global warming napkin math

[Silurian]

Cure for global warning in 3 easy steps:
1. Invest into atomic energy instead of fossil fuels until you make energy cheep through brute force.
2. Use artificially heated and lit (through atomic power) vertical farms with hydroponics to replace all agriculture.
3. Reforest all farmland.

1. What fuel do you put in the atomic energy plants.
2. What are you going to build the vertical farms out of.

 

[Hrothbern]

I do not think that vertical farming is effective for slowgrowing crops like wheat, corn, soy, seeds that also have long stalks. For the bulk food generating mass starch, proteins and oils.
Substantial shorter stalks means less leaves catching the sun for bio-synthesis, and substantial faster growing would mean more leaves => longer stalks/bigger leaves, for faster energy and bio-synthesis.
Not that much to gain there. The only advantage, that should not be ignored, is that nutrients for growth can be handled in a controlled fashion avoiding the topsoil erosion (The UN FAO states: we have on average only 60 harvests left with the current farming soil techs).

But the easiest way to handle that all is greatly reduce meat consumption, especially from ruminants because of the methane pollution, that will greatly reduce the need for food for lifestock and therefore the need of food farming.
The freed areas can be used for long term CO2 capturing with forests, or higher yielding CO2 capturing with fast growing, long stalk reed. The biomass converted to storable carbon, directly or through burning in powerplants with CO2 exhaust capturing and CO2 underground storage. The only advantage of forests is that investments in the biofuel-CO2 capturing can be postponed for some decades.

Vertical farming, like factories almost, close to urbanised areas, integrated in recycling waste systems for nutrients, will have imo a great future for fast growing vegetables. All kinds of sprouts will have a very high yield. Even with traditional upgrading by cultivation many more possibilities will be there for tubers, berries, fruit.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

1. What fuel do you put in the atomic energy plants.
2. What are you going to build the vertical farms out of.

Uranium.
Concrete.

I do not think that vertical farming is effective for slowgrowing crops like wheat, corn, soy, seeds that also have long stalks. For the bulk food generating mass starch, proteins and oils.
Substantial shorter stalks means less leaves catching the sun for bio-synthesis, and substantial faster growing would mean more leaves => longer stalks/bigger leaves, for faster energy and bio-synthesis.

It's not terribly efficient no. But neither is growing these plants under sunlight. The energy absorption is the same either way. The only difference is who would be putting up with the energy bill. And I am fully aware that the bill would be idiotic. We are talking something like an atomic power plant per farm levels of stupid. But we should be transitioning all our energy production away from oil and toward atomic anyway. So might as well start somewhere and pray to god that we figure out fusion before we run out of Uranium too or Chernobilize too much of the planet trying.

Not that much to gain there. The only advantage, that should not be ignored, is that nutrients for growth can be handled in a controlled fashion avoiding the topsoil erosion (The UN FAO states: we have on average only 60 harvests left with the current farming soil techs).

That too. Although personally I think the real advantage would come from the fact that forests are far more effective at capturing carbon than wheat so if we could reforest all those farmlands we could get a lot more carbon capture done that way. But not starving within 60 harvests is a close second to be sure.

But the easiest way to handle that all is greatly reduce meat consumption, especially from ruminants because of the methane pollution, that will greatly reduce the need for food for lifestock and therefore the need of food farming.
The freed areas can be used for long term CO2 capturing with forests, or higher yielding CO2 capturing with fast growing, long stalk reed. The biomass converted to storable carbon, directly or through burning in powerplants with CO2 exhaust capturing and CO2 underground storage. The only advantage of forests is that investments in the biofuel-CO2 capturing can be postponed for some decades.

How about we find a way to save the planet that does not involve cutting down our living standards? Because let me make this absolutely clear a world where human living standards drop is not worth saving. If I have to go back to the middle ages and only have one light bulb per home and meat only on sundays than I'd rather die.

Vertical farming, like factories almost, close to urbanised areas, integrated in recycling waste systems for nutrients, will have imo a great future for fast growing vegetables. All kinds of sprouts will have a very high yield. Even with traditional upgrading by cultivation many more possibilities will be there for tubers, berries, fruit.

Honestly I think it's inevitable if we want to survive. Unless we want to do horrific radical crimes against humanity like forcing the population to go down, dropping living standards for developed nations or prevent developing nations from reaching said living standards we'll have to move away from horizontal farming for simple lack of space.

 

[Silurian]

Uranium.

