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Planet Saved! CO2 be Gone.

Let me get this straight - they want to use a street lamp to cause algae to absorb CO2? Why a street lamp? How efficient is the light at lighting after the algae absorbs what they need? Will the intensely green light work as a street light? Is it better to use a light for this rather than sunlight? He shows them working in the snow; somehow, I don't think this will fly unless the lamp is also providing heat, which would make it less efficient as lighting; we're just getting to the point where we can ban a lot of the heat production in lighting. And where is the carbon going? If into more algae, who does the cleaning and refurbishment that will be required, and at what cost?

Where are the numbers, and to how many decimal places?
 
shadron said:
And where is the carbon going? If into more algae, who does the cleaning and refurbishment that will be required, and at what cost?
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Giggle. I bet that, should these things get going, that most of the algae winds up at an incinerator to be burned, or buried in a land fill for slow decay.
 
shadron said:
Giggle. I bet that, should these things get going, that most of the algae winds up at an incinerator to be burned, or buried in a land fill for slow decay.
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That's my question too. What happens to the CO2 after it turns into the cell walls of the algae?
 
Anyone who has tried to culture phytoplankton for a fish tank knows that this is not the easiest task. It's not difficult, to be sure, but it's also far from foolproof, and these cultures are going to crash not infrequently, as well as needing continuous topping off with treated water.

Where is the power coming from to drive the lamp? It doesn't look like an effective streetlight at all; and the lamp must be fairly strong. I have a hard time believing that the CO2 captured is going to compensate for the CO2 released in making, maintaining, and powering this thing.

A better bet would be growing forests, burning them into charcoal (which generates a fair amount of power in and of itself,) then dumping the charcoal into an empty coal mine. It would be cheaper, more reliable, and would require relatively little maintenance. It's still not going to be worth doing, of course, but it's better than this hare brained scheme.
 
It takes a little digging to get the details, but the idea isn't totally woo.

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-c...-co2-eating-light-that-runs-on-algae-2012055/

"Cajella’s lamps consist of algae-filled water along with a light and battery system. During the day the algae produce energy from sunlight that is then stored in the batteries. Then at night the energy is used to power the light."

It is, in effect a solar-powered night light, with the algae taking the place of the solar cells.

And, yes, the devil is in the details, particularly maintenance and carbon recycling.
 
So the World is not saved after all? Pity. :covereyes

Wait. We could scrape the used algae of the walls of the light. Dry it. Package it and sell in "Health" "Food" stores as some sort of quantum powered cure all? With bit of thought, I think this project can be saved.

:th:
 
jasonpatterson said:
Anyone who has tried to culture phytoplankton for a fish tank knows that this is not the easiest task. It's not difficult, to be sure, but it's also far from foolproof, and these cultures are going to crash not infrequently, as well as needing continuous topping off with treated water.

Where is the power coming from to drive the lamp? It doesn't look like an effective streetlight at all; and the lamp must be fairly strong. I have a hard time believing that the CO2 captured is going to compensate for the CO2 released in making, maintaining, and powering this thing.

A better bet would be growing forests, burning them into charcoal (which generates a fair amount of power in and of itself,) then dumping the charcoal into an empty coal mine. It would be cheaper, more reliable, and would require relatively little maintenance. It's still not going to be worth doing, of course, but it's better than this hare brained scheme.
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I wrote a little story about that once. It's a bit of a satire, really.

But think about the potential of these streetlights. Governments ratchet up the taxes on their people, buy millions of these crap lights, and shove them on people just like CFLs. And everywhere people go, they are hypnotized by these nice soft green lights. I'm getting all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about this wonderful future. Does the guy that made them get filthy rich? Maybe he can save more than one planet. GAIA will thank him.

It's so very wonderful.

Thank you for posting this.

I know the planet will be okay now.

;)
 
Cynics.

The coolest thing about failed energy scenarios is realizing that maybe you didn't really need that street lamp.
 
shadron said:
Giggle. I bet that, should these things get going, that most of the algae winds up at an incinerator to be burned, or buried in a land fill for slow decay.
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That is one advantage a tree has over algae. It may not be as rapid in its carbon absorbtion but since the lifespan of the tree is so much longer the carbon is sequestered for a lot longer.
 
jasonpatterson said:
A better bet would be growing forests, burning them into charcoal (which generates a fair amount of power in and of itself,) then dumping the charcoal into an empty coal mine. It would be cheaper, more reliable, and would require relatively little maintenance. It's still not going to be worth doing, of course, but it's better than this hare brained scheme.
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A better bet is to use the charcoal as a soil amendment. It has such a large surface area and is so absorbent that it helps keep nutrients in the soil and reduce the need for fertilizers. There are still no biological pathways aimed at metabolizing elemental carbon, so even buried in soil it basically lasts forever. From what I've read this was done in some places in central america and was responsible for some of the long term farming success some of those cultures enjoyed. The soils in the rainforest are so poor and sandy that nutrients percolate right through, but with a layer of charcoal that's greatly reduced, and more crops can be grown. Google 'terra preta' for more on that idea.
 
Andrew Wiggin said:
A better bet is to use the charcoal as a soil amendment. It has such a large surface area and is so absorbent that it helps keep nutrients in the soil and reduce the need for fertilizers. There are still no biological pathways aimed at metabolizing elemental carbon, so even buried in soil it basically lasts forever. From what I've read this was done in some places in central america and was responsible for some of the long term farming success some of those cultures enjoyed. The soils in the rainforest are so poor and sandy that nutrients percolate right through, but with a layer of charcoal that's greatly reduced, and more crops can be grown. Google 'terra preta' for more on that idea.
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This is such a good idea I'm stunned that I haven't heard of it.

