Guest no schist Sherlock by David Middleton

Stanford News Service
MAY 20, 2019
Stanford researchers outline vision for profitable climate change solution

A seemingly counterintuitive approach – converting one greenhouse gas into another – holds promise for returning the atmosphere to pre-industrial concentrations of methane, a powerful driver of global warming.

BY ROB JORDAN
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

A relatively simple process could help turn the tide of climate change while also turning a healthy profit. That’s one of the hopeful visions outlined in a new Stanford-led paper that highlights a seemingly counterintuitive solution: converting one greenhouse gas into another.

The study, published in Nature Sustainability on May 20, describes a potential process for converting the extremely potent greenhouse gas methane into carbon dioxide, which is a much less potent driver of global warming. The idea of intentionally releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere may seem surprising, but the authors argue that swapping methane for carbon dioxide is a significant net benefit for the climate.

“If perfected, this technology could return the atmosphere to pre-industrial concentrations of methane and other gases,” said lead author Rob Jackson, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor in Earth System Science in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.

[…]

Stanford News Service

My first thought was: No schist Sherlock.

My second thought was: The technology is already fairly well perfected.

But then, I read more of the Stanford News Service article…

Most scenarios for removing carbon dioxide typically assume hundreds of billions of tons removed over decades and do not restore the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels. In contrast, methane concentrations could be restored to pre-industrial levels by removing about 3.2 billion tons of the gas from the atmosphere and converting it into an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to a few months of global industrial emissions, according to the researchers. If successful, the approach would eliminate approximately one-sixth of all causes of global warming to date.

Methane is challenging to capture from air because its concentration is so low. However, the authors point out that zeolite, a crystalline material that consists primarily of aluminum, silicon and oxygen, could act essentially as a sponge to soak up methane.

Stanford News Service

They’re referring to the insane idea of converting atmospheric methane directly into carbon dioxide, without using it as a fuel.

The whole process might take the form of a giant contraption with electric fans forcing air through tumbling chambers or reactors full of powdered or pelletized zeolites and other catalysts. The trapped methane could then be heated to form and release carbon dioxide, the authors suggest.

Stanford News Service

They even insist that this will be “profitable”… WTF?

A profitable future
The process of converting methane to carbon dioxide could be profitable with a price on carbon emissions or an appropriate policy. If market prices for carbon offsets rise to $500 or more per ton this century, as predicted by most relevant assessment models, each ton of methane removed from the atmosphere could be worth more than $12,000.

A zeolite array about the size of a football field could generate millions of dollars a year in income while removing harmful methane from the air. In principle, the researchers argue that the approach of converting a more harmful greenhouse gas to one that’s less potent could also apply to other greenhouse gases.

Stanford News Service

How the frack could there be “market prices for carbon offsets”? There is no market for “carbon offsets.” The only way that there could be a market for “carbon offsets,” would be if governments imposed such a “market” through a carbon tax… Which really isn’t a market.

This is what a $500/ton tax on carbon dioxide emissions would do to commonly used fuel prices.

A tripling or quadrupling of energy prices through a $500/ton carbon dioxide tax would ostensibly make it “profitable” to suck CH₄ out of the air turn it into CO₂ and bury it in the ground. That’s just fracking mental.