down every year! That's more than double the size of Illinois! Why is this a hard concept to understand?

If you want to plant an additional billion trees then yeah I'm all for it, but its not solving the problem!

Deforestation of the Amazon has nothing to do with population growth/density but it is all to do with money and greed!

Just want to add some more info on this that is quite staggering IMO

"The Amazon rainforest basin covers approximately seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres)(5,500,000 square kilometers)(5) there are about 49,422 trees per square kilometer in the Amazon(6). Each tree out of the 49,422 trees per square kilometer produces about 260 pounds a year, enough for a family of four, but not all trees produce the same exact amount of oxygen each year. (7)Therefore every square kilometers of trees produce 12,849,720 pounds of oxygen each year. In every square kilometer there are 247.105 acres (8) this means there are about 200 trees per acre in the Amazon rainforest. So per acre in the Amazon rainforest 52,000 pounds of oxygen is produced every year. In the entire Amazon rainforest there are 13,590,775,00 acres. This means in the whole Amazon rainforest there are about 271, 821,000,000 trees!  Can you then believe 7,067,346e13= 7,067,446,000,000,0 pounds of oxygen is produced every year in the Amazon rainforest. To show how big this value is I will put it in to perspective and compare it to the famous central park. Central park covers approximately 3.41 square kilometers.(9) If  central park would also have 49,422 trees per square kilometer it would approximately have in its entire park, 168,529 trees. Central park has about 84,2628 acres. This will mean every acre has about 682 trees. So every acre produces a total amount of 17,732,0 pounds of oxygen each year. Each square kilometer produces 88,660 pounds of oxygen each year, and the entire central park produces 219,083,280 pounds of oxygen each year. This all means it would take central park 322591 years to make as much oxygen as the Amazon makes each year!"

 

[Boat + 1,315]

On 1/29/2020 at 11:09 PM, ronwagn said:

 

Rob, it seems like you are not familiar with the rural areas of America. There are about as many wastelands as there are productive areas.  With effort much of this area could be planted with trees that would do very well in the long term and be useful to mankind. The Arbor Day Society has been preaching this for decades. https://www.arborday.org/ America is not overpopulated it is just that there are too many people jammed together IMHO. We need better land use planning and we need to think smaller when it comes to the size of homes and larger when it comes to lots. Just my opinion. 

You get my vote Ron. Packing people in cities just leads to traffic jams and concrete jungles. Some people complain of the sprawl of Houston but to me thousands of subdivisions is better than downtown skyscrapers housing populations.

Huge apartment buildings are more efficient vrs a yard for every house. Hopefully with trees.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 hour ago, Boat said:

You get my vote Ron. Packing people in cities just leads to traffic jams and concrete jungles. Some people complain of the sprawl of Houston but to me thousands of subdivisions is better than downtown skyscrapers housing populations.

Huge apartment buildings are more efficient vrs a yard for every house. Hopefully with trees.

I think that all people could be better served by better urban and rural planning with preferred options for all. Greenbelts, agricultural zoning, one half to five acre subdivisions etc. Eight homes to an acre is the approximate minimum now and for me that is too close. 

A larger problem is the cost of housing, which is ridiculous. We need totally new ways of mass production.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

11 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

 

A larger problem is the cost of housing, which is ridiculous. We need totally new ways of mass production.

Market forces and greed dictate those prices and much of the price is the land not the building.  It's really hard, and expensive, to make more land.

Where I live a totally worthless house on a small lot in a nice older neighborhood will sell for $300,000+.  People buy two, tear down both and build a fancy large house.

Big problem with sprawl is so much land gets used up by roads.  If we pave everything where do we live?  I could never live in San Francisco - the land of no trees, or grass.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Enthalpic