How can we extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? Where will we put it?

Question

Just wondering what the current thinking is in regards to addressing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Trees would be a wonderful solution. Unfortunately, we are losing forests worldwide, our population is growing at an incredible rate and trees, unfortunately, won't be the entire solution.

Answer 1

The oceans perform a great deal of this extraction through the animal life that lives there. The Seashells and diatoms absorb carbon dioxide and lock it into their shells as Calcium Carbonate or Limestone (once they die and deposit on the ocean floor).

A similar process could be used by us. For example bubbling air through Calcium Hydroxide would cause Calcium Carbonate to form - removing the Carbon Dioxide from the air.

Answer 2

Well smart people. We arent going to be growing more trees than we consume any time soon.. DUH!

We should research technology to extract it cost-efficiently. If such a machine would only require electricity, this will be VERY possible once we get Fusion engines working at about 2020-2022. If those machines are already in production and working to remove hundreds of tons of Carbon dioxide per unit, then by the time the energy needed to cost-effectively run them comes around, we can implement them immediately and on a large scale.

So we have huge buildings that run on electricity, create no waste and bottle up the carbon dioxide, what do we do with it? Pump it into the ground? NO! What in the holy hell are people thinking pumping it underground! Gee lets make a huge bubble under the surface that will later on rise or cause some changes in the groundwater or surrounding environment..

ANYWAYS. We should bottle it up in metal canisters the size of the trailers that haul gasoline, and shoot them out of the atmosphere from a planetary railgun. Fusion powered, just launch it outta here. Toward the sun, or between celestial bodies. Superman the ride does it, You just need a huge magnetic field, and more power. The key to future developments is abundant energy.. everyone remember that.

Stable fusion reactors will change our lifestyles.

Answer 3

Trees (and all plants in general) remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen. The great thing about trees,particularly hardwoods such as Oaks, is that they can store indefinitely the excess carbon that they take in thus removing it permanently from the air we breathe. Since there's no stemming of the demand for fossil fuels, tree-planting is one small solution that could help some. Plant an Oak tree this fall and water it twice a week (until the ground is frozen) :)!

Answer 4

There is a vast natural process which removes Carbon Dioxide from the air.....trees and other plant life take in CO2 and made sugars out of it during photosynthesis.

We humans need not concern ourselves so much with removing the CO2 from the air, instead, we should try to slow the production of new CO2 and stop cutting down the plants that remove it.

Answer 5

I say we reduce emissions rather than attempt to unnaturally extract it from the atmosphere. Like stop driving Hummers! (Yeah you're so cool driving around in a gas guzzler makes you look so hot and manly!...I think not!)

We also need to stop destroying valuable expanses of forest, such as the rainforests. Rainforests play an important role, like other trees, in that they store an enormous amount of carbon dioxide...when we destroy vast expanses of rainforests that releases stored CO2 back into the atmosphere, and reduces the planets storage capacity.

CO2 in and of itself isn't necessarily bad...certain life processes on earth require CO2...however, it is the unnatural overabundant emissions that can be harmful.

Answer 6

Plant more trees, which naturally inhale CO2 during the day and exhale O2, beathable oxygen, during the night. That way, we don't have to put the CO2 anywhere, just let nature take its course.

Of course, we could start saving the Earth a bit by stopping the stripping of tropical rain forests in Brazil, Haiti, and elsehwere.

Answer 7

The most straightforward way extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is by using trees.

Answer 8

grow plants
the carbon is used to make the parts of the plant

we are all carbon based life

so when people eat plants then we get the carbon and what we dont use for our own bodies we breathe out as CO2

thus completing the cycle.

forests store the carbon. if you cut it down and burn it then that carbon goes into the air

Answer 9

Plant a dozen trees.

Answer 10

carbon dioxide dissolves in lime water. So if lots of lime water was created then we could dissolve a lot of carbon dioxide and store it. It would take a LOT of lime water though