Carbon Capture Ibrahima Bah Apocalypse The apocalypse is

Carbon Capture Ibrahima Bah

Apocalypse • The apocalypse is near. About 4. 5 million years ago, the earth formed. Since that time, the earth has gone through so many changes. The lifeforms that live on this planet, have greatly affected by these changes. Many of them ended up meeting their demise. Think about how dinosaurs got wiped of the face of the planet. That is referred to as the fifth major extinction event to happen in the history of humanity. Although there have been many minor extinctions, there have only been five major extinction events. As of right now, it is believed by many that there is sixth extinction happening. This is causing the extinctions of many plants and animals. A driving factor to this is climate change. Because of the activities of humans, world is now going through a global warming. The sad part about this is if we don't do anything, we will all die. We will become like the dinosaurs. So what do we do? Do we sit back and accept our unavoidable fate or do we stand up and fight this fate? I say we fight. But how do we do that? Well, there is this little-known technology that can save us all. It is called carbon capture.

Why do we need carbon capture technology? • Carbon dioxide is a natural gas that allows sunlight to reach the Earth but prevents some of the sun's heat from radiating back into space, thus warming the planet. This called the greenhouse effect. Usually, it warms the planet enough to sustain life. Without this effect, the Earth would be at an average temperature of negative 22 degrees Fahrenheit. While greenhouse has been necessary for life on this planet, it is now becoming a big problem. Human inventions such as power plants and vehicles, burn fossil fuels that release CO 2 into the air. We have added and continue to add CO 2 to the atmosphere. This causes more heat to be trapped on Earth, thus creating global warming. Between 1970 and 2004, carbon dioxide emissions grew about 80 percent. This is why we need carbon capture technology.

How does carbon capture work? Well, there is two ways this can be done. • Carbon Capture and Storage • Artificial trees

Carbon Capture and Storage • The steps to carbon capture and storage: A. trapping and separating the CO 2 from other gases B. transport the captured CO 2 to a storage location. C. storing the CO 2 deep underground or deep in the ocean.

• Carbon can be taken from a power plant source in three ways: post combustion, precombustion, and oxy fuel combustion. A fossil fuel power plant generates power by burning fossil fuel (coal, oil or natural gas), which generates heat that turns into steam. That steam turns a turbine connected to an electricity generator. We call the process that turns the turbine combustion. A. • With post combustion carbon capture, the CO 2 is grabbed after the fossil fuel is burned. The burning of fossil fuels produces something called flue gase s, which include CO 2, water vapor, sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides. In a post combustion process, CO 2 is separated and captured from the flue gases that result from the combustion of fossil fuel. This process is currently in use to remove CO 2 from natural gas. The biggest benefit to using this process is that it allows us to retrofit older power plants, by adding a "filter" that helps trap the CO 2 as it travels up a chimney or smokestack. This filter is actually a solvent that absorbs carbon dioxide. The solvent can later be heated, which will release water vapor and leave behind a concentrated stream of CO 2. Post combustion carbon capture can prevent 80 to 90 percent of a power plant's carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere. But the post combustion process requires a lot of energy to compress the gas enough for transport.

Cont. • With precombustion carbon capture, CO 2 is trapped before the fossil fuel is burned. That means the CO 2 is trapped before it's diluted by other flue gases. Coal, oil or natural gas is heated in pure oxygen, resulting in a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This mix is then treated in a catalytic converter with steam, which then produces more hyd rogen, along with carbon dioxide. These gases are fed into the bottom of a flask. The gases in the flask will naturally begin to rise, so a chemical called amine is poured into the top. The amine binds with the CO 2, falling to the bottom of the flask. The hydrogen continues rising, up and out of the flask. Next, the amine/CO 2 mixt ure is heated. The CO 2 rises to the top for collection, and the amine drops to the bottom for reuse. The excess hydrogen also can be used for other energy production processes. • Precombustion carbon capture is already in use for natural gas, and provides a much higher concentration of CO 2 than post combustion. The precombustion process is lower in cost, but it's not a retrofit for older power plant generators. As with post combustion, precombustion carbon capture can prevent 80 to 90 percent of a power plant's emissions from entering the atmosphere.

Cont. • With oxy fuel combustion carbon capture, the power plant burns fossil fuel in oxygen. This results in a gas mixture comprising mostly steam and CO 2. The steam and carbon dioxide are separated by cooling and compressing the gas stream. The oxygen required for this technique increases costs, but researchers are developing new techniques in hopes of bringing this cost down. Oxy fuel combustion can prevent 90 percent of a power plant's emissions from entering the atmosphere.

B. • Currently, the way CO 2 is being transported is through pipelines. Usually the pipeline would start at the source of capture and travel all the way to the storage site. In other cases, the CO 2 will travel in the pipeline as far it as it can and then transfer to a tanker or a ship to end its journey. CO 2 can be transported in gaseous, liquid, and solid states. Since using solid CO 2 is not cost effective, it is better for it to be in the gaseous state. The CO 2 has to be clean or free of hydrogen sulfide and dry. If this is not done, it can cause corrosion.

C. • The CO 2 can be stored underground or underwater. The pressure deep underground would cause the CO 2 to act more like liquid than gas. A lot of CO 2 can be stored in small areas because it can seep into the spaces in porous rocks. Underground storage, also called geological sequestration, is already in use by the oil and gas industries to squeeze out extra oil or gas from depleted reservoirs. Oil and gas reservoirs are well suited to store CO 2 as they consist of layers of porous rock formations that have trapped oil and gas for years. Geological sequestration involves injecting CO 2 into underground rock formations below the Earth's surface. These natural reservoirs have overlying rocks that form a seal, keeping the gas contained. As for underwater storage, if the CO 2 is release at depths greater than 11, 482 feet it will compress to a slushy material that will fall to the ocean's floor. Overall, the whole process would cost about 650 million dollars.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Artificial Trees • Another way to capture and remove carbon is to plant more trees. The problem with this is that it is not efficient. A better idea is Artificial Trees. Artificial trees can passively absorb carbon dioxide from the air using leaves that is 1000 times more efficient than real leaves. The leaves will be sheets of papery plastic that are coated in a resin that has sodium carbonate. This will pull CO 2 out of the air and store it as bicarbonate on the leaves. The leaves can then be rinsed in water vapor and dry naturally in the wind, while absorbing more CO 2. A tree like this can remove one ton of CO 2 a day. If the trees are mass produced, it will cost about 200 million dollars.

Artificial Trees

• Right now we are met with two choices. Do we save the world or do we wait for the unavoidable fate to come consume us. If we do nothing, we will be no more. We have to do we can to save this world. The only way this can be done is by using technology. It was humanity’s technological advances that brought us this mess. It is our technological advancement that will save humanity from this mess. All in all, carbon capture technology can and will reverse global warming. Conclusion

Bibliography • Ronca, Debra. “How Carbon Capture Works. ” How. Stuff. Works Science, How. Stuff. Works, 2 Aug. 2019, science. howstuffworks. com/environmental/green science/carbon capture. htm. • Vince, Gaia. “Sucking CO 2 from the Skies with Artificial Trees. ” BBC Future, BBC, 4 Oct. 2012, www. bbc. com/future/article/20121004 fake trees to clean the skies. • “Carbon Capture. ” Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, 11 Apr. 2018, https: //www. c 2 es. org/content/carbon capture/. • Holden, Emily. “Could Carbon Capture Technology Be a Silver Bullet to Stop Climate Change? ” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 Oct. 2018, https: //www. theguardian. com/environment/2018/oct/17/carbon capture technology climate change solutions.