WEBVTT - How Carbon Capture Works

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<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know

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<v Speaker 1>from house stuff works dot com. Hi, and welcome to

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<v Speaker 1>the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, staff writer here at how

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<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot Com. With me is my fellow staff writer,

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<v Speaker 1>guy like to call Chuck Charles Chuck Bryant. How are

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<v Speaker 1>you doing, Chuck? I'm doing great, Joshua. How are you?

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<v Speaker 1>I'm doing pretty good, Chuck. Um. You know, I've been

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<v Speaker 1>thinking a lot about carbon dioxide, as you are often

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<v Speaker 1>wanted to do. Yeah, yeah, I've I've come up with

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<v Speaker 1>the theory that carbon dioxide is getting an awfully bad

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<v Speaker 1>rap these days. Yeah. All you hear about is your

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<v Speaker 1>carbon footprint, Your carbon footprint like your sasquatch stepping on

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<v Speaker 1>every beautiful thing on Earth. Exactly. And I think that,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, we are having a problem with carbon dioxide,

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<v Speaker 1>but um, it's it's really us. It's a human problem exactly.

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<v Speaker 1>There's a type of carbon dioxide emission called anthropogenic, which

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<v Speaker 1>means it's exclusively human created. No um. Carbon dioxide is

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<v Speaker 1>a vital part of Earth's processes as part of a

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<v Speaker 1>biogeochemical process. Um, the carbon cycle. It's like the rain cycle,

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<v Speaker 1>that kind of thing. Um. And there's carbon dioxide stored

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<v Speaker 1>in the atmosphere, in the ocean soil. This is where

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<v Speaker 1>these are stored plants exactly. Another place that it's stored

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<v Speaker 1>is in decaying uh carbon based life forms or former

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<v Speaker 1>life forms, say dinosaurs or things like that, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>stuff that's become things we use for fossil fuel. Now,

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<v Speaker 1>rather than this carbon dioxide being released organically, we're digging

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<v Speaker 1>this stuff up, burning it, and releasing this carbon dioxide

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<v Speaker 1>on mass in a very inorganic way, which is oh

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<v Speaker 1>yeah right, I thought you were abbreviating something acronym No, no,

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<v Speaker 1>just good old fashioned oil. We burn it in the

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<v Speaker 1>in the CO two leaves as way. Its just like

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<v Speaker 1>in a snap instead of taking place over, which is

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<v Speaker 1>where our problem comes in. What's the solution. Well, one

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<v Speaker 1>solution would be too if you could somehow capture this carbon.

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<v Speaker 1>You're blowing my mind here, Chuck, what are you talking?

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<v Speaker 1>I know you can actually do this. There's three ways

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<v Speaker 1>you can capture carbon uh. One before it's burned, called

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<v Speaker 1>pre combustion, one after it's burned called post combustion. Before

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<v Speaker 1>it leaves the old smoke stack and then the old

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<v Speaker 1>oxy fuel combustion, which is when you add almost pure

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<v Speaker 1>oxygen to the CEO two and when it burns, it

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<v Speaker 1>just makes it allows you to separate it a little easier.

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<v Speaker 1>So that's kind of like a post combustion taken to

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<v Speaker 1>an extra step. It's post combustion supreme. Nice Okay, alright,

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<v Speaker 1>So so we've got a way to capture it. And actually,

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<v Speaker 1>as I understand it, UM, a typical electrical utility or

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<v Speaker 1>power plant that outfits itself with a self sustaining carbon

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<v Speaker 1>capture system can can run it like uh with eight

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<v Speaker 1>percent or less carbon dioxide emiss. Pretty amazing, that's pretty significant.

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<v Speaker 1>But you've got all this carbon dox of what are

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<v Speaker 1>you gonna do with it? Well, ideally you could throw

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<v Speaker 1>it in zip block bag and put it in the

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<v Speaker 1>dark recesses of the back of your fridge. You can't

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<v Speaker 1>do that. But we have something almost as good called

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<v Speaker 1>the abyssal plane. Uh do you know what that is?

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<v Speaker 1>I do. That's where the Titanic is, baby, right, which

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<v Speaker 1>is deep, deep, deep into the ocean and a half miles. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>it's two and a half miles, four thousand four thousand

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<v Speaker 1>meters for Canadian friends. Right, and uh, down there it's dark,

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<v Speaker 1>my friend, very dark. Nothing lives, nothing grows. No, there's

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<v Speaker 1>no photosynth. That's very cold now, and there's a heck

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<v Speaker 1>of a lot of pressure, almost six thousand pounds per

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<v Speaker 1>square anch of pressure, which we had to do about

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<v Speaker 1>fourteen pounds on the surface. I would think they crumple

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<v Speaker 1>a full soup can, which is pretty much my measure

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<v Speaker 1>of power. Right. You know it's very cold down there too,

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah it is. It's very cold. It's about two degrees

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<v Speaker 1>which is chili. Okay. So all this makes makes it

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<v Speaker 1>an ideal setting the abyssal plane and ideal setting for

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<v Speaker 1>um carbon dioxide storage, right exactly. But the question is

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<v Speaker 1>how you get it down there and contain it? Well, okay,

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<v Speaker 1>all right, I've got one for you. There was a

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<v Speaker 1>group in the late nineties who figured you could just

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<v Speaker 1>put it at the bottom because of the pressure of

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<v Speaker 1>the temperature, liquefied carbon dioxide should be negatively buoyant, which

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<v Speaker 1>means not only will it not float, it will actually

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<v Speaker 1>sink and ideally stick to the bottom of the sea floor. Um.

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<v Speaker 1>When they tried it, they injected some into a beaker,

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<v Speaker 1>it turned into this lava lampy gloss. Yes. So a

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<v Speaker 1>guy named Dr David Keith came up with an idea

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<v Speaker 1>put in bags just like the ziplux, except you know

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<v Speaker 1>right exactly um and uh, we also already have carbon

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<v Speaker 1>dioxide pipeline technology, so we could just build it down

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<v Speaker 1>to these planes and you know, just capture this CEO

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<v Speaker 1>two UM and put him in these giant bags, which

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<v Speaker 1>by Dr Keith's estimate, could hold um two days worth

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<v Speaker 1>of all the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions that we put out,

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<v Speaker 1>which is great, and you never know, you might be

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<v Speaker 1>able to use it one day in the future. Exactly,

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<v Speaker 1>we may be able to synthesize a fossil fuel, uh

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<v Speaker 1>from this this captured carbon. That's crazy, it is My

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<v Speaker 1>brain is melted. Nice. That's what I'm here for. So

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<v Speaker 1>if you want to learn all about carbon capture and storage,

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<v Speaker 1>we have a lot of articles on it. Go on

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<v Speaker 1>to how stuff works dot Com. Type in c O

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<v Speaker 1>two capture and storage in the search bar for more

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<v Speaker 1>on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

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