Where I have a problem with this is that pollution by any other name is still pollution. As much as we are so concerned about global warming due to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, what people still seem incapable of getting through their heads is that the whole reason why carbon is building up in the atmosphere is that the oceans are already saturated with the stuff. Hence the reason why our oceans are dying though acidification.

Basic chemistry lesson: if you take a liquid which is already saturated with CO2 and equalize the proportions of CO2 in the air above it with the liquid you get what is called an equilibrium. Now, remove CO2 from the air above the liquid and the liquid will start to aspirate CO2 in order to maintain that balance. Since water can retain fifty (50) times the amount of CO2 that air does the natural process is for carbon to leach back into the atmosphere and negate any effect CO2 removal from the atmosphere may have had. To get a true reduction you would have to remove billions of tons of CO2 so that the combined CO2 diluted in both the air and the oceans comes down in equal proportions.

Now – here is the rub – where do these supposed very smart people want to put all this CO2? At the bottom of the ocean or in / near the ocean floor where the CO2 has the very real potential of leaching back into the oceans and starting the whole mess all over again. And to top this off, the acidification of the oceans through excessive CO2 is destroying the one natural process the earth has of regulating CO2 rises and falls in the first place. That being the plankton and other ocean going photosynthetic organisms which naturally remove carbon in the first place.

What I don’t get – and maybe its just a bad me day today – but really – how much of a nob does one have to be to not understand that the way to calm runaway CO2 is to trap it in the natural processes which we as the human race have been systematically destroying for thousands of years? We have thousands of square miles of barren deserts that use to harbour forests and grasses. Just look at what the Israelis did to Sharm el-Sheikh and that whole area of the Sinai Peninsula. Barren – wasted – and now one of the most thriving tourist areas in the Middle East under Egyptian management.

We have technology that would allow us to bring water to deserts, transform barren regions into profitable farmland, re-establish ecosystems where none exist, and make productive use of the carbon we choose to capture. Instead, programs such as this continue to promote a love affair with landfills for toxic wastes that simply ship the problem out of our own backyards and leave the mess for someone else to find and clean up.

What we need to do is find a way to break down the CO2 into usable production components rather than pushing the problem off on someone else, even if that someone else isn’t going to be aware of the problem until 2 or 3 thousand years from now.

Its one thing to be forced to use landfills and other environmentally insensitive disposal mechanisms due to the historical infrastructures on which modern society is based. Those will take time to change – and change they will. It is another to go about creating new forms of landfills when the infrastructure supporting those institutions haven’t been built yet.

It is unethical. It is immoral. And it makes me sick to my stomach that our ’scientific elite’ are the ones that are leading the charge on this.  (not that I would have an opinion on the subject or anything).

The question however is what. Fish in a fish tank get the benefits of bubblers that circulate outside air through the water in order to oxygenate it. Would this work for some dead zone areas? I it would be a neat idea but without some type of limitation on nitrogen output I think all this would do is provide oxygen for the alge that are causing the problem in the first place.

I think one of the new terms people are going to start seeing soon is nitrogen capture. Similar to carbon capture it will also probably become a dirty word although with out carbon dioxide and without nitrogen there would be no food production.

So, here is the thing – what if we could creating floating islands of living bio-matter in order to grow crops. The water is saturated with carbon dioxide and nitrogen from water run offs. Farmers can’t seem to keep their chemicals on dry land and the success of their enrichment of algae populations, albeit unintentional, has been so successful that it is likely in part responsible for fish stock depletion. So if all the nutrients that are needed are out at sea then why shouldn’t farming move that direction as well?

Take a 10 acre section of ocean using hexagonal sections of alternating biomass and open water space complete with solar collectors for power, stability and water desalinization (if in fact it is required at all) and bingo – instant carbon-nitrogen filter for dead zones. Now if we could just figure out how to prevent those 100ft rogue waves from mucking up the works. Mind you – with enough of these things it may decrease the formation of those types of waves to begin with – possible? who knows.

