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Re: Carbon Dioxide 

By: DigSpace in ALEA | Recommend this post (3)
Thu, 06 Dec 12 11:03 PM | 79 view(s)
Boardmark this board | The Trust Matrix 		Msg. 12128 of 54959
(This msg. is a reply to 12125 by Cactus Flower)
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I assume the following:
That we have taken some 300m years of solar fixed carbon and released it in its most oxidized form, as atmospheric CO2. Apparently the properties of atmospheric CO2 dramatically alter the heat balance of Earth. Less heat leaves, more heat stays. So we are warmer. The result is climate change. I argue that we accept climate change. It has advantages and disadvantages. We leverage the advantages and mitigate the disadvantages. We move some of our houses away from the shoreline. We observe that many plants grow more vigorously. We grow those plants.
Historically we have been rather reliant on the considerable energy afforded by long chain hydrocarbons and their considerable utility for not just energy, but for materials.
Cellulose is a long chain polymer, but not a naked hydrocarbon, it is a carbohydrate.
Consider for example polypropylene. Not an oxygen to be found:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileRazzolypropylene_tacticity.svg
The thermal mechanical properties of polypropylene are very attractive. And the can be replace by carbohydrates.
Consider for example polylactic acid products that are generated by the fermentation of sugars, the products of harvesting plants (this would be human use of CO2 as you asked for) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid
Consider for example the various polyesters represented by the polyhydroxyalkanoate group, again, produced by the fermentation of simple sugars, readily available by the harvesting of plants (this would be human use of CO2 as you asked for):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhydroxyalkanoates
we are not talking about a rare product, look at these images, as much as 95% of the cell weight of these bugs will be converted to very high value long chain polyesters … it is simply staggering … and what do we feed them?, switchgrass, weeds, or sawdust.
http://www.unil.ch/webdav/site/dbmv/shared/Poiriers/Fig1.jpg
Indeed, we can simply have the plant “be” a polyester, please scroll to figure 4 of this (I know, it is very technical, so just go to figure 4)
http://www.esf.edu/chemistry/nomura/lab/publications/pdf/02%20Appl%20Microbiol%20Biotechnol.pdf
All of the things we do, all of the things we use, we can do and use by just growing plants. Fuel production, currently dominated by ethanol from yeast is rapidly moving towards longer chain molecules (greater value) using all sort sof bugs including Clostridium, and friends. While butanol is the firs step, longer chain alkanes are well within demonstrated technology. I may be constrained on that on some of that, so I am afraid I can’t be of much more help, or at least certainly not in a public forum.
So,we come back to carbon balance …. That becomes the issue … have we released too much carbon?
I believe that we will require this higher carbon flux, there are just too many of us and we have been now long reliant on free long chain hydrocarbons. In the absence of those I believe we will need to grow lots and lots of stuff to replace our fixed carbon needs (again fixed in a chemistry sense) .
It is not yesterday. We are not a few monkeys wandering fro trees. We are us. We require carbon, lots of it, and while we leveraged the 300m yrs of fossile fuels, I do not argue that we just walk away. We can fix carbon. We can modify it. We can make polyesters and we can make fuels. We require this flux, this carbon flux, we just must adjust (I felt like Jesse Jackson for a second).
We need this carbon, we need to cycle it, and we may well need to amend out perception of shorelines and temperatures. But we need to leave the box of the old CO2 levels and enter the world of the new CO2 levels, we do not need to push the current levels to the old levels, we need to se the new levels as the food for our sophisticated efforts going forward. We need to train our young people to leverage this truth as opposed to run from it.
Much is made of renewable ethanol production … but overlooked is that has actually hit a peak …. One can only put about 10% ethanol into gas, and pretty much all gas in the US has 10% ethanol. IT is a staggering success. If one was to back out the numbers on this and turn it into supertankers and so on, the US has achieved significant self-reliance as a consequence of the ethanol subsidy efforts. The technology has come miles, it is solid, entrenched, and has no ongoing dependence on subsidy. This ability is extant, and in practice. God bless heavy federal investment. It is nothing but a huge success story.
But ethanol sucks. I, in a bit of a mood, once asserted in a reasonably public venue that ethanol was the least valuable molecule out there that folks pursued. That is the truth. It is C2. The value of a molecule is based on its carbon chain length. C2 is one step away from CO2. Fucking worthless. We need, we know we need, the long chain carbons, and for technical reasons preferably hydrocarbons (when we are talking fuel).
And yes, we can do that, we have these tools.
In an area that enjoys almost no economic support, we have long chain fuels:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/03/beller-20120315.html?utm_campaign=Feed:+greencarcongress/TrBK+(Green+Car+Congress)&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner

Alea, I could carry on, but you get my drift.


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The above is a reply to the following message:
Re: Carbon Dioxide
By: Cactus Flower in ALEA
Thu, 06 Dec 12 9:36 PM 		Msg. 12125 of 54959

Can you roll out a bit more on this paragraph:

"But we do not need to find anything. We have all of these things. Right here, right now, we have have the tools, we have the technology, we have the manpower, we have the budget, we don't need to find anything (unless accountants determine that the total carbon amount is more than we need or want, in which case we bury some of it) I doubt that. There are 7 billion of us. And there are other animals too, Animals we like. I am inclined to think that this surplus of carbon is not a surplus at all, we just need to insert ourselves, harness, and better realize the benefits."

I get that we have trees, plants, plankton etc.

But I'd like to hear a digspace account of the human tools that we have which use CO2. My knowledge is fairly rudimentary.

I'm inclined to think about positive solutions as restrictions haven't worked too well overall. eg see the US and China.

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