Do we have the technology at this time to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

Question

and inject it into mines or some other storage modality?

Trees and Nature are not the answers I was looking for, as those things do not even begin to be able to counteract the sheer volume of CO2 released into the atmosphere in the 20th century. Again, do we have said technology such that we can make a substantial impact on reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere now?

Answer 1

There is no practical way to do this artificially right now. Research is underway. Plants can sequester some CO2, but the problem is that it is not permanent. When the plant dies and decays the CO2 is released again. Most efforts are looking at sequestration are focused on CO2 as it is generated at centralized power plants before it is released into the atmosphere. At that point the CO2 is concentrated and so it would be much more economical and energy efficient. Because the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is quite low and because there is so much of it, the problem of separating it from air is very big and very hard.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

There is research in carbon sequestration by compressing air and piping it underwater, releasing the pressure quickly (obviously it's at a really high pressure when released). The gases become dissolved in the seawater before the bubbles reach the surface; the additional oxygen is good for sealife, and the CO2 reacts with the water to form carbonic acid. So the pH of the ocean would go down a tiny bit per ton of CO2 dissolved in this way, but they figure the ocean's a big place. Of course, changing the pH by any detectable degree can have big effects on sealife, so they have to study what impact it will have if they do this on a large scale. The other thing is that you're trying to exchange the entire volume of the atmosphere, which is somewhat of a big feat. The best answer to global warming is to stop producing greenhouse gases to begin with, and let nature deal with the rest.

Answer 4

about 2 years back, scientist where trying to use diatoms to sequester CO2. Diatoms are single cell microorganisms much like plankton that uptake CO2 and builds a shell out of the CO2. Once the diatoms get to a certain size, they get to heavy to float any more so they sink to the bottom of the ocean. There the CO2 will be trapped. The only thing these diatoms need to grow is an addition supply of iron. Large tankers of soluble iron solutions is needed to go out into the ocean and spread across the water to induce the diatoms to grow. This however was tried in a large scale but i haven't heard any news about it as of yet.

Answer 5

Just quit clearing land and the trees will extract the carbon dioxide. Also, rain drives it out, thats why after a good rain the sky is much more clear because the pollution has been temporarily washed out.

Answer 6

Yes, there are synthetic trees that remove carbon dioxide from the air. Check out this article!

Answer 7

Yes, we have the technology. Where do you think they get the fizz in soft drinks from? But to do it on a massive scale like you are talking about would require massive amounts of energy, and where will we get that from?

Answer 8

Nature takes care of that. Rain drives it down to the sea or ground and microbes absorb it, die and turn into sandstone.

Answer 9

Yeah, it's called a tree planter.

Answer 10

No we don't