With the reduction of sea ice, this opens up the water surfaces to the atmosphere which is already fairly saturated with carbon dioxide. Since water absorbs 50x the amount of carbon dioxide as air, I would suspect that in the short run we should see a gradual reduction in carbon emissions as new waters which may not circulate with the Atlantic and Pacific ocean currents start to accumulate carbon dioxide.

The downside is two fold: 1) Ocean acidity, which is already on the rise, should increase dramatically as the pH levels of those waters currently circulating and those that circulate very little start to equalize. And 2) once these waters saturate, this will be the last big body of ice not land based that prevent the oceans and air to reach an even equilibrium across the globe. In short, once the arctic waters saturate, there will be no holding back carbon dioxide increases from that point forward.

Sure will will have water runoff from Greenland and Antarctica. But in general those waters should be close to saturation anyways being as they are in constant contact with the atmosphere. Kinda makes you wonder if anything is benefiting currently from the carbon dioxide increase. The giant sequoias maybe? – K

So relating this back to yesterday. If one of the principle problems with the health of our oceans is fertilizer runoff, and specifically nitrogen enriched fertilizers which are fairly typical, then removal of nitriates from the water systems will create a healthier environment by allowing phytoplankton levels to drop back to more sustainable levels.

Now obviously there are major issues involved here as we are talking about essentially scrubbing rivers before they exit in the oceans which is a monumental task. It is impractical? Not really – it would represent a mega project of astounding proportions but its not as if projects of such size haven’t been done in the past. It is simply a question of will. Having said that, there are more than likely going to be much cheaper and easier alternatives that sticking what amounts to a giant fish filter into the middle of a major river system (CURSE YOU, AQUASCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!!!!!!)

Regardless – one of the key challenges is the fact that a number of the reactions required to make something like this real are sort of all over the map. So for example,

Air (N₂) + Natural Gas (CH₄) = Anhydrous ammonia (NH₃), and

Carbon dioxide (C0₂) + Anhydrous ammonia (2NH₃) = Urea [CO(NH₂)₂] + Water

but, to get Polyacrylonitrile we need

 Natural Gas (3CH₄) + Ammonia (NH₃) + O₂ = Polyacrylonitrile (C₃H₃N) + Water

This suggest that whatever process is used as part of the intermediate steps is going to be have to be highly controlled and will be highly subject to contamination as our reactive agents have the potential to produce unwanted side effects at different parts of the process. The other thing that I’m thinking of now that I’m looking at this in a bit more detail is the fact that Urea seems to be a common product of ammonia and carbon dioxide. I’m wondering whether the reverse reaction is a simple process or not as that would give us two of our key components in Polyacrylonitrile production. – K

These simple types of reductions however don’t get us the more complicated polymers we need for the production of more useful products. Carbon Fibre is based on a base polymer called Polyacrylonitrile (C₃H₃N). The process involves repeated heating and cooling which expells the hydrogen and nitrogen gasses and leaves us a product which is almost pure carbon. Now the nice thing about the potential to use CO₂ reduction in the process of carbon fibre creation is that the fullout process suggests that the only real consumable beyond CO₂ is nitrogen. I’ll explain why that is of benefit tomorrow but in the meantime here is the general gist of the flow (granted with lots of intermediate steps not worked out).

2CO₂ + 2H₂O ==> CO + CH₄ + O₂

3CH₄ + NH₃ + O₂ ==> C₃H₃N + 2H₂O

10C₃H₃N + Heat ==> 3C₁₀N₂ (Carbon Fibre) + 15H₂ + 2N₂ (approx.)

So – from an environmental standpoint, we now have CO₂ and nitrate reductions with byproducts being carbon monoxide (to be converted to syngas for commercial uses), hydrogen gas (fuel cells for residential purposes) and residual nitrogen gas along with building materials stronger than steel without the need for cutting down a lot of trees. -K