We’ve all head of global warming. In fact, I’d wager that over half of us have seen An Inconvenient Truth, and realize the destructive effect of green house gases on our atmosphere, and more generally, our climate. When Professor Solomon told us we could just pump Carbon Dioxide into our soil, I was surprised. It seems like a natural solution to global warming: simply pump CO2 and other greenhouse gasses underground. Even more appealing, CO2 is great for soil and greatly improves its health by adding nutrients. I’m familiar with basic agriculture methods, and I’ve heard that large farms rotate cultivation of their fields or plant certain crops in order to improve soil health. So why can’t we simply push CO2 that would be released into the air underground in areas that are being used for agriculture? This way, we wouldn’t have to suffer the costs of releasing large amounts of CO2 into our atmosphere, farmers would be able to grow more crops, and our soil would be healthier after being infused with CO2. So why don’t we?
I quickly brainstormed a few possible reasons and a quick internet search revealed several more. The main impediment to storing CO2 underground is that it is extremely costly to capture CO2, transport it to an appropriate location, and then bury it underground. Furthermore, CO2 capture is no longer a “hot” issue in politics and there simply aren’t enough advocates for commercialization of this process. Several methods currently exist; however, none of them are of large enough scale to widely implement. Secondly, if we store large amounts of CO2 close to the surface, then when the soil is disturbed, large amounts of CO2 would be released into our atmosphere. Soil disruption already releases large amounts of CO2 into our atmosphere. If we disrupted the soil where CO2 is stored, we would simply release the CO2 that we captured back into the atmosphere. Thirdly, some studies imply that pumping CO2 underground may increase the risk of earthquakes in that area. No farmer – or other land owner – wants to increase the risk of earthquakes on their property, and the pressure buildup from forcing gas underground could result in more earthquakes.
Hi Christopher!
I’ve always found the discussions on capturing C02 very interesting. As a Plant Science major, we talk about this subject very often in my classes. Forests and the importance of trees and other plants comes up a lot, since plant life is one of those things that can store carbon effectively for years. Think of the redwood forest. Those trees have been storing carbon for hundreds of years. I bring this up because your post reminded me of a comment a professor once said: Why don’t we plant a lot of trees and harvest them… then take the cut trees and sink them down to the bottom of the ocean? He mentioned that this would be a fairly effective carbon sink since there is very little oxygen at the bottom of the ocean, and that would prevent decomposition. – Just a thought I thought you may be interested in!
-Denise