CO2 Storage. The answer to our CO2 emissions problems? The Morecambe Bay Gas Field would be great for that, once depleted. http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/climateChange/CCS/home.html
I'm all for anything that would help and this certainly would. The issues that people publish about CCS like how do we know it will stay down there are perfectly valid, however it will stay there for a long time, and people forget that all it would take is a bit of bad luck with a rising Magma plume in the wrong place and we could have the Siberian Traps extinction event all over again, that volcanic system continued venting for something like a million years and it welled up underneath a huge carbon store (coal) that burned and released even more CO2. Same thing could happen anywhere, anytime, the one thing that is absolutely certain is that one day something cosmic will wipe us (as a species) out but it will only do that if we only have one planet, and if we don't successfully get past the energy and resource problems of the couple of hundred years, then one planet is all we will ever have. CCS and storing glassifed spent nuclear waste underground are both good ideas that could buy us a few million years breathing space. People think oh well if mankind gets wiped out the rest of life on earth could still go on in some form, and that if we have all these underground terrors we could be hurting future generations of other life, however if there were a mass extinction on earth now, we will only have about 200 million or so of life friendly habitable years left, barely enough for the kind of diversity we have now to develop in new form all over again. The sun will last a long time, billions of years, but within a much shorter timespan we will be on the inside of the edge of the Goldilocks zone and Earth will become like Venus far too hot for life, so personally I would rate the long term chances of all those cuddly animals a lot better if we were able to get off this rock and do something about finding another one or two or three of them, right now all our eggs are in one basket and we are the only species in history that has any chance of changing that.
So it gets the thumbs up. Good. Seems like if managed well it might be a get out of jail card.... CO2 is not uncommonly used to inject into existing producing wells to enhance hydrocarbon production. And gas storage projects arent new to the UK as there has been one in Cheshire ( Northwich ) for example. http://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/stublach-gas-storage-project/
I am also in favour of this method as well :- http://www.technologyreview.com/news/508051/a-cheap-trick-enables-energy-efficient-carbon-capture/
Not sure it's a get out of jail card but it is certainly one of them, the problem is that most of these technologies are coming to the party late.
More wake up calls.... Indonesia: Rising sea 'threatens 1,500 islands' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-26337723
I stumbled across this at work today as my focus was the Oak Field in the Southern North Sea, off the east coast of England. http://pg.geoscienceworld.org/content/15/4/291.abstract " Conversely, the fact that CO2 was evidently sealed over geological time-scales shows the significance and long-lived (c. 50 Ma) effectiveness of the Zechstein Supergroup evaporite canopy in retaining CO2, as well as larger and less mobile methane (CH4) molecules. The results thus highlight the potential that traps containing LSF reservoirs have as future sites for CO2 storage (carbon sequestration) in the SNS."
... talking of gas In an attempt to understand the extent of cow flatulence on global warming, scientists in Argentina are strapping plastic bags to the backs of cows to capture their emissions. http://phys.org/news135003243.html
Yes, I believe the Argies are leading the way on this form of energy. It is my belief that it won't belong before we see a couple of cows in the rear compartment of each wide bodied jet. Along with some bales of hay of course.
Yes John, I agree banging a few cows in the back of the jet might just do the business. I think all of us here at British Filipino are responsible for a little emission or two, it would be interesting to know how many flights to the Philippines we have notched up between us, or does that not count? Airplanes have three major problems: they are inefficient, they are big, and they run on toxic fuels. A fully laden A380, according to its’ engine maker Rolls Royce, uses as much energy as 3,500 family cars, equivalent to six cars for each passenger. 1 Long haul flights produce on average twice as much emissions per mile traveled per passenger than cars and short haul flights produce three times as much. Aviation is currently responsible for an estimated 5% of global climate pollution. We are all going to fly more and more in the future, you only have to look at the airports we all use now, we have seen them all grow and grow over the years so much. I did see a electric car charger the other day at a services on the M40, wonder when we are going to see a truly practical electric car? Every little helps.
Yeah, I am a pragmatist, I'm not really any kind of environmentalist, I just want the best result for our species and the planet. Uranium and Plutonium based reactors are not really the way forward though, we should be researching and developing Thorium based reactors apart from anything else we have oodles of fuel for them compared to the mining requirements for Uranium. For base load nuclear is great, I would still have wind farms and solar and wave power and some gas but I would be going Thorium for nuclear and grid base load.
I think that is all the best environmentalists are. Wanting the best for the species and the planet including their kids and themselves.
Sometime or other it will all kick in. Interestingly there is a zero emissions category in the Isle of Man TT races each year now. They do over 100 mph around the TT circuit.
You can visulaise, when the fuel gage gets low, the co pilot making his way to the rear and giving daisy a swift kick and then whispering in her ear, "Come on Daisy you can do better than that!"
