realistic ideas in which co2 could be removed from the atmosphere?

Question

i know about conserving energy and all that i want to know if their are any ways that co2 could be removed to counter global warming. any ideas will work theories,future technologies etc

Answer 1

There's 8 that I'm aware of....

HUMAN VOLCANO
Volcanic eruptions emit large quantities of sulphur dioxide which blocks out some of the heat from the sun. Following the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 the average global temperature fell by 0.5°C. One proposal is to simulate natural volcanoes by firing pellets of sulphur into the upper atmosphere where the particles of sulphur will reflect back some of the solar radiation.

SULPHUR BLANKET
Nobel Prize winner Professor Paul Crutzen has put forward a scheme which, like the Human Volcano, uses the principle of sulphur to block out some of the suns rays. Professor Crutzen's idea is to launch rockets into the stratosphere (10 to 50km above Earth's surface) and release one million tons of sulphur. This radical plan could have drawbacks including an increase in acid rain and damage to the ozone layer. At low levels sulphur dioxide is a toxic gas and in the past was emitted in large quantities from factories; ironically the Clean Air Acts which reduced industrial pollution removed much of the cooling sulphur dioxide from out atmosphere.

SOLAR MIRRORS
The US National Academy of Sciences has proposed a scheme that would involve positioning 55,000 gigantic mirrors in space. Each mirror would be 100 square kilometres in area and the effect would be to reflect some of the sun's heat energy back into space. For the time being neither the technology or financial resources exist to enable such a scheme to go ahead.

GLOBAL SUNSHADE
A similar scheme to the space mirrors idea involves placing a giant sunshade in orbit between the sun and Earth. British astronomer Roger Angel has proposed creating such a shade some 1.5 million miles from earth, at the point where gravity from the sun and the earth balance. His sunshade would consist of 16 trillion individual glass discs, each one microscopically thin and weighing just one gram. On board each disc would be a tiny camera, computer and solar sails allowing each disc to align itself so as to refract light from the sun just enough so it misses Earth. Angel proposes using electro magnetically propelled launches, each one delivering a million discs into space.

MOVING PLANET EARTH
Perhaps the most ambitious of all schemes so far proposed is one to actually move planet Earth into a different orbit. It has been estimated that if Earth were 1.5 million miles further from the sun then the reduced heat energy received from the sun would compensate for anthropogenic global warming. Dr Ken Caldiera of Stanford University, an opponent of geoengineering, has calculated that the energy required to move the Earth this far would be the equivalent of 5 quadrillion hydrogen bombs (5,000,000,000,000,000).

CLOUD SEEDING
Cloud seeding isn't a new concept and is one that has been tried with some success as a way of bringing rainfall to dry areas. One variation on this theme is to launch a fleet of self propelled vessels to sail the world's oceans and spray a fine mist of sea water particles into the atmosphere. Marine Stratocumuli clouds form over much of the world's oceans and they're particularly effective at reflecting sunlight back into space. Professors John Latham and Stephen Salter from the UK believe that by increasing the number of such clouds, enough heat from the sun can be reflected back into space to offset global warming.

ARTIFICIAL TREES
A school science project provided the inspiration for Professor Klaus Lackner's concept of using artificial trees to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Air passes through the device and hydrogen sulphide absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, each 'tree' could remove 90,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year. The carbon dioxide would need to be permanently stored and the professor believes this could be achieved by drilling holes thousands of metres deep into porous rock beneath the oceans; the CO2 would be injected into the holes where it would permeate the surrounding rock.

PHYTOPLANKTON
Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants, invisible to the naked eye but visible from space as blooms of green ocean. Like all plants they photosynthesise - taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. Increasing the quantity of phytoplankton will result in more carbon dioxide being absorbed and when the plants die they sink to the ocean floor taking the carbon with them. Professor Ian Jones of Sydney University advocates that by using nitrogen rich urea to enrich parts of the oceans low in phytoplankton their numbers can be significantly increased (note 4).

More info on one of my websites...
http://profend.com/global-warming/pages/combat.html#4

BBC News article about some of the above...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/6298507.stm

BBC trailor for a programme broadcast recently that includes some of the above...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6360000/newsid_6364700/6364731.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm

Watch the programme from Google Video...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=286000425078890061

Answer 2

Some scientists (I can't remember the details, it was in an issue of Scientific American) invented a sort of 'artificial tree' that removed CO2 from the atmosphere. But as I remember they still hadn't worked out all the kinks yet.

All in all though, I think the best way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere is to support programs to reduce CO2 emissions, and plant more trees, which are natural CO2 sinks.

Oh yeah, I'll probably have to edit my answer as all the propaganda starts rolling in. That ridiculous Global Warming Swindle piece of garbage is the single most annoying thing to ever enter the GW debate.

Answer 3

Well, you can certainly take it out of the atmosphere, but it will cost a great deal. The problem is, the CO2 concentration in the atmospher is about 350ppmv. That means that for every million cubic feet of air, there are only 350 cubic feet of CO2. Another way to think of this, in order to remove one ton of CO2, you will need to process 1873 tons of air.

Answer 4

Nope!.. None!
Co2 is not bad!... it's what all living plants and trees breathe! We breathe in oxygen and breathe out Co2 -
Plants and trees breathe in Co2 and give off oxygen.
All this scuttle about Co2 is B.S.! (Bigtime!)
These "Global Warming" fanatics are feeding on our ignorance!
(I wish everyone would get educated so we could STOP this insanity!!!!)

Answer 5

sure, I tell you and you go and claim the prize that Sir Richard Branson is offering. Nope I don't know any.