Since C0 2 is supposed to be the culprit causing global warming, why haven't they figured out a way to?

Question

change it into something we can use as fuel?

Answer 1

you can (they are working on this right now) but it requires massive amounts of energy. one possible way would be to convert it into CO (carbon monoxide) which when you combine it with hydrogen makes hydrocarbons but this is really inefficient because of the energy required to break double covalent bonds.

Answer 2

"Plants" figured out a way to do it, millions of years ago (or 'were created that way' in another model).  With about 5% efficiency, green plants use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into "biofuels" which may include soybean oil, or burnable wood.

Answer 3

After I had corned beef and cabbage last week I think I blew a hole in the ozone layer.

anyway, you'd think with all the things they can do in a lab, that they'd take some co2, put it in some chamber and make it pressurized or something and have it power vehicles and whatnot. the vehicles cas still use gasoline or diesel, but make it where the co2 that comes out is pressurized and somehow gets a motor running of sorts, charging a 'battery' which will help get a vehicle going.  kinda like a hybrid, but usings the exhaust that is already coming out of the vehicle, recycling it and using it to power the car.

does that make sense or have I not had enough coffee yet?

Answer 4

That is essentially what biofuels do. They take CO2 out of the atmosphere and turn it into fuel using photosynthesis. Trying to do that artificially would require more energy than you would get out of the resultant fuel (which may be the case with biofuels as well) so it is not practical or economical to do it that way.

Answer 5

We do! It's called gasoline! When we burn the carbon based gasoline,it releases the CO2.  CO2 is not flammable.

Answer 6

Because logical and scientific people don't blame Global Warming on CO2.  See the NOAA site below and look at Water Vapor.  When supporters of AGW list constituent Global Warming Gases they conveniently leave this one out and also won't list percentages in relation to each other as well. They only compare the gases they want to compare and not all of them.

Answer 7

Basic chemistry.  CO2 has very low "free energy" and is quite stable.  It doesn't make a good fuel, and is actually hard to change into anything else without an external source of energy.

Plants use the Sun to do it.

Answer 8

No - there is a C02 cycle in the atmosphere-one thing is for sure,it pollutes the atmosphere but it is not proved to cause global warming. C02 so far can be used only for production of new types of refrigerators and injection into deep sea layers for production of 'dry ice' CH4 under great pressure and low temperatures.

Brian - That`s was not the question the plants will use CO2 if there are no humans on earth at all! What do you suppose to plant trees everywhere and CO2 will be reduced? BULL ! Do you know that at night plants produce CO2 as well like us humans? And by burning Bio Fuels THERE IS ALSO CO2?

Comee on peopleeee be a lil bit pragmatic and consider all the aspects - there is not ONE AND RIGHT ANSWER!

Answer 9

Well, we know one way, grow plants and then burn them or something made from them.  In actuality, this is where petroleum, natural gas and coal come from as well.

However, it takes an energy input to convert CO2 into something that can be burned.  Plants get this from the sun.  Also, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is very low, approximately only 0.0004 by volume.  Thus, collecting it into any process presents problems.

Answer 10

We already use it as a fuel.

CO2 in the atmosphere is absorbed by plants, they use the carbon atom for fiber growth and release the oxygen back into the atmosphere through photosynthesis. This is natures own solar power and nature can do it much more efficiently than we can.

All of the carbon in the coal we burn to produce power was at one time in our atmosphere.

That's how we got veins of coal that are more than a mile thick, our atmosphere was very rich with carbon dioxide and plant and animal life flourished. Much more so than today.

That's what makes the AGW fearmongering so ridiculous, if we have a more carbon rich environment plant life is more abundant.

If we lack enough CO2 in our atmosphere, all plant life dies and all animal life follows.

CO2 is not a pollutant, all CO2 that we are putting into the atmosphere has already been there before, we have never created any carbon atoms that weren't already on the earth before we were except for maybe in a lab.

That is the real danger of the AGW theory gaining traction in my opinion. Policies based on knee jerk reactions to a theory may do much more harm to life on this planet than the theory supporters could ever know. They think they are trying to save our planet but could end up destroying all life on it through ignorance if they can convince the political class to change policy to limit CO2 releases and don't know where to stop.

Sure reduce real pollution every chance you get but remember CO2 is not pollution.

And if you still insist CO2 is a pollutant then stop breathing because pollution starts on your exhalation.

Answer 11

Plants and trees?

Answer 12

People are working on that very thing.  The Los Alamos National Laboratory has a project to extract co2 from the atmosphere and make it available for fuel production using a new form of electrochemical separation:

http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fusea...