Friday, August 24, 2012

New geoengineering scheme proposes CO2-laden snow factories in Antarctica

A paper published today in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology proposes a new pie-in-the-sky geoengineering scheme to remove the harmless, trace [0.0393%], essential gas CO2 from the atmosphere using 446 deposition factories in Antarctica to produce CO2-laden snow. According to the authors, Antarctica is the ideal location for this scheme due to required temperatures of 133°K, equivalent to -140°C or -220°F. 

CO2 Snow Deposition in Antarctica to Curtail Anthropogenic Global Warming

Ernest Agee,1 Andrea Orton and John Rogers
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Abstract
A scientific plan is presented that proposes the construction of CO2 deposition plants in the Antarctic for removing CO2gas from the Earth's atmosphere. The Antarctic continent offers the best environment on Earth for CO2 deposition at 1 bar of pressure, and temperatures closest to that required for terrestrial air CO2 snow deposition, 133°K. This plan consists of several components, including: (a) air chemistry and CO2 snow deposition, (b) the deposition plant and a closed-loop liquid nitrogen refrigeration cycle, (c) the mass storage landfill, (d) power plant requirements, (e) prevention of dry ice sublimation and (f) disposal (or use) of thermal waste. Calculations demonstrate that this project is worthy of consideration, whereby 446 deposition plants supported by 16 1200-MW wind farms can remove 1 B tons (1012 kg) of CO2 annually (a reduction of 0.5 ppmv), which can be stored in an equivalent “landfill” volume of 2 km x 2 km x 160 m (insulated to prevent dry ice sublimation).
The individual deposition plant, with a 100m x 100m x 100m refrigeration chamber, would produce approximately 0.4m of CO2 snow per day. The solid CO2 would be excavated into a 380m x 380m x 10m insulated landfill, that would allow one year of storage amounting to 0.00224B tons of carbon. Demonstrated success of a prototype system in the Antarctic would be followed by a complete installation of all 446 plants for CO2 snow deposition and storage (amounting to 1B tons annually), with wind farms positioned in favorable coastal regions with katabatic wind currents.

4 comments:

  1. Mad as a box of frogs.

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  2. Not going to happen. They've proposed this before. These types of ideas are equivalent to the conspiracy theory that man can control the weather with HAARP. By removing CO2, all plant life on Earth will die. Do they not know that CO2 is essential for plants? No.

    Do they know windfarms are useless? No. Was this paper peer-reviewed? Probably not.

    So if they store carbon, where's it supposed to go? Evaporate? CO2 doesn't "disappear". That violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, which these people do.

    A paper with no clear conclusions. No different that carbon cap-and-trade. It will not come to pass and will be a failure.

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  3. The solid CO2 would remain in landfill for as long as temperatures remained below its melting point. What happens when, as warmists contend, Antarctic temperatures rise? Of course the katabatic wind energy could be used to refrigerate the Antarctic to keep the CO2 frozen. Any more silly suggestions?

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  4. Can't we just send Al Gore and his cronies a check so they stop spouting the global warming crap? Would almost be worth it!

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