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I ran into this today, and it set my mind spinning.
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-rivers-ca … years.html
Quote:
Rivers help lock carbon from fires into oceans for thousands of years
First however before I go there, I will say I have adopted some of Dr. Robert Zubrins thinking.
He does not like Anti-Humanism, which I suppose indicates that he prefers Humanism.
I can conditionally agree. However I am not an atheist. I am also not saying that he is. That is beside the point.
There are people of the Mouth and Ear. Many of them are Anti-Humanists. They seek to use words to enslave the populations with their words. They often victimize the Hand and Eye people as well.
But their uses can also be good. Religion and schooling can be good. The internet can be good, but you may notice that just now I am using my hands and eyes. These things can "Program" people for good. There is not enough time in a human life for an individual as an island to experimentally discover everything about reality. Plus many such experiments would harm the individual.
Dr. Zubrin seems to say that he believes resources are created from materials.
The above setup is so that I can warn you that many of the Anti-Humanists, will not like the resources that I will talk about. Well so what they live off of us as if we were their food.
So, here it is:
I have been thinking about a situation where a basin at the bottom of the ocean could be filled with brine. The hope is that in certain places, the brine would largely stay put, provided strong ocean currents were not abutting it.
The Black sea is somewhat like that. An oxygenated surface water layer, and below that an anoxic deeps of water. This I believe is because the lower layer is saltier. So, for the black sea you might try to sequester organic matter, and so sequester Carbon. There is little to no Oxygen in the lower waters, it might stay put for a while. Human waste might be an item that could be put there.
But I am really interested in something more advanced, in my opinion.
Most people live on the coasts of oceans, and if they are alive, they poop. They also generate some organic matter which may end up in a land fill. But I really don't want to dump these organic materials into a brine pool at the bottom of the ocean, so.....
Pyrolysis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrolysis
Solar driven Pyrolysis actually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power
Perhaps a solar power tower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_tower
It would be a lot of trouble to pump feces and organic waste to the top. I don't think it would work well at all.
But you could circulate a gas without Oxygen through it and then use that hot air to induce pyrolysis on organic waste, to generate two things.
1) A burnable gas from which you might generate power. The hope is to extract the Hydrogen bearing molecules, and to not extract the Carbon.
2) Carbon as in the first posting in this post, to simulate a forest fire, to generate Carbon to sequester.
Many places already desalinate sea water, and it is likely that more of it will be done in the future, so a heavier than sea water brine is already generated, and disposed of into the oceans.
This should flow like a river to lower places by gravitation.
The Carbon generated could be ground into a powder, perhaps, and included into those flows.
One of my concerns with this is that nutrients might be lost. But during the flowing at least some of the soluble nutrients should leach out.
I will also make the point that the Carbon dumped into the oceans would be sterile, so as to cut off any flow of pathogens, into the oceans.
Here is that article again:
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-rivers-ca … years.html
Quote:
Rivers help lock carbon from fires into oceans for thousands of years
Thousands of years....
But I intend that the basin that it eventually ends in will be anoxic. It is already hard for microbes to digest the Carbon, depriving them of Oxygen may help make the Carbon stay put.
I also hope to generate hydro-electric power from the flow of this briny slurry containing finely ground Carbon. The best location might be the continental shelfs.
Granted, not an easy place to work, but oil rigs go deep and so some of the technology exists already. Plus we are "Space Age", we could try for this as well.
I suppose at the continental shelf, I would want tubes that go all the way down. Problem could be that they might plug up if the slurry isn't exercised with a turbulent flow. So that would need solving.
The slurry would be heavier than sea water due to the extra salt and the powder of Carbon. The drop off would be very deep in some cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
It might not be imposable to use under water dams, but then some Carbon would likely settle out. So, that might not work so well.
Perhaps a river of the slurry would flow down the slope of the impoundment, and the flow would be released from the bottom of the dam.
That might help.
And so the flow would eventually collect into an undersea basin, with the intention of sequestering the Carbon in a basin filled with brine.
And this would disrupt that environment. Most likely the creatures that formerly lived there would not continue to do so. It would become at most, a microbial ecology.
However, if we are to believe the global warming notion, many ecologies will be disrupted by that global warming. So, it would be a trade off. Triage if you like. I suppose before doing such a thing you might want to evaluate how unique the creatures are in that basin. If they also exist in other basins, then I would be more inclined to do it.
Another thing is that by getting power from this process, less of other types of ecology disrupting activities could be done.
I will admit, developing the technology to do this would be a real challenge.
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So, you end up with a rather large brine basin under the ocean. If you wanted to store heat in it you could up to a point.
And so it would be a long term source of heat, located quite close to waters above it that would be cold, maybe only a few degrees above, freezing. So, energy could be extracted from that on demand, as long as your equipment worked.
Where does the heat come from? Well you are not getting that. At least not today.
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Mariculture:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/ag … ariculture
I believe I read on that topic in a book by Dr. Robert Zubrin. "The case for space".
