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Energy and Transportation Challenges for the Chemical Sciences in the 21st Century (2003) / Chapter Skim
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10. Could Carbon Sequestration Solve the Problem of Global Warming?
Pages 62-65

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From page 62...
... This work has indicated that natural biological sinks such as a pine forest do initially achieve elevated carbon dioxide fixing from the atmosphere but that this effect goes away after approximately 3 to 4 years. This effect, termed down regulation, can be the result of a long-term decrease of nitrogen or other needed nutrients in the forest over time.
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From page 63...
... As stated previously, it is anticipated that a trillion tons of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide from anthropogenic sources will be added to the atmosphere during the 21st century. Assuming that all of this added atmospheric carbon must be removed, conversion of all agricultural lands and grasslands globally into old-growth forests would remove only 475 billion tons.
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From page 64...
... Geological sequestration poses another possibility to fix atmospheric carbon. Presently, the oil and gas industries collectively move hundreds of millions of tons of gases, including carbon dioxide, and re-inject them into fossil-fuel-bearing geological formations either as waste gas or to enhance oil recovery as part of their normal operations.
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From page 65...
... is also a fundamental problem to be solved by the chemical sciences.4 4It is important to note that any sequestering process requires energy. For sequestering to be a useful process, this energy cannot produce carbon dioxide, or at least should produce much less than is being sequestered.
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Key Terms

  • anthropogenic carbon
  • chemical sciences
  • remove carbon
  • dioxide fertilization
  • trillion tons

  • anthropogenic sources
  • move hundreds
  • industries collectively
  • chemical tracking
  • injecting carbon

  • gas industries
  • injected deep
  • carbon cycle
  • produce carbon
  • oceans capacity

  • geological formations
  • dioxide fixing
  • effect goes
  • nitrogen anoxia
  • substantial localized

  • backstopping technologies
  • atmospheric testing
  • ocean abyss
  • geological sequestration
  • natural biological

  • changes due
  • gas separation
  • dioxide annually
  • unlike carbon
  • billion tons


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