Water and Energy Abstracts
  • Year: 2007
  • Volume: 17
  • Issue: 4

129. Entomb Carbon Dioxide and get Green Power

  • Author:
  • R.N. Biswas
  • Total Page Count: 1
  • Page Number: 54 to 54

(IEEMA Journal, November 2007, pp. 86–90)

Abstract

When Emperor Ashoka took a breath in 273 BC, 200 molecules out of every million entering his lungs were carbon dioxide. Today each time we draw breath, 380 molecules per million are carbon dioxide. This figure increases by about two molecules every year. Scientists do not know the exact consequences at this upsurge in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration nor the effects that lie ahead as more and more of the gas enters the air in the coming decades. We know that CO2 is warming the atmosphere, which inturn is causing increase in sea level and that the CO2 absorbed by the oceans is acidifying the water. But we do not know how and when these developments might affect human health and well-being. But society knows that reducing carbon dioxide emission is a priority to slow down the risks of environmental havoc in the future. The atmosphere has been our prime waste repository, because discharging exhaust up through chimneys is the simplest and least costly thing to do. In order to arrest the global warming and CO2 upsurge all nations need to pursue several strategies. We would concentrate on using energy more efficiently and on substituting non-carbon renewable or nuclear energy sources for fossil fuel. And we would employ methods that capture CO2 from power plants. In the quest for dinging green energy, scientists have developed recently two amazing radical technologies that can harness the energy from sea waves and wind to produce unlimited electric power as detailed in this paper.

Keywords

Carbon dioxide, Warming the atmosphere, Environmental havoc, Waste repository