Research Factory Turns CO2 into Building Materials

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
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An Australian consortium of a university, a chemical company and an ecological group have developed a way of transforming raw CO2 industrial waste into usable and useful building products.

"So this would enable, not just us as a company, but all the coal fired power stations around the world to be retrofitted so they can capture their CO2 off-take.
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If anyone knows their history, this is exactly how the propane industry was started. :cool:
 
You watch, we'll run out of CO2 and will have to burn some buildings heh.
 
Won't work. Politically anyway. The green movement has amassed so much political power that the idea of something possibly slaying their cash cow boogeyman is anathema to them. They'll require endless environmental studies and will, most assuredly, find some way to convince people that the data says that doing this form of recycling is more damaging to the environment than current scrubbers. While the informed know that CO2 was never the most dangerous (think methane, sulfur compounds and such) it is CO2 that won out to gain pressure over the public simply because of the sheer numbers. It's the same reason they went after cars so vehemently instead of power stations even though power stations are the primary producers of CO2. Call me loony, call me out of touch, whatever, I'll stand by that green groups are going to analyze this under a microscope to find anything and everything they can use to prevent the erosion of their power. They need CO2 even more than industry needs the power that produces it.
 
blitzkommando said:
Call me loony, call me out of touch, whatever, I'll stand by that green groups are going to analyze this under a microscope to find anything and everything they can use to prevent the erosion of their power. They need CO2 even more than industry needs the power that produces it.
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Fine, you're a loony.

It would be awesome news if this works well as we need everything we can get emissions-reduction wise (and natgas isn't nearly as good as it pretends to be there), but they're not yet even in the pilot phase.

'm hoping that this isn't another publicity stunt like CCS, but with a timeline for a pilot in the multiple years range and actual costs, emissions reductions, and the power consumption of this process all unclear it's way too early to be getting hyped. Frankly, we've heard this song and dance before. Coal has claimed for decades that it would be able to clean up its act while simultaneously lobbying against anything that would actually require it to do so and the industry has no credibility.

This would also only deal with emissions at one point in the chain, it does nothing for mining and transportation emissions which aren't exactly small potatoes either.
 
CO2 is prettty damn inert and carbon is prfetty hard to unburn. There are either massive amounts of energy involfved or some awerioualy bizarre chemicals involved. .
 
Lol.
Needs lots of land, humans take up too much of it now which is why its become a big concern.
Instead of reducing the population, the economic policies require continual growth.
So we're all foobared, they are just finding ways to increase how long before it happens by a few % and make some $ in grants, subsidies and sales at the same time.
 
Needs lots of land, humans take up too much of it now which is why its become a big concern.
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Don't worry about it. It's not a problem, the system has a process that covers this, it's called extinction.

If humans are so stupid as to destroy what keeps us alive, so be it, we didn't deserve to inherit the universe anyway. Let the next bright intelligent species give it another shot in a few milenia.
 
CO2 is not "industrial waste", nor is it pollution. It is plant food and the basis for all life on earth. We have to stop this obsession with carbon and start addressing the real problems on this rock.
 
rivertown_rat said:
CO2 is not "industrial waste", nor is it pollution. It is plant food and the basis for all life on earth. We have to stop this obsession with carbon and start addressing the real problems on this rock.
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Well, hate to contradict you, but any by product of industry is industrial waste. Even if said waste is a raw material for another process, it's still considered waste.

And we don't have a carbon problem, we have an energy problem. The problem is we are using more and more energy, and not coming up with ways to get said energy but to build more fossil fuel power plants.

Fossil fuels will eventually run out, that's a simple fact. We need to start figuring out how to make a lot of energy cheaply, and safely. And only one of those is feasible right now, and that's nuclear. The other two are fusion power, which we haven't cracked yet, and orbital solar, which is crazy expensive and we haven't figured it out either (although i believe it is more feasible right now that fusion).

Or there needs to be a LOT less people using less power.
 
Fossil fuel will not run out soon. There is enough coal and natural gas for hundreds of years. Trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist isn't compelling policy.
 
I'd be curious how they turn CO2 into bricks... some sort of sequestering by making acidic water and using something like limestone (my chemistry knowledge is a bit fuzzy here), in which case "hey we're making building materials out of waste! However we're using a shit ton of drinkable water to do it" or they use the carbon from it but split off the oxygen somehow in which case it requires even more energy. Also what about some of the other nasties that are in coal waste like radioactive material? Self warming bricks for cold climates? :D

Just can't wrap my mind around how it could be done, wish the article had a little more info about that aspect of it
 
sfsuphysics said:
I'd be curious how they turn CO2 into bricks... some sort of sequestering by making acidic water and using something like limestone (my chemistry knowledge is a bit fuzzy here), in which case "hey we're making building materials out of waste! However we're using a shit ton of drinkable water to do it" or they use the carbon from it but split off the oxygen somehow in which case it requires even more energy. Also what about some of the other nasties that are in coal waste like radioactive material? Self warming bricks for cold climates? :D

Just can't wrap my mind around how it could be done, wish the article had a little more info about that aspect of it
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Seems like it might be a lot easier to go out and plant a shitload of trees.