I can accept the injection of useful iron in certain locations of the ocean where it is not going to upset a unique ecology.
More food for humans, more sequestered Carbon.
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As for waste from animal feedlots, well, if it is at the interior of the continents, that may be harder. Still something to think about.
Done.
Last edited by Void (2020-06-03 10:23:11)
Is it possible that the root of political science claims is to produce white collar jobs for people who paid for an education and do not want a real job?
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For Void re Carbon Capture topic ....
This topic was languishing without a reply to help set it in motion ...
I logged in just now to see what we might have that relates to Carbon Capture ...
Your topic here deserves support and I hope other members will help to move it along.
However, the post I'm here to drop off is so different from your new topic here, I will have to start a new one.
It is a shame to start a new topic, when an existing one comes ** so ** close.
However, the new topic will only be about carbon capture, and not about making power.
Again, best wishes for success with this topic!
(th)
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For Void re topic about Carbon Capture....
The Internet served up a (to me surprising) example of human enterprise to capture carbon and ** sell ** it for a profit.
The story at the link below is about capture of the exhaust from a heavy ocean freightor. What I like about the story is that ** someone ** figured out that carbon from CO2 is already cleaned up and ready for high precision applications that require pure carbon.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/chi … 00188.html
The Cool Down
Chinese port achieves first-of-its-kind transfer that could revolutionize maritime trade: 'Significantly cheaper than land transport'
Rick Kazmer
Sun, August 17, 2025 at 10:30 AM EDT
3 min read
Chinese port achieves first-of-its-kind transfer that could revolutionize maritime trade: 'Significantly cheaper than land transport'A cargo transfer milestone has been reached at a Chinese port. But the haul wasn't typical products, but rather, air pollution. It's a fascinating achievement that could provide shipping with another revenue stream, astoundingly from ship exhaust, according to the Maritime Executive.
Evergreen's 152,300-deadweight-ton Ever Top was retrofitted last year with tech to capture carbon dioxide from exhaust, lassoing nearly 80% of emissions with a nearly 100% purity. The stored fumes can then be sold at a profit for other uses, per ME and Interesting Engineering.
The transfer happened on June 19 at the Port of Shanghai thanks to special onboard equipment, including absorption and regeneration modules, compression refrigeration, and storage. Past efforts that used trucks and tanks to offload the CO2 were more complicated. In Shanghai, a barge vessel called De Jin parked alongside Ever Top to complete the move, heralded by Chinese officials as a novel effort, ME reported.
Advertisement"For scaled operations, ship-to-ship transfer offers clear advantages. It is significantly cheaper than land transport and much more efficient," project manager Du Mingsai said in IE's story.
The retrofit cost about $10 million. But reports indicated the expense can be more than recouped within two years by selling the stored carbon. ME said that experts estimated ships could make an amazing $8 million a year from selling tailpipe gases.
Drax Group, a United Kingdom renewable energy company not involved with the project, listed numerous product uses for captured carbon. Sneakers, furniture, cleaner concrete, and even alternative metal were some of the ones noted.
The push to capture carbon comes from efforts within the sector to reduce heat-trapping air pollution that is warming the atmosphere and oceans. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that around 91% of the excess heat produced on Earth is absorbed by the oceans. Coral bleaching, sea level rise, and other problems are linked to the warming waters, per the agency.
AdvertisementThe European Federation for Transport and Environment reported that the sector produces about 3% of global CO2 fumes, which is expected to grow by half by 2050 if "stringent measures are not taken."
New-age sails, kites, and hydrogen fuel are some other options being harnessed to cut the use of dirty energy in maritime travel. But ME reported that the Ever Top retrofit costs less than a new vessel or an alternative fuel conversion.
"From onboard storage to mobile transfer and reuse, the milestone gives Shanghai a full-chain ecosystem for maritime carbon capture. It also positions the city as a global model for cutting shipping emissions and sets a new benchmark for the industry's green transition," IE's Neetika Walter wrote.
Do you worry about air pollution in your town?
In case anyone reads the actual article, I have omitted the debby downer stuff the reporter or his editor felt needed to be included.
(th)_
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The most promising method for carbon removal seems to be getting kelp to grow more in the ocean.
Kelp which then sinks to the ocean floor and just stays there.
There was a company which planned on doing this but they failed somehow.
Don't think the failure has anything to do with the planned method though.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/ca … on-removal
Discussing it with chatgpt it seemed like this was a dollars-on-the-penny way of removing carbon.
Last edited by offtherock (2025-08-18 11:49:37)
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For offtherock re #4...
Thank you for reminding us of kelp ... Please keep watch for further news if it comes along. The idea of capturing CO2 at the point of generation is of interest for folks like kbd512 who are advocates of materials made of pure carbon.
Kelp can (apparently) help to take carbon out of circularization, but if you ever get chance to read some of the thousands or posts by kbd512, you'll find that he has identified a great number of applications for pure carbon.
(th)
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