The Answer to Global Warming Might Be Going Up in Smoke

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.seventhgeneration.com/making_difference/newsletter_article.php?article=518&issue=79


Vol. 8, No. 2 - December 2006

The Answer to Global Warming Might Be Going Up in Smoke

When it comes to climate change, it’s clear that a lot of the trouble can be traced to chimneys all around the world that belch out much of the carbon dioxide responsible for rising atmospheric temperatures. But what if the smokestacks that are part of the problem could become part of the solution? That’s the idea behind something called the liquid chimney, a new technology that its creator forecasts will lead to a much cooler world.

The liquid chimney is a unique solution to the problem posed by the CO2-laden exhaust created by coal and natural gas furnaces, which together account for about half of America’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Invented by Fremont, Ohio resident Tom Kiser, a heating and ventilation engineer turned entrepreneur whose biggest claim to fame is his work with William McDonough on the Ford Motor Company’s famed ecologically designed Rouge River Complex, the liquid chimney could be one of the key solutions in the effort to halt climate change. If it works on a commercial scale, it could lead to a dramatic reduction in global CO2 emissions.

Based on a relatively basic decades-old technology, the operation of the liquid chimney is fairly simple. As exhaust from coal or natural gas boilers rises in a smokestack, it passes through a layer of plastic or stainless steel rings where it mixes with treated water. (The exact make-up of the water is a closely guarded secret.). This water pulls out most of the CO2 from the boiler’s emissions and converts it to harmless calcium carbonate. The waste heat extracted during the process is recycled back into the plant to save energy, and the calcium carbonate is recovered for use in everything from construction materials to rebuilding coral reefs.

If you think that sounds too good to be true, you’re not the only skeptic. But Kiser, a scientist whose unique heating system is now saving the Ford Motor Company $50 million a year while keeping 257,000 tons of CO2 out of the air, says it’s no pipe dream.

In fact, he’s about to install his first working model in a new plant being built in California by juice company Pom Wonderful. That device will make sure that emissions from the new facility meet the state’s stringent new CO2 requirements.


FULL story at link.

[Stargazer99]

1. Just wait they will find some way to shut him up

[Massacure]

2. "The exact make-up of the water is a closely guarded secret."

I bet I know the "secret"

Ca(OH)2 + H2O -> (Ca++) + 2(OH-) + H2O
(Ca++) + 2(OH-) + CO2 -> (Ca++) + (CO3--) + H2O
(Ca++) + (CO3--) -> CaCO3

Someone correct me if my chemistry is wrong.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. You are right. And the Ca(OH)2 is MADE FROM CaCO3.

So to make this "magic solution" you have to burn a lot of fossil fuel to run a lime kiln, which decomposes limestone to CaO and CO2:

CaCO3 --> CaO + CO2

lime is quenched, and dissolved in water:

CaO + H2O --> Ca(OH)2

The solution then removes CO2 from air:

Ca(OH)2 + CO2 --> CaCO3 + H2O

So it removes only as much CO2 as was originally dumped into the air to make the CaO in the first place -- PLUS you have burned a lot of fuel to accomplish the net transport of CO2 from one location on the globe to another. (BTW, my equations look a little different from yours, but they are effectively the same.)

(This largely repeats a critique I had posted earlier. Note that this process is being hyped by business and political types, not chemists. The inventor seems to be quite an expert on industrial heating and cooling, but can't see the obvious flaws in the chemical process he is using.)

[JohnWxy]

4. very interesting.