Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Science is our friend

This from the Beeb (love saying that) the other day: US scientists have proposed an idea to pump excess carbon dioxide gas to the bottom of the sea, where it will be stored in huge quantities literally forever.

Carbon dioxide gas is, of course, one of the main culprits in global warming.

There have been suggestions of using geologic formations to store CO2 before, in depleted gas fields, or injecting it directly into sea water. This new suggestion is potentially better in that the gas will be transformed, by the high pressure and low temperature of the deep water, into a liquid heavier than the surrounding water. This makes the storage of the liquefied gas much safer.

This sounds like a GREAT idea, and definitely one to keep an eye on.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Doesn't seem to solve the real problem, though.

PHE said...

Weeelllll, it kinda does. If CO2 in the atmosphere is causing global warming, and we have a way to remove huge amounts of it from the atmosphere (and store it pretty much forever), doesn't that reduce the problem significantly, or even solve it?

What am I missing?