Taking Co2 back out of the Atmosphere for use

[Science266677]

Hi

 

I have been researching carbon emissions and have found that they stay in the atmosphere for 70-130 years. Would it be possible to remove this carbon for re use? Has anyone been looking into it?

 

I get all sorts of obscure sites when I try and search for this on the internet mostly returning me back to how past ice ages have ocurred - for example -

 

The Moronic Inferno

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A26089743

 

My question is would it be theoretically possible to take back the carbon present in the atmosphere resident for ages to reuse it as a fuel?

 

Thanks

Rob

[SkepticLance]

Answer yes.

It's called firewood.

 

Seriously, we remove CO2 when we grow plants. We have no better way to remove CO2, and those plants can readily be turned into fuel in many forms.

[iNow]

Definitely plant more plants. You can also turn them into biochar and bury it your garden for some amazing crop yields. So, you grow plants, which take carbon out the atmosphere, then char those plants at low temps and low oxygen to create porous charcoal, you smash that up and put it in your dirt, and you grow better plants and repeat the process. It's called "Terra Preta" and was first discovered in the Amazon.

 

 

http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/555prostagland.html

The atmospheric CO2 has increased from 280 ppm in 1750 to 367 ppm in 1999 and today's CO2 concentrations have not been exceeded during the past 420,000 years (IPCC, 2001). The release or sequestration of carbon in soils is therefore of prime importance.

 

Soil organic carbon is an important pool of carbon in the global biogeochemical cycle. The total amount of organic carbon in soils is estimated to be 2011 Gt C, which constitutes about 82% of the global organic carbon in terrestrial ecosystems... <read more at link above>

 

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IO9hjqWtHKYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=History+and+origin+of+Terra+Preta+soils+and+future+perspectives&ots=2uRho-m-dn&sig=hQibGXUWYgCrqTN2Q5CG6iIdF7E