Uranium will run out in ten years if it replaced fossil fuels at present electricity usage rates.
Fusion would be the answer, as you noted, but that has been just around the corner for the last fifty years.

Concrete.

Cement production produces about 5% of the CO2 at present. Cement will make up about 20% of the concrete.
You need sand and gravel to mix with the cement so you are going to need a massive amount of quarrying.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Uranium will run out in ten years if it replaced fossil fuels at present electricity usage rates.
Fusion would be the answer, as you noted, but that has been just around the corner for the last fifty years.

I am very curious as to where you got the number from. Mind sharing? I'd like to look into this more my self.

Cement production produces about 5% of the CO2 at present. Cement will make up about 20% of the concrete.
You need sand and gravel to mix with the cement so you are going to need a massive amount of quarrying.

Beats the combined output of our power plants + the combined loss of carbon capture from cutting down forests to feed an ever growing world population. And I ain't saying its a great idea. But like have a better one?

 

[AdrienIer]

People often forget that we don't have an infinite supply of uranium. You know, and all the other problems linked with nuclear energy.

 

[Silurian]

I am very curious as to where you got the number from. Mind sharing? I'd like to look into this more my self.

Some previous posts

From Wiki



http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium&ei=S-x_Tfm7AY2KhQfi57GpBw&usg=AFQjCNFsCgoDwBQ8KIvtmF3SNC161qNBSw

Here is a link to the World Nuclear Association which has some interesting info.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDkQFjAD&url=http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html&ei=2e9_Ta27EsmYhQeb_e2zBw&usg=AFQjCNHLucaWJapiKuNERacZzGHGV13grg

Lets ignore all the world apart from USA and China and assume that the rest of the world does not change its usage.

Lets assume there is no change in electricity production in USA and China.

From World Nuclear Association figures

In 2009 USA produced 796.9 TWh by Nuclear 20.2% of total of 3945TWh
In 2009 China produced 65,7 TWh by Nuclear 1.9% of total of 3457TWh

The optimistic figures in wiki give 270 years supply at current usage rates.

So the rest of the world uses its supply of uranium up over the next 270 years.

If the USA has its own supply of uranium and increase the nuclear share to 100%
then the US will use up its current share in 55 years.


If China and the USA compete for the same supply of uranium. The current combined output is 862.6 TWh by Nuclear 11.7% of total of 7402TWh.
So China and USA combined will run out of uranium in 32 years if they increase to 100% nuclear generation.

This all assumes that the rest of the world does not increase their nuclear share as suggested.

Now if you switch to fast breeder plutonium mox fuel etc it will last 8500 years at current rates or 1005 years at 100% nuclear generation and no increase in output. I do not know how much waste will be produced and how much plutonium will be in the two countries but it may cause some problems.

Now if China and the USA are going to go 100% nuclear it would be reasonable to assume that in the next 1005 years the rest of the world will also go 100% nuclear.
It would also be reasonable to assume that the rest of the world will increase its usage to current US levels over the next 1005 years.

Population of USA 311 million which is 4.5% of world population.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production&ei=CQCATdqRHoPMhAeJgK2ZBw&usg=AFQjCNFJ_TcppcVdABySkJwmnSYe2lBydw

Wiki gives slightly different figures to the figure used above (different years) but this does not matter due to other wild assumptions such as no increase in usage.

In 2008 USA 4110 TWh of world total (2007) 19894 TWh.
If the rest of the world matched US production it would be 91333TWh.

If no increase in nuclear % then Uranium would run out in 59 years.
If all the current nuclear generating countries switched to plutonium then it would last for 1851 years but do you really want plutonium in all these countries.

2009 world generation was 2558 TWh (World Nuclear Association) of 19894 TWh (2007 figures wiki) or 12.9%

So if the rest of the world increased to US electricity production levels and went 100% nuclear.

So if increase to US electricity output and 100% nuclear then Uranium would run out in 8 years.
If all the current nuclear generating countries switched to plutonium then it would last for 238 years but that’s even more countries where you do not really want plutonium building up. You would be really LUCKY not to have lots of nuclear wars.

You cannot look at the USA on its own.



At current usage rates we will run out of nuclear fuel in 270 years.
At current usage rates and breeders we will run out in 8500 years.

Without Breeders

If the USA goes 100% nuclear but does not produce more electricity and does not increase its share of the world supply of uranium it will run out in 55 years.

If the USA and China go 100% nuclear but do not produce more electricity and do not increase their combined share of the world supply of uranium they will run out in 32 years.

If there was an world wide increase in electricity consumption to US levels and production went 100% nuclear we would run out of uranium in 8 years.


With Breeders

If current nuclear producers go 100% nuclear with no overall increase in electricity output and go for breeder reactors you will run out in 1005 years.

If everyone goes 100% nuclear and increase to current US electricity usage we run out in 238 years. But everyone has nuclear weapons.

Beats the combined output of our power plants + the combined loss of carbon capture from cutting down forests to feed an ever growing world population. And I ain't saying its a great idea. But like have a better one?

You may want to read the thread this comes from.

How much would the structure cost.

How long would it last.
Water is not good for buildings.

If you want to up production use market gardening.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Thanks. Will investigate the link.

 

[uppi]

From the first article:
"Carbon Engineering and its investors believe they can make money even before this happens. To start with, revenue would be generated by turning captured CO2 back into fuel (technology to do this already exists). Though that sounds thermodynamically bonkers, such fuel would, from a legal point of view, count as “zero carbon” because making and then using it involves no net release of CO2 into the atmosphere."


So how does this magic happen?

You can "reverse" the process of burning hydrocarbons. Obviously, you are going to need at least as much energy to do that as you gained from burning the fuel. In practice it is not that simple and no process 100% efficient (Edit: Actually it is usually not even 100% efficient in theory, because burning generates entropy which needs to be offset with additional energy), you you would have a net loss of energy in one cycle. If you have a clean source of energy available, this could be used to store and transport that energy and use it in places where you really need to use hydrocarbons. It is almost always going to be more efficient to directly use the energy, if possible.

 

[Hrothbern]

We should also not forget biotechnical approaches to CO2 capturing.
Not only trees and reed, but also bacteria able to convert sunlight and CO2 directly into for example methane like Rhodopseudomonas palustris. IIRC there are also bacteria capable of producing carbon, that can for example be stored on land or as sediment in oceans.

Rhodopseudomonas palustris is a very versatile bacteria, showing what could be achieved with enzyme sets of bacteria in bacteria or thin film technologies only needing CO2 and sunlight.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...erium-turns-carbon-dioxide-into-methane-fuel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodopseudomonas_palustris

Rhodopseudomonas palustris is a rod-shaped gram-negative purple non-sulfur bacterium, notable for its ability to switch between four different modes of metabolism.[2]
R. palustris is found extensively in nature and has been isolated from swine waste lagoons, earthworm droppings, marine coastal sediments and pond water. Although purple non-sulfur bacteria are normally photoheterotrophic, R. palustris can flexibly switch among any of the four modes of metabolism that support life: photoautotrophic, photoheterotrophic, chemoautotrophic and chemoheterotrophic.[2]
R. palustris is usually found as a wad of slimy masses and cultures appear from pale brown to peach-colored. Etymologically, rhodum is a Greek noun meaning rose, pseudes is the Greek adjective for false and monas refers to a unit in Greek. Therefore, Rhodopseudomonas, which implies a unit of false rose, describes the appearance of the bacteria. Palustris is Latin for marshy, and indicates the common habitat of the bacterium.[3]
Efforts are currently being made to understand how this organism adjusts its metabolism in response to environmental changes. The complete genome of the strain Rhodopseudomonas palustris CGA009 was sequenced in 2004 (see list of sequenced bacterial genomes) to get more information about how the bacterium senses environmental changes and regulates its metabolic pathways. It was found that R. palustris can deftly acquire and process various components from its environment, as necessitated by fluctuations in the levels of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and light.

There is currently no time left to tap into the potential of biotechnical approaches. Research takes time and when usefull, upscaling to mass production as well.
However
Planting new forests on a large scale and preventing further massive deforestation are within short term reach and have a big effect in washing out CO2 from the air. Giving us some decades to develop methods to store the wood as carbon, giving us time for sustainable carbon cycles.

 

[El_Machinae]

As an aside, choosing beef over chicken already damages quality of life. It's just someone else's.

Given the velocity of the trajectory, certain types of greenhouse gases are actually causing net wealth and property destruction.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Planting new forests on a large scale and preventing further massive deforestation are within short term reach and have a big effect in washing out CO2 from the air. Giving us some decades to develop methods to store the wood as carbon, giving us time for sustainable carbon cycles.

I already said that, but me being me I said it in one line, which was mostly taken as a thoughtless quip.

If suburbanites lived in burrows and covered their suburban lots with trees the world would not only look a lot better but would also breath easier.

 

[Birdjaguar]

China is planting millions of trees all over the place.

 

[Hrothbern]

Why not launch the CO2 canisters into space?

Time for some number crunching

I use a very simple case, because the numbers will be so staggering high, we can ignore details as the weight of the canister, the energy cost to freeze the CO2 to get it compact and the effect that if we would use a rocket, there is the drag energy of the atmosphere, and much of the energy used is to launch fuel up as well: we need a big first stage to get up a much smaller rocket with fuel, etc.
We ignore all these (big) ineffeciency effect as if we could launch from some supercannon at the himalaya those canisters into space.

Two cases both calculated for a 1 kilo load:
1. we launch a canister to 100 km height and give an additional blast for enough speed that keeps the canister into a 100 km high orbit
The potential energy needed is 967,000 joule, or rougly one million joules. This low amount I will ignore for the rest of the calc.
To stay in orbit at that 100 km, and not fall back, the canister needs to have an orbital speed of of 7.85 km/sec. The kinetic energy needed is 0.5*mv2, with m in kilo and v in m/sec, or 0.5*1*7,850*7,850 = 30,811,250 joules.
This needs roughly 31 million joules.
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/272-launching-satellites

However, we do not want to pile up a scrap yard of CO2 canisters, we do not want after a while a kind of outher atmosphere of CO2 around the Earth, we want to canisters shot to outher space.
To escape the gravitational field of the Earth, we need a speed higher than the escape velocity of the Earth, higher than 11.2 km/sec. By that the cannister, or better that CO2, will stay in our solar system as a gas.
How much energy will that cost ?
The kinetic energy needed is 0.5*mv2, with m in kilo and v in m/sec, or 0.5*1*11,200*11,200 = 62,720,000 joules. This needs 63 million joules.

With as conversion that 1 kWh is 3.6 million joules, that 63 million joules needed converts to 17.5 kWh needed to shoot 1 kilo CO2 to a solar orbit.

As such still meaningless numbers.
Giving some feel for that:
Assuming that 1 kWh would cost 10 cents, it would cost $1.75 per kilo, or $1,750 per ton, about tenfold as the middle cost estimate of $163 per ton to capture CO2 from the air with the devices of OP.
Taking that 5% of US GDP estimate of OP to capture all CO2 produced by the US, it would cost roughly 50% of US GDP to shoot the CO2 to solar orbit.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

For simplification purposes...the moon is lifeless because it is too small to produce sufficient gravity to hold an atmosphere. On the face of it using technology to create a similar condition on Earth by shooting atmosphere into space is inherently flawed.

 

[Hrothbern]

I already said that, but me being me I said it in one line, which was mostly taken as a thoughtless quip.

The more often we repeat this message, the better !!!
It is the low hanging fruit of the moment, and governments not acting upon that simple reality should be confronted with their evasive and unresponsible behaviour.

 

[Hrothbern]

For simplification purposes...the moon is lifeless because it is too small to produce sufficient gravity to hold an atmosphere. On the face of it using technology to create a similar condition on Earth by shooting atmosphere into space is inherently flawed.

AFAIK it is the van Allen Belt that keeps our atmosphere protected from being shot away in space by solar wind particles !
And it is also the size of our Earth, enabling that after so many billions of years of cooling down, the Earth has still a fluid core with Iron that enables our electromagnetic field, the van Allen Belt.
The Moon is solid and has no protecting field.

Now... the counter argument is obviously Venus, that has no van Allen Belts and does have an atmosphere.
But it looks like that Venus has another mechanism for a field that protects the atmosphere. Perhaps not as good, but good enough... and possibly Venus is still outgassing.
From https://astronomy.stackexchange.com...ot-lose-its-atmosphere-without-magnetic-field

There is an interesting article on the magnetosphere of Venus on the ESA Science and Technology site. You can find the article here and it will probably answer your question.
The article states, like you did, that there are planets, like Earth, Mercury, Jupiter and saturn, have magnetic fields interland induced by there iron core. These magnetic fields shield the atmosphere from particles coming from solar winds. It also confirms your statement that Venus lacks this intrinsic magnetosphere to shield its atmosphere from the solar winds.

