Anything CO2 Reactive?

I know there are a lot of VERY intelligent people on these boards. Do you people think there could be a manmade compound that is CO2 Reactive? I know some forms of plankton take CO2 out of the air and make calcium carbonate. But is there any compound that can be produced on a massive scale that can be implemented around the world to react with excess CO2? (other than plants and rainforests)

Why not remove catylitic converters? :rolleyes: There are compounds which react with CO2.

EDIT: I also have to say that this would be a terrible idea considering the volume of the atmosphere and the percent composition by mass of the atmosphere (CO2

This isnt very scientific, but uuhhh.....
we could plant more trees !

Wasnt that easy ?

Only problem is that the human race are consumor whores, and we use paper
like no tommorow. Any other suggestions to fix the mistakes we made ?

You could have solar powered liquifiers that use molecular sieves to capture CO2 out of the air, then liquify it and inject the liquid CO2 into deep ocean trenches, convert it to clathrates.

But yeah, there are lots of reactions that capture CO2. Lithium hydroxide, calcium hydroxide, calcium oxide etc. You can also use molecular sieves or membrane separators.

The ocean is the world's largest CO2 scrubber. After that we're into X.X% in comparison.

You can trap CO2 in what is called "CO2 scrubbers" which is basically trapping it in limestone. This is the most stable form of solid CO2 capture as you can take it to a landfield and bury it and as long as acids don't come in contact with the limestone, the CO2 will remain entrained. (You can ward against this by further protecting the limestone in cement.)

After that there is CO2 sequestration with the most favorable method being pumping it into depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs (oil wells) and trapping it downhole long-term. Other proposed methods of sequestering CO2 include salt mines (big issues surrounding making this a feasible option) and in the ocean (which would basically be mankind deciding to bite the big one because we have no idea how the pumped CO2 would compositionally break-down and react with the chemical composition of the ocean. And since the ocean is our biggest CO2 scrubber - we really don't want to screw it up! Plus - we don't the salinity going hay-wire even more and driving us to oblivion.)

Hope some of this helps you.

We have already screwed it up. I dont think there is anything we can do to come back from this.

Originally posted by R3KR
This isnt very scientific, but uuhhh.....
we could plant more trees !

Wasnt that easy ?

Only problem is that the human race are consumor whores, and we use paper
like no tommorow. Any other suggestions to fix the mistakes we made ?

Tree planting as a solution to global warming is a bit more complicated than that. To maximize carbon scrubbing forests need to be managed and harvested at the proper time. Unmanaged, unharvested old growth store large quantities of carbon, but do not remove any additional carbon from the atmosphere. By definition, old growth forests are carbon neutral (growth = decay) and in late senescence, old growth forests are net carbon producers (decay > growth). There are many reasons to preserve old growth forests -- biodiversity, spiritual, recreational, etc. Global warming is not one of them.

Currently, about 40% of the paper produced in the U.S. is recycled. Investments in research and technology may raise that to about 60% and no one seriously expects more than that upper limit. Paper fibers have a lifespan, only so many times they can be recycled, and there are some uses for which recycled paper does not work. Other plant fibers may reduce the need for wood pulp (hemp, kenaf, flax, etc) but they will not completely eliminate the need for wood pulp. They will be only a small portion of our fiber use at best. Large scale commercial production of those fibers will produce their own set of environmental problems too.

Forget that old urban legend about the timber industry (or petrochemical industry, depending on which version you prefer) getting hemp banned. That is nothing but false propaganda from the environmental and illegal drug industries. In reality, the American Paper and Pulp Association (a trade group) are the biggest funding source of recycling and alternative fiber research.