I guess my only question is how do you get the carbon from the atmosphere so it's in the elemental form instead of compounds that recycle through the system? You could grow stuff, carbonize it and put that in the soil as you describe... but that would take energy, right? And you wouldn't want to get that energy from carbon...

I still smell a good idea here.
 
marplots said:
This is such a good idea I'm stunned that I haven't heard of it.

I guess my only question is how do you get the carbon from the atmosphere so it's in the elemental form instead of compounds that recycle through the system? You could grow stuff, carbonize it and put that in the soil as you describe... but that would take energy, right? And you wouldn't want to get that energy from carbon...

I still smell a good idea here.
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You do often end up heating the wood with burning carbon, but even so as long as you end up with some charcoal to bury you've come out ahead in sequestering carbon. Even burning the wood completely would be carbon neutral.

the simplest way to make charcoal is just to set a pile of wood on fire, let it get good and hot, then pile dirt on it to keep the air away and keep the heat in until it finishes carbonizing. If you want to get more technical, you can heat it in a sealed tank and collect the various pyrolysis products, such as methanol (wood alcohol, since it's 'distilled' from wood), creosote, carbon monoxide, and such for use. In that case you'd be heating the tank with an outside fuel source, and you'd be sequestering a slightly smaller amount of carbon, assuming you were burning the carbon monoxide, creosote, etc. from the tank, or some propane, or such to provide the heat.

If this sort of idea excites you, there are lots of other cool things you can do along the same lines. In sweden during world war II for example, some folks hooked wood gasification plants to cars and busses to keep them running during gasoline shortages. You can run the output of a wood gasifier, which is carbon monoxide and hydrogen for the most part, through a catalyst bed and reform it into liquid hydrocarbons. Some good search terms to start would be 'wood gas', 'water gas', 'water gas shift reaction', and 'Fischer–Tropsch synthesis'.
 
Andrew Wiggin said:
You do often end up heating the wood with burning carbon, but even so as long as you end up with some charcoal to bury you've come out ahead in sequestering carbon. Even burning the wood completely would be carbon neutral.

the simplest way to make charcoal is just to set a pile of wood on fire, let it get good and hot, then pile dirt on it to keep the air away and keep the heat in until it finishes carbonizing. If you want to get more technical, you can heat it in a sealed tank and collect the various pyrolysis products, such as methanol (wood alcohol, since it's 'distilled' from wood), creosote, carbon monoxide, and such for use. In that case you'd be heating the tank with an outside fuel source, and you'd be sequestering a slightly smaller amount of carbon, assuming you were burning the carbon monoxide, creosote, etc. from the tank, or some propane, or such to provide the heat.

If this sort of idea excites you, there are lots of other cool things you can do along the same lines. In sweden during world war II for example, some folks hooked wood gasification plants to cars and busses to keep them running during gasoline shortages. You can run the output of a wood gasifier, which is carbon monoxide and hydrogen for the most part, through a catalyst bed and reform it into liquid hydrocarbons. Some good search terms to start would be 'wood gas', 'water gas', 'water gas shift reaction', and 'Fischer–Tropsch synthesis'.
Click to expand...

I do have some experience making charcoal using the mostly sealed (venting for water vapor and methane/methanol), heated container set up. But I was interested in producing a purer form than this method requires.

I am also a bit leery about by products, such as benzene and other goodies. You mentioned creosote, a little bit of a nasty we wouldn't want to be burying where we intended to grow crops. (Or would we? I don't really know what plants like and don't like.)

Still, the idea at least makes sense from a carbon flow standpoint. The next task would be to decide which crop would give the most bang for the buck -- the quickest sequestration along with ease in the follow up process. I'm guessing trees are a bad choice here.

One further consideration. When we remove the plants to burn them, don't we also remove much-needed, non-carbon nutrients at the same time? We wouldn't want our carbon soil to need supplements if we could help it. And remember, we can't just say "use manure" or something -- it has to be a closed system for this to work. Shifting resources around from elsewhere in a "watch the pea" fashion (apart from carbon) won't do.

I get that most minerals would still be in our carbon soil, but I don't think anything complex (like bound phosphates) would. Then there's pH to consider.

You mentioned that someone had already done this?
 
The standard method of removing CO2 is to get it from coal powered power stations. They produce massive amounts of CO2. If that is removed from the smoke stacks and buried then the rate of CO2 entering the atmosphere will be reduced significantly. The main two issues with this are
1. Takes a lot of energy to do this.
2. Must be buried somewhere where it will not re enter the atmosphere.
 
Andrew Wiggin said:
.....In sweden during world war II for example, some folks hooked wood gasification plants to cars and busses to keep them running during gasoline shortages. You can run the output of a wood gasifier, which is carbon monoxide and hydrogen for the most part, through a catalyst bed and reform it into liquid hydrocarbons. Some good search terms to start would be 'wood gas', 'water gas', 'water gas shift reaction', and 'Fischer–Tropsch synthesis'.
Click to expand...
fyi, those vehicles ran TERRIBLE. The reason is that the combustion process if ran to completion has only about 1/10 the energy output as gasoline.

And the reforming of biomass into methanol is never going to be practical because it's so much simpler just to use the same process to reform methane into methanol. Like, just hook the reformer up to a natural gas well. Far smarter.
 
There are several bio-char stoves on the market. They provide heat, and create bio-char, which is added to soil. As mentioned, the huge surface area of the mostly inert charcoal provides habitat for fungi and soil micro-organisms.

One theory for the 'mini ice-age' was the destruction of supposed vast civilizations in the Amazon, when the Europeans came to conquer. Their agricultural fields went back to forest, sequestering so much carbon in a short time, that the atmosphere lost its greenhouse effect.

The discovery of bio-char in the Amazon gave rise to this hypothesis.
 
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