Can CO2 Be Removed From the Atomshpere?

Question

Using green energy (wind, solar, hydro, etc) for power, is it possible to construct srubbers around the world to pull CO2 out of the atomsphere and put it back underground in abandoned wells in order to help lower this greenhouse gas?

Answer 1

If you took out the CO2 you would also need to take out O2. By doing this you would be killing all of the plants and animals on the planet.

Answer 2

It probably is, and unless I am mistaken there has been a couple of TV shows on over the last few months about doing just what you are talking about.

Well not exactly what you are saying but along the same lines, I guess it doesn't matter what they do because it is going to continue to build up because of the way we have set our world up around fossil fuels etc.

It is a shame because I think we have gone past the point where we could have done something about the problem, now we can only try to minimise the damage that has been done.

I can remember back when I was young that summers were always really hot 30 + Celsius all the time, and winter was always bloody cold 9 Celsius, it would rain like crazy when it rained and it would be vry clear when it was a clear sunny day, now even on the best of clear days yu can see the horrible haze in the air.

Answer 3

Plants and trees are natural scrubbers. They bust up CO2 into O2 (and a litttle O3) for the atmoshere and absorb the carbon to build cells.

Forestation is a great way to scrub the atmosphere.

I think some of this also happens with rain. 2/3 of the sun's energy causes evaporation of sea water which rains back down onto the ocean -- which appears useless but cleans the air and may put some CO2 in solution in the ocean, where it can get "cracked" into its components by tiny lifeforms.

Answer 4

Introduce electric motor vehicles, electric engines for factories. Pass laws that we use only solar and a safe form of nuclear energy, plant large forests in each nation and have each nation sponsor ten miles of dredging in the Sahara for the purpose of putting an international waterway in the middle of the Sahara.
If Africa's dust storms are reduced, the world's rainfall will increase, and after these measures we would have a better filtering system.
Boaz.

Answer 5

It can slowly be used back into the Earth through planting a hell of allot of trees (which take in and store CO2 in them). After 100's of 1000's of years the forrest we would plant would be covered in soil and convert into oil.
But according to scientests we would have to stop burning all fossile fules and chopping down trees today and wait 100 years befor the earth even started to repare itself.

Answer 6

You're talking about totally wiping out all the living things on this planet. CO2, and O2 are both procuded by all the living things on this planet. Look at Mars, and our Moon, they're both totally dead. That's not what we want happenning, yes? Or am I wrong?

Answer 7

Wouldn't that be nice? No, we have no technology that will do that.

However, there are some rigs in the North Sea that are using a technology that captures the emissions before they hit the air and puts them in containers under the ocean.

Answer 8

Trees are nature's CO2 scrubbers, and the ocean, which is becoming more acidic as a result.

Answer 9

This would be a waste of time. even if we could do that it would be pale in comparison to the CO2 scrubbing made by plants.

Answer 10

yes, but the question is "How much" can we grab?". We are generating too much for the planet to keep up.