Re: Carbon sequestration

Robert Seago wrote:
In article <47c6dc75$0$8412$db0fefd9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6186@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Reducing the amount of carbon released into the environment is todays standard method of ameliorating carbon-caused global warming, but what methods are available to the average joe or housewife (do we still have housewives?) for sequestering the carbon already in the environment?



The first and easiest method is NOT to recycle plastic, in fact to use as much plastic as possible and ensure it goes into landfill.

This is counter to everyday "wisdom" and may need some explanation. World production of oil has peaked, or is just about to (opinions differ), but in general the amount of oil which will be produced in future is fixed, and in practice I don't think there is anything we can do to change it.

So turn the oil into plastic rather than burn it, and then bury it where it will hopefully last for several hundred years. This isn't really storing up a problem for the future - in a few hundred years the carbon crunch will be solved, one way or another.

Hmm, it takes a fair lot of energy to make it to start with.

This can be a bit misleading. About 1/4 of the oil/gas feedstock used to make polyethylene is used for energy, the rest ends up as polyethylene. About half the plastic made is polyethylene. Other plastics are similar.


It also does
break down rather quicker than that, albeit mostly when exposed to
sunlight.

It can last pretty good in anaerobic landfill though.

BTW, I'd also like to see all biodegradeable and oxo-degradeable plastics banned (except for medical uses).


My next suggestion is to NOT recycle biowaste (biodegradeable waste). This is more problematic, and depends partly on the participation of the waste companies. If biowaste is recycled it gets composted and part of the carbon is released to the atmosphere immediately, the compost is then used and the rest of the carbon is released over about two or three years.

However if biowaste is put into landfill it takes about 15 years to be released - and if it is put into landfill in plastic bags, and if the landfill company doesn't break up the bags, it stays there much longer. If you have ever seen a landfill dump, the operators break up the plastic bags - this is in order to get the waste to ferment quicker, it isn't about helping the environment.

The more you bury it the more that it degrades to methane. While this can
be and is qgathered and burnt, it still releases CO2

Yep - but well-buried biowaste, when the methane is burned, produces less than half the CO2 released if it's aerobically composted and the compost is used (or placed in shallow landfill with the bags broken up).

Also the carbon stays out of the atmosphere longer if it's well-buried.

That's 12 or more extra years worth of carbon tied up where it doesn't hurt anything.
Up to.

A better solution would be to seal biowaste in deep mines, and just
leave it there, where in due time it will turn into coal or even oil -
but this is something the average Joe/housewife has no immediate control
of.



Recycling plastic and biowaste is about money - there's brass in that muck - but it's NOT about the environment. If there was no money involved, we wouldn't do it.

For energy reasons it is still good to recycle glass and metals however.


-- Peter Fairbrother

(Yes, I'm entirely serious. Yes, I'm a chemist.)

Better not to produce the plastic anyway.

If the oil isn't used to make plastic it will just be burned in cars. Better to make it into plastic and sequester the carbon in it in landfill.

I don't think we can realistically expect to do much about oil production, for geopolitical reasons - but we can do something about whether the oil is gets into the air as CO2 or not.

then maybe we can do something politically about coal (which is far more threatening than oil)

-- Peter Fairbrother
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Carbon sequestration
    ... landfill. ... I think that the idea of using the oil to make packaging materials, ... that carbon will seap out in one form or another anyway. ... Arguably use of oil is a more worthwhile use of it than than throwaway ...
    (uk.environment.conservation)
  • Re: Low cost hydrogen today
    ... anywhere in North America - with ZERO carbon footprint!! ... conventional oil production this facility restores Indonesia to oil ... delivery of 2,940 tons per day to each facility. ... production of enough hydrogen to provide for ALL the world's energy needs. ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: OT- Global warming or not
    ... Veggie is last years inspired CO2 vs CO2 sequestered millions of ... One changes the balance of the carbon in the atmosphere ... Veggie oil normally has an higher boiling point than diesel ...
    (rec.scuba)
  • Re: OT- Global warming or not
    ... veggie oil is carbon neutral, but can't the same be said of all ... It's the difference between sequestered carbon and recent carbon. ... Using carbon sequesterd 50 years ago does change the CO2 balance with a ... Veggie oil normally has an higher boiling point than diesel ...
    (rec.scuba)
  • Re: OT: Price gouging?
    ... > that its statement isn't particularly profound: if there's methane to ... > b) It doesn't have any carbon in it either. ... > hydrogen in water. ... > later manifesting itself in the forms of coal, oil and diamonds. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)