I've actually thought about sequestering CO2 as a possibility. I thought about either burying trees in old coal mines, or as dry ice.
Storage in trees is only a short-term fix. Eventually, the tree will be broken back down into CO2, whether by rotting in the forest, or, if converted into an end product such as houses or paper, by burning or some other destructive process. We are talking about a long term problem, so building a wooden house which may even last for 1000 years without catching fire or falling to termites, or whatever, but, eventually, back to CO2.
If the trees are stored in sealed mines, maybe the CO2 will remain sequestered. Maybe even turned back to coal in a million years. (Or, maybe build up gases from rot, blowing the whole damn thing up. That's why I'm in medicine and not organic chemistry.)
CO2 can be extracted from the air; we sometimes have cylinders with C02 mixes. Pump it down an oil well? Will it stay there? Can we make a bacteria which turns it into O2 and H2O? Can we be genetically engineered to use CO2? GMO humans, crossed with the chlorophyll gene; little green people from earth.
The trouble with this is that it will require lots of energy, which will have to be produced in a non-polluting manner, so we had better start addressing renewables.
Melviln Calvin@GoBears.org |
