Geoengineering: Carbon Dioxide Reducing (CDR)

As promised, I will give you a brief summary on CDR methods. First of all, a good graph, which is showing the different methods in an abstract but comprehensible way. This is going to be a relatively short and descriptive post to create a basic knowledge hence my next post can be more focused on the recent scientific discussions concerning this topic.

Figure 8:  Caldeira et al. 2013

·      The first and maybe easiest method would be reforestation or afforestation, which means, just planting trees in areas where trees used to be or completely new ones. With the trees, there would be an increased storage of CO2, therefore a reduction of our atmospheric CO2 concentration. (Caldeira et al. 2013) It could generate conflicts, concerning land use and would work slow, but it would be a low risk intervention to our environment and a sustainable solution. (Royal Society2009)

·      Store CO2 underground, by using electric power plants and burning biofuels. (Caldeira et al. 2013)

·      Accelerate land-based weathering of CO2, for example by using silicate minerals, which will react with the CO2 and bind it into solid minerals. (Caldeira et al. 2013)

·      Accelerate ocean-based weathering of CO2 by increasing the alkalinity of the water. (Caldeira et al. 2013)

·      Reduce CO2 by ocean fertilization. The idea behind that is to add special fertilizer to the oceans to increase planktonic productivity, which will increase the CO2 filtration from the air. (Caldeiraet al. 2013)

·      The last method is the direct capturing of CO2 from our atmosphere and stores it underground. (Caldeira etal. 2013)

So far for today, soon I will deepen the topic and will find out, what the scientific opinions to this issue are.