Question:

Will plans to sequester CO2 underground endanger the levels of atmospheric O2?

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There are articles suggesting that one way to reduce greenhouse gases is to sequester CO2 in the form of dry ice deep underground. While this would certainly sequester some carbon, would it not also deplete O2 from the atmosphere? Wouldn't the overall process be: Oxidize hydrocarbons, capture the energy released and use it, capture the resulting oxidation product (CO2), bury it, thus reducing not only atmospheric CO2, but also O2?

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  1. CO2 benefits plant life and make for larger crop yields. As plant life develops in response to more CO2, more CO2 will be taken up. Since a warming climate leads to more CO2 and not the other way around, it is not of much concern really. It is all about politics for the most part. No one is yet serious about CO2. You will know when they are, when they stop carbonating drinks and making paintball propellant from CO2, since these are non necessities.


  2. O2 is way larger in volume than CO2 and CO2 isn't going to end the world and we are going to prosper still.

  3. Your understanding of the process is incorrect.  

    In most schemes, the CO2 will be removed before oxidization (technically it's combustion).  For example, coal is gasified into "syngas", a much lower carbon fuel, which is then burned.  The CO2 efflux from the syngas process is sequestered (not as dry ice, but as carbonates of various minerals- dry ice is frozen CO2)

  4. CO2 concentration has gone up from about 0.027% to about 0.037% in just 100 years. That is a one third  increase and it is increasing faster than ever now. But O2 is about 21% of the air. If it has gone down it isn't noticible. If it went down by the same 0.01% that CO2 went up, we would still have 20.99% O2 in the air.

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