A few years ago, I enthusiastically entered the Virgin Earth contest to remove a billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year for ten years as part of a profitable enterprise. For comparison purposes, planetary production of steel is about 1.3 billion tons/yr. Surely there must be a way to solve this, I thought. I am reasonably familiar with the sciences necessary to tackle this problem. The scale is of course enourmous.

The sheer size of the requirements eliminated many small possibilities. Only those affecting the entire planet could be considered. I am as close to absolute certitude that no single sovereign nation can solve this by itself.

In short, CO2 is a very stable compound; An atom of carbon covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. Replacing the oxygen would require the use of Fluorine which is the only element with a higher electronegative number (electron affinity). However, fluorine is never found in a pure form outside of chemistry labs, the etching of glass is done with fluorine or fluorinated compounds. It would cost more energy to free up fluorine in compounds to replace the oxygen. No hope there.

Replacing the carbon could also be done using various metallic elements, which easily donate electrons. However these metals are also in compounds. For the same energy cost reasons as is the case with Fluorine, there is no hope here either. Thus no industrial/chemical process will work.

Next I considered the use of solar power, however the energy lost in the conversion of CO2 into C + O2 would be better spent on direct use to replace fossil fuels. That does not win the prize.

That left biology. I considered molluscs and finally oxygen producing coccolithophores. While huge amounts of CO2 can be removed the oceans are left very acidic which breaks down the carbonates formed. The limit is the amount of Ca++ in oceanic solution.

I do not believe there is a way to solve this without a terrestrial solution (non-marine). Humanity and its organizational constructs are in the way; Sovereignty, race(es), ethnicities, religions.

I do believe a genetically modified organism could do it, but there are certainly ethical issues arising from that situation since the cultivation of this organism would have to be done on a truly massive scale. But, I hope I am wrong.

I will not be blogging for a while. I wish all of you the best and a happy new year and decade. �