| json_metadata | "{"app":"musing/1.1","appTags":["science","technology","life"],"appCategory":"science","appTitle":"Can we adequately address climate change by removing CO2 from the atmosphere using technology?","appBody":"<p>The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has numerically given the following scenarios:-</p>\n<ol>\n <li> In order to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, only about 1100 gigatonnes of CO2 may be released into the atmosphere by 2050 </li>\n <li> In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, only just under 400 gigatonnes of CO2 may be emitted worldwide </li>\n</ol>\n<p>The current state is - <strong>42 gigatonnes of CO2 are added every year. </strong></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><strong>The most optimistic scenario could still be achieved by means of immediate and drastic measures in all sectors (transport, agriculture, construction, energy, etc.). In the less optimistic scenarios, the global community will have to take additional measures beginning in 2030 or by 2050 at the latest and have to implement \"negative emissions\" by removing large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere and store them permanently in order to balance the carbon budget.</strong> One example of negative emissions is large-scale forestation as forests bind CO2 in wood as long as it is not later used as fuel. But CO2 could also be removed from the atmosphere and bound using artificial photosynthesis.</p>\n<p>In artificial photosynthesis, photo-electrochemical systems made of semiconductor materials and oxides can utilise about nineteen per cent of the light to split water, and thus can realize part of the photosynthesis process. But the prerequisite is the durable modules which can use solar energy to convert atmospheric CO2 into other compounds. so even if we assume efficiency of nineteen per cent and fifty per cent system losses, around 30,000 square-kilometres of modules could be sufficient to extract 10 gigatonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere annually.</p>\n<p>So imagine when these kinds of modules could be placed in non-agricultural regions in large numbers, say in deserts, for example. <strong>They require hardly any water to operate, and their efficiency does not suffer when exposed to intense solar radiation. The extracted CO2 could be converted to formic acid, alcohol or oxalate and combined with other compounds (such as calcium chloride) to form solid minerals that can be stored or even used in the form of plastic as a building material.</strong></p>","appDepth":2,"appParentPermlink":"p3qv6844q","appParentAuthor":"dominion01","musingAppId":"aU2p3C3a8N","musingAppVersion":"1.1","musingPostType":"answer"}" |
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