My favorite thing is when idiot environmentalists (I've got no problem with environmentalists, just the idiot varietal) protest logging of commercially grown forests.

"You're killing the trees, maaaaan. Without trees the CO2 will build up and like, melt the oceans."

No concept at all that those growing trees get their carbon from gaseous CO2 and lock it into wood where it can't warm anything. Growing trees over and over is the best, most natural thing around for carbon sequestration.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I'd be curious how they turn CO2 into bricks... some sort of sequestering by making acidic water and using something like limestone (my chemistry knowledge is a bit fuzzy here), in which case "hey we're making building materials out of waste! However we're using a shit ton of drinkable water to do it" or they use the carbon from it but split off the oxygen somehow in which case it requires even more energy. Also what about some of the other nasties that are in coal waste like radioactive material? Self warming bricks for cold climates? :D

Just can't wrap my mind around how it could be done, wish the article had a little more info about that aspect of it
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Here's some more info:

http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/publications/novel-co2-capture-taskforce-report/online/54351

This covers what several companies are researching, including Orica, which is the company in the original article of the thread. Orica, being in a particular area of Australia, has easy access to mining lots of cheap serpentinite and olivine, which can react exothermically with CO2 to make the bricks.

There's also Orica's own blurb:

http://www.orica.com/News---Media/Orica-invests-in-CO2-capture-research-project

If you want any more detail, go ask a chemist because I'm out of my depth now.
 
Aluisious said:
Seems like it might be a lot easier to go out and plant a shitload of trees.

My favorite thing is when idiot environmentalists (I've got no problem with environmentalists, just the idiot varietal) protest logging of commercially grown forests.

"You're killing the trees, maaaaan. Without trees the CO2 will build up and like, melt the oceans."

No concept at all that those growing trees get their carbon from gaseous CO2 and lock it into wood where it can't warm anything. Growing trees over and over is the best, most natural thing around for carbon sequestration.
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Tell those hippies that Hempcrete can store a fuckton of CO2.
 
evilsofa said:
Here's some more info:

http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/publications/novel-co2-capture-taskforce-report/online/54351

If you want any more detail, go ask a chemist because I'm out of my depth now.
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Not necessary the first line said exactly what I guessed in my first line

[quoteMineral carbonation involves the reaction of CO2 with a compound that forms thermally stable and poorly soluble carbonates at ambient conditions[/quote]
Basically the carbonates absorb the CO2 and sequester it, granted you also need carbonates, and I'm not sure the ratio of each, the Earth did it early on by having the oceans turn to carbonic acid and that allowed the CO2 to get where it needed to go. But basically it's like "hey we have rocks that can make bricks, and then we can force the CO2 into those bricks" so neat ... if they can do it in quantities that actually removes a significant amount. The CO2 itself does not form the bricks, it's one tiny part of it. And I wonder if they could really get rid of significant amount of bricks that they'll even dent their CO2 problem.
 
Aluisious said:
Seems like it might be a lot easier to go out and plant a shitload of trees.

My favorite thing is when idiot environmentalists (I've got no problem with environmentalists, just the idiot varietal) protest logging of commercially grown forests.

"You're killing the trees, maaaaan. Without trees the CO2 will build up and like, melt the oceans."

No concept at all that those growing trees get their carbon from gaseous CO2 and lock it into wood where it can't warm anything. Growing trees over and over is the best, most natural thing around for carbon sequestration.
Click to expand...

The problem is that things like trees is the minute you burn any of the biproducts, or the wood decays, or what not you put that CO2 back into the air, so unless you make tons of wood framed houses you're not really doing much. The problem with "fossil fuels" is those are trees and plants that did sequester the CO2, and due to circumstances of getting buried completely removed it from the atmosphere... that is until hairless monkey's found out if they dig into the Earth, and burn it they could get heat.... and release all the CO2 that was previously sequestered.
 
spugnor said:
Well, hate to contradict you, but any by product of industry is industrial waste. Even if said waste is a raw material for another process, it's still considered waste.

And we don't have a carbon problem, we have an energy problem. The problem is we are using more and more energy, and not coming up with ways to get said energy but to build more fossil fuel power plants.

Fossil fuels will eventually run out, that's a simple fact. We need to start figuring out how to make a lot of energy cheaply, and safely. And only one of those is feasible right now, and that's nuclear. The other two are fusion power, which we haven't cracked yet, and orbital solar, which is crazy expensive and we haven't figured it out either (although i believe it is more feasible right now that fusion).

Or there needs to be a LOT less people using less power.
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The hippies already whined and managed to decommission 19% of Southern California's energy product in the form of a nuclear power plant. ...which had been working since the 60's. Of course they won't let us build anything more modern. They want to build solar plants that cost 6x as much or windmills that cost 3-4x as much and are 40 fucking stories tall.

Stupid, dirty hippies... :(
 
sfsuphysics said:
The problem is that things like trees is the minute you burn any of the biproducts, or the wood decays, or what not you put that CO2 back into the air, so unless you make tons of wood framed houses you're not really doing much. The problem with "fossil fuels" is those are trees and plants that did sequester the CO2, and due to circumstances of getting buried completely removed it from the atmosphere... that is until hairless monkey's found out if they dig into the Earth, and burn it they could get heat.... and release all the CO2 that was previously sequestered.
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Paper + Ikea
 
sleepeeg3 said:
They want to build solar plants that cost 6x as much or windmills that cost 3-4x as much and are 40 fucking stories tall.

Stupid, dirty hippies... :(
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In a suitably windy area, wind mills are now cheaper than building and running coal plants, and that's without any CO2 sequestration costs added in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

I hope nuclear power plant research continues because we may very well need it one day. But for the next century, it seems wind and natural gas power will reign supreme because they're simply the cheapest and also happen to be cleaner and less destructive than what we have been using in the past century.
 
Paper recycling programs are what is killing us. It's reducing the amount of trees being cut down and turned into paper products that end up in a sealed landfill. This means less trees are grown and less CO2 is extracted. They great thing about burying paper in a landfill is that the seal causes the decay of paper into CO2 to be on a slower timescale than the growing of new trees. At least in the US, we have tons of land for trees and landfills.
 
Aluisious said:
Fuckin' serious?

You know how to turn CO2 into building materials? Trees.
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Its funny you say that... first thing I saw when looking at the article was the picture, and I was like... serious? They're holding up wood to prove their point? Of course, on a closer inspection, it looked more like plastic.
 
jpm100 said:
CO2 is prettty damn inert and carbon is prfetty hard to unburn. There are either massive amounts of energy involfved or some awerioualy bizarre chemicals involved. .
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There is a difference in burned carbon versus unburned carbon? Gee, all this time I thought it was an actual element of nature.
 
Draktharbar said:
Paper recycling programs are what is killing us. It's reducing the amount of trees being cut down and turned into paper products that end up in a sealed landfill. This means less trees are grown and less CO2 is extracted. They great thing about burying paper in a landfill is that the seal causes the decay of paper into CO2 to be on a slower timescale than the growing of new trees. At least in the US, we have tons of land for trees and landfills.
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Good point.
 
Nenu said:
Lol.
Needs lots of land, humans take up too much of it now which is why its become a big concern.
Instead of reducing the population, the economic policies require continual growth.
So we're all foobared, they are just finding ways to increase how long before it happens by a few % and make some $ in grants, subsidies and sales at the same time.
Click to expand...

How about a little forestation fact? http://www.forestfacts.org/l_2/forests_2.htm#1
 
CO2 is Carbondioxide right? I thoguht the problem gas was CarbonMonoxide. IE CO.

Just my two cents.
 
Nenu said:
I'm not sure the point you are making.
The amount of forested land doesnt change that we are chopping it down and replacing it with humans.
This is unsustainable but its not going to stop.
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The US practices quite sustainable forestry.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
The hippies already whined and managed to decommission 19% of Southern California's energy product in the form of a nuclear power plant. ...which had been working since the 60's. Of course they won't let us build anything more modern. They want to build solar plants that cost 6x as much or windmills that cost 3-4x as much and are 40 fucking stories tall.

Stupid, dirty hippies... :(
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Then the other side of this rant/argument is you have people complaining about the eye sores of a "40 fucking story tall" windmill. I'm sure if you had a nuclear plant next door to the block you live in you wouldn't like it there either.
 
Grimlaking said:
CO2 is Carbondioxide right? I thoguht the problem gas was CarbonMonoxide. IE CO.

Just my two cents.
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Depends what problem you're talking about. If you're talking about green house gases then CO2 will absorb IR radiation and increase temperatures and has a rather long atmospheric life where as CO isn't anywhere close to as bad in that regard . If you're talking about toxicity then CO is worse because it binds with your hemoglobin and prevents your blood from binding with oxygen to carry that around, where as with CO2 it will only displace oxygen physically in your lungs, it won't bind with your blood.
 
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