December 17, 2009

How to fight against global worming ?

You should read  this before continue this article..There are non-flying vacuum-like machines inside power company smokestacks. They are called "scrubbers." What they do is capture the CO2 coming up a smokestack before it gets into the air, and the concentrated CO2 is then gathered, transported and eventually shoved down a hole. Usually a deep hole, where it's supposed to sit for a long, long time.
The advantage is extra CO2 doesn't get into the air. The disadvantage: It's expensive to isolate CO2, expensive to transport, expensive to find and fill a hole, and the hole might leak.
The other possibility is to use less carbon. We rely on oil and coal and natural gas (all carbon-based) to heat ourselves, cool ourselves, light our homes, drive our cars, run our businesses. Carbon is, even now, cheap, abundant and releases energy easily. That's why it has been popular since the first cave person burnt a log. But carbon is not the only atom in town. We can shop around.

In France and Japan, they like uranium. Of course, uranium has its problems (that unfortunate accident in Ukraine). President Bush likes hydrogen. He hopes hydrogen one day will power cars. But that day is not around the corner.
The alternative to alternative atoms is to grab energy from nature itself: from the sea sloshing about (hydro), from the wind blowing (windmills), from underground heat (thermal), from raw sunshine (solar), from grass (biofuel), from trash. The world, long content with living off carbon, is now restless with new ideas.
China is looking for carbon alternatives because in so many cities the air is almost toxic. Same with India. Bangladesh is worrying about sea levels. Everyone is worrying about changes they can't control, so the hunt for solutions is on.
And the best way to find a solution is to understand the problem. This series has concentrated on carbon, the main actor in this drama. We know a lot about carbon: its habits, its attachments, its strengths.
Carbon has been bonding with oxygen, forming CO2 molecules and behaving predictably for billions of years. So if we have a "carbon problem," the mechanics are not mysterious. Carbon is merely following nature's laws. If anything is going to change it will have to be us. But considering that we humans (water aside) are two-thirds carbon ourselves, we carbon life forms will have to solve our carbon problem.

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