26 July 2008

Way to cut CO2 levels

Reducing the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was the daunting task in the recent years. Now scientists have found a feasible solution to reduce it content to pre-industrial levels. Adding lime to seawater supports this process. Oceans are considered to be the world’s largest absorbers of CO2. The process of adding lime to seawater increases the alkalinity, boosting seawater’s capability to soak up CO2 from the atmosphere. This method was not brought into practice due to many difficulties faced during the process of obtaining lime from limestone. The above said process was expensive and the procedure itself released considerable amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Now this method it brought into practicality by locating it in regions that provides both low-cost stranded energy like flared natural gas or solar energy and that are rich in limestone. These features make it viable for calcinations to take place on the proposed area. Even having these advantages process of making lime generates CO2, but adding lime to seawater absorbs twice as much CO2.

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