Me and My Friends - Our Lean Green Carbon-converting Machines (sort Of)

Me and my friends have , over the past few years occasionally challenged ourselves by seeing which one could come up with a cure for global warming.... or something like that.

There is 3 machines :

Mine - it converts smoke from biomass fuels (burning wood and coal , etc) to useful substances

Mine again - This removes methane from the ice in Siberia. Mehtane is 23 times worse than CO2 , so i think that using a little to get rid of methane is good. This is a growing issue - search things ilke 'permafrost' , methane and siberia together to get some google results

JP's - This is to do with hydrogen for Hydrogen fueled cars. It also produces O2 - no more chemical factories to produce pure oxygen for operations , factories etc - and salt. It also helps keep the North Atlantic Drift in balance . Anyone who has watched The Day After Tomorrow will understand the importance of this.

N.B: These are not proven , must-work things. They are just useful ideas that might give someone a good idea - i know that one guy is trying to combine co2 with something , maybe salt to create baking soda instead.


Images on the steps...

Also , pic below is for next step... explained then.

Step 1: Biomass Convertor - Mine!

Sorry about the Paint drawings but i've spent 2 days getting the quality good (in a sense). Yes , i know it's in Paint , but i can't exactly take a picture of it if it does'nt exist , can I ? And no , i can't amke a model . