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bio-char and sequestering carbon

I think you might be surprised Ben - there is an awful lot of concrete and it can be designed to really suck up the C02 over time.
The guy in the article is not kidding about the sequestering.

Concrete is perhaps tho only substance that gets into the same scale of billions of tons as the C02 emissions - and it's something we already do.
I'd do some research.

In addition the kilns are useful for getting rid of dioxins and can reduce land fill dramatically.

It's adapting what we already do to at least curb another issue our activities have resulted in.
 
I still don't comprehend how concrete can 'suck-up' more CO2 than the point wherein the CaO becomes Ca(CO3)2.

What am I missing?
 
quarky said:
have you seen this?http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110227/ap_on_bi_ge/us_growing_fuel

(didn't want to start a new thread; slightly off-topic)

Be this wooish?
Click to expand...

"wooish" probably isn't the word I'd use, "misleading," and "counter-productive," are a few that might be appropo. however.

Key sentence:

"The company envisions building facilities near power plants and consuming their waste carbon dioxide, so their cyanobacteria can reduce carbon emissions while they're at it."


not green, not a solution to keeping sequestered CO2 out of, or removing previously sequestered CO2 from our, atmosphere. Just an expensive, Rube Goldbergian method of trying to perpetuate and expand the use of fossil fuels in the production of transportation transport fuels.
 
quarky said:
I still don't comprehend how concrete can 'suck-up' more CO2 than the point wherein the CaO becomes Ca(CO3)2.

What am I missing?
Click to expand...

I'm curious as well, especially as my figures indicate that cement production accounts for nearly 10% of CO2 emissions. Of course, considerable amounts of this is due to the fossil-fuelled clinker kilns, and pulverizer mills. But even if we are only talking about CaO to Ca(CO3)2 process, only about 50-60% of this CO2 is picked back up by thoroughly aged and cured concrete.

http://wbcsdcement.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=174&Itemid=232

I'm sure there are some types of concrete that perform much better than others, but this specialty mix makes up a miniscule fraction of the global cement industry.

CO2 uptake during the concrete life cycle
http://www.nordicinnovation.net/_img/03018_c02_uptake_in_concrete_executive_summary.pdf

...The project results show that the net CO2 uptake during a realistic lifetime is dependent on the type of the concrete, its application and the percentage of concrete rubble generated and the recycling rate and use of the concrete rubble. In countries with the most favourable recycling practice it is realistic to assume that 86 % of the concrete is carbonated after 100 years, taking up approximately 57 % of the CO2 emitted during the calcining process. Examples of impact of CO2 uptake in life cycle screenings show that 70-80 % of the potential CO2 uptake has been absorbed within 100 years lifetime after demolition and crushing. This corresponds to 20-35 % of the total CO2 emissions in the life cycle of the analysed concrete products...
Click to expand...
 
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macdoc said:
This is an emerging field

http://www.materia.nl/563.0.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=202&tx_ttnews[backPid]=534&cHash=e921cf6825

But a key to greening the process is to NOT use fossil fuel to make the stuff in the first place

http://www.cement.org/tech/carbon_sink.asp
Click to expand...

While the olivine mix is very interesting

the cement.org site seems somewhat disingenuous and deceptive in its wording and implications, especially in conjunction with the study I linked above regarding CO2 uptake over the lifetime of cement.
 
As to expected as the industry is responsible for 5% of 02 emissions all on it's own it needs positive spin to offset that.

Nonetheless there is scale here to address some mitigation of atmospheric carbon increase in the production to EOL sequence.
 
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