This week, Congress has been dropping climate change bills like they're slowly heating up by about one to two degrees a year -- and the world's getting ready to meet in Copenhagen in December at a special summit to figure out a way to deal with all that pesky carbon dioxide that's slowly making Sweden as sweaty as San Antonio.Fortunately, our Asylum research team has already looked into some possible CO2 hiding spots that scientists think will help us save the Earth, at least until we blow it up some other way:
One of the first lessons we all learned as kids –- the best way to get rid of your mistakes is to just bury them where your mom will never find them. Right now lots of projects are planned for taking CO2 from power plant emissions and sticking them right underground where they should stay for quite a while -- at least we hope so. In 1986, a massive natural pocket of carbon dioxide leaked up from where it had been trapped underground, killing thousands of people and livestock in Africa. Yikes!
In the ocean
We can't even imagine how this would work or what kind of crazy ray-gun-like technology would be required, but the idea is to take a whole bunch of CO2 and shoot it deep into the ocean, where it dissolves or turns into these sweet ice-like crystal things that hang out on the ocean floor. Hey boys, why not throw some hops and barley in there to start brewing a lifetime supply of IPA while you're at it?
Under the ocean
Seriously. Um, good luck with that one.
In trees and grass on steroids
Something out there must actually have a use for this carbon crap ... Oh, that's right -- we knew they were called 'greenhouse gases' for a reason. Scientists are looking for species of trees and grasses that can grow super-fast, taking in plenty of that extra CO2 as they go. Word is, Roger Clemens might know a guy who can help with this project.
In your fridge and fuel tank
At least one company is already re-using its carbon dioxide pollution to make and sell baking soda. Other plans are in the works to recycle CO2 into various plastics and fuels. Putting those fuels in your tank and burning them will, of course, create more CO2 though, so it seems that if we really want to stop climate change, we're going to have to fill up our fridges with nothing but baking soda. And why not? Last we checked, it's about all we had in there anyway.
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Friday 02 October
By Frederick
I'm not sure if this is supposed to be comedy or not. The writer has no knowledge of CO2 storage or geoengineering, nor is any of this funny at all.
Everyone acknowledging that we're screwed climate wise would understand that while we have to cut emissions drastically and fast, we also might have to do other things. That's what being screwed means, having to do more than one thing to fix it. If you think emission cuts alone is going to do it, you're not aware of the latest scary science on this.
None of these technologies are of much practical use today, but there is a lot of experimenting being done, and one or two might very well be important in a decade or two.
CO2 under the ocean is not as crazy as you think; the Norwegians have been extracting oil from deep, turbulent sea for decades, and they're good at it. Pumping CO2 into deep, porous rock outside Utsira will keep there for millions of years; the preassure is far to high for it to gassify and escape. If this will ever be done, we don't know, let's not diss the attempts at actually doing something and thinking big. The people working with these things actually wants bug cuts too, they're just scared enough to be working on plan B, C, D and E. And as I said, we'll need more than one.
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