TMR News and Features
Climate change has replaced recycling as THE environmental cause du jour, with the phrase being on everyone’s lips. And, as any automotive enthusiast has noticed, the motor vehicle has copped more than its fair share of criticism due to its almost absolute dependence on fossil fuels.
There’s been plenty of talk of alternative fuels where the output of their use generates no pollutants, but these are mostly all still little more than pipe dreams.
There’s the carbon trading scheme, which in classic western buck-passing is the equivalent of saying “I’ll continue to wreck the environment if you don’t, so, net effect, we can try and keep a lid on pollutants so I don’t actually need to do anything myself, while generating another resource-consuming bureaucracy that doesn’t do anything constructive.”
Generating less of it by not doing things, or doing things more efficiently, is out of the question. Our Prime Minister was pretty much ignored when pushing for the bigger emissions generating nations to cut back.
Basically, there’s nothing in the short-medium term to replace our fossil fuel based power supply, short of politically-unpopular nuclear power that’s actually viable.
So, what are we going to do with all this carbon dioxide? Some scientists, perhaps watching too much Austin Powers, are investigating the possibility of re-using a popular technique for getting rid of regular waste: burying it in lava.
A recent article was published in American publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, hypothesising on the viability of storing carbon in the ocean floor. The undersea basalt created from lava cooling on the ocean floor is uniquely suited for injecting carbon dioxide into for storage—while also not allowing it to escape—and has the facility of reacting with other chemicals to generate non-toxic minerals.
The authors estimate that there is around 780km3 of available space to store CO2 off the coast of northern California and Oregon. This works out to the ability to store 200-250Gt of carbon. Considering that the entire US releases around 1.7Gt of carbon per year, that would provide over 100 years of carbon storage.
This is still in the theoretical stage right now, and so is even more of a pipe dream than affordable electric cars that aren’t death traps.
Given the fact that CO2 emitting power sources aren’t going to go away in a hurry, at least some people are giving proper thought to doing something practical, and working around the problem for the situation we’re currently in.
Filed under 
TMR Poll
Loading ...Columns
Mates
- Automobiles De Luxe
Luxury, Classic and Performance cars covered passionately - Japanese Nostalgic Car
For fans of classic Japanese cars. - Japanese Performance Car News
The latest Japanese Performance Car News. - OzMazda
Australia’s premier Mazda community. - Trollhättan Saab
For the true Saab enthusiast.
There Are 6 Responses So Far.
Click here to jump to the Add Comment box
Get a Gravatar. Click here to find out more!
Comment by Ben Hsu
17 July 2008
I’m no geologist, but any time you shove hundreds of gigatons (I’m assuming that’s what Gt stands for) of anything where it doesn’t belong, whether in the sky or into a volcano, there’s room for unintended negative consequences.
How about a natural solution like planting some more trees? Didn’t someone invent an algae that eats CO2 and produces petrol? Or maybe we should just buckle down an accept our post-apocalyptic fate and start outfitting our dune buggies with spikes.
[Reply to this comment]
Comment by Trump
17 July 2008
This Australian invention will mean the world will no longer need fossil fuels or carbon trading for that matter, it will become obsolete.
http://www.ausra.com
Electricity will be clean, cheap, safe and plentiful.
If only they’d had an IPO.
With motors sucking big current on or 4 wheels, the low down torque available will make V8’s look like vespa’s.
[Reply to this comment]
Comment by Hugo
17 July 2008
“Electricity will be clean, cheap, safe and plentiful.”
*Squee! Squee!*
Flying pigs! Get down, get down!
*Squeeee!*
[Reply to this comment]
Comment by Alan Li
17 July 2008
What’s the efficiency on that AUSRA system like? Most solar systems are frightfully inefficient, and expensive to roll out.
It looks like it also needs a fair amount of surface area to generate power, which means you need to put this stuff out in the middle of the desert and then run your power lines back to developed areas, with all the associated health issues that come with overhead power lines.
You can’t put it in a forest since it’ll starve the plants of light and chopping that down is a no-no. Nor can you put it over arable land since we need food. There’s still no saying what it’ll do to the desert when you remove heat energy from their ecosystems.
It also needs to take water out of the ecosystem to run itself. While its theoretically a closed loop and therefore doesn’t need a fresh water source, you’re still taking a fair volume of water out of the water cycle. That affects your climate, which is what we were trying to avoid.
I’m taking that “clean, cheap, safe and plentiful” with more than just a grain of salt.
[Reply to this comment]
Comment by Zrkouchy Karamanlis
18 July 2008
You may sound like you know what you’re talking about, but in reality your comment is proof of total ignorance of the subject. Trumps comment is for that matter very measured. Ignoranta! Ignorantum! Ignorantus!
[Reply to this comment]
Comment by Trump
18 July 2008
Its all about changing perspectives.
Its not going to satisfy my need for adrenaline like the feeling of 14psi of turbo boost coming on stream, but we’re going to have live with that.
if you read the details a 92square mile area will provide the entire base load for the united states and cost less than the setup of one nuclear power plant. It will run on virtually nil water, its all about steam. With the pressure built up during daylight able to provide energy to turn turbines for 20 hours a day.
there are massive amounts of desert space in the US and Oz to fit such a structure and transporting electricity those distances is virtually free.
i expect more research from you Alan. check this technology out too http://www.permo-drive.com/
[Reply to this comment]
Leave your own comment