The interesting thing, however, is that spacecraft observations, like the ones made by ESA's Venus Express, have shown that the ionosphere of Venus direct interaction with the solar winds causes an externally induced magnetic field, which deflects the particles from the solar winds and protects the atmosphere from being blown away from the planet.

However, the article also explains that the Venus magnetosphere is not as protective as earth's magnetosphere. Measurements of the Venus magnetic field show several similarities, such as deflection of the solar winds and the reconnections in the tail of the magnetosphere, causing plasma circulations in the magnetosphere. The differences might explain the fact that some gasses and water are lost from the Venus atmosphere. The magnetic field of Venus is about 10 times smaller as the earth's magnetic field. The shape of the magnetic field is also different. Earth has a more sharp magnetotail facing away from the sun and Venus has a more comet shaped magnetotail. During the reconnections most of the plasma is lost in the atmosphere.

The article explains therefore that although Venus does not have an intrinsic magnetic field, but the interaction of the thick atmosphere with the solar winds causes an externally induced magnetic field, that deflect the particles of the solar winds. The article suggests, however, that the different magnetic field may cause that lighter gasses are not that much protected and therefore are lost into space.

I hope this sufficiently answers the question.

The original article: http://sci.esa.int/venus-express/50246-a-magnetic-surprise-for-venus-express/

Venus is a rarity among planets - a world that does not internally generate a magnetic field. Despite the absence of a large protective magnetosphere, the near-Venus environment does exhibit a number of similarities with planets such as Earth. The latest, surprising, example is the evidence for magnetic reconnection in Venus' induced magnetotail.
Planets which generate magnetic fields in their interiors, such as Earth, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn, are surrounded by invisible magnetospheres. Their magnetic fields deflect the charged particles of the solar wind (electrons and protons) as they stream away from the Sun. This deflection creates a magnetosphere - a protective "bubble" around the planet - which ends in an elongated magnetotail on the lee side of the magnetosphere.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

AFAIK it is the van Allen Belt that keeps our atmosphere protected from being shot away in space by solar wind particles !
And it is also the size of our Earth, enabling that after so many billions of years of cooling down, the Earth has still a fluid core with Iron that enables our electromagnetic field, the van Allen Belt.
The Moon is solid and has no protecting field.

Now... the counter argument is obvious Venus, that has no van Allen Belts and does have an atmosphere.
But it looks like that Venus has another mechanism for a field that protects the atmosphere. Perhaps not as good, but good enough... and possibly Venus is still outgassing.
From https://astronomy.stackexchange.com...ot-lose-its-atmosphere-without-magnetic-field


The original article: http://sci.esa.int/venus-express/50246-a-magnetic-surprise-for-venus-express/

Whatever the mechanism, overcoming it with technology so we can shoot atmosphere into space still seems like a bad idea.

 

[Hrothbern]

Whatever the mechanism, overcoming it with technology so we can shoot atmosphere into space still seems like a bad idea.

In general yes,
I did BTW a rough quantitative check, and when we would do it for some decades to avoid a tipping point in Climate warm up, it would be ignorable considering the amounts of C and O we have.

But I just like to add quantitative arguments as with money, to avoid in some cases endless discussions based on qualitative arguments with logic, that can be so confusing, that people and governments lose reality in the frenzy of the debate.... fake debates so to say.
The idiocy of Brexit is a nice example where a whole and as such mature country lost itself in such a fake debate.
The biggest technical issue that there is no defined way to add up opposing arguments in a generally accepted way.
I know Law is an exception to that, but even there adding up opposing arguments is not easy and needs specialists

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In general yes,
I did BTW a rough quantitative check, and when we would do it for some decades to avoid a tipping point in Climate warm up, it would be ignorable considering the amounts of C and O we have.

But I just like to add quantitative arguments as with money, to avoid in some cases endless discussions based on qualitative arguments with logic, that can be so confusing, that people and governments lose reality in the frenzy of the debate.... fake debates so to say.
The idiocy of Brexit is a nice example where a whole and as such mature country lost itself in such a fake debate.
The biggest technical issue that there is no defined way to add up opposing arguments in a generally accepted way.
I know Law is an exception to that, but even there adding up opposing arguments is not easy and needs specialists

Difference in style. I like to go to a "to what end" level of result, because people tend to just snooze through a quantitative argument. I think most people will get that no matter how much C and O we might have, using "shoot it into space and be rid of it" as a solution is inherently flawed. Of course, I have proposed shooting them all into the sun as a solution to the proliferation of stupid people, but that was hyperbole...at least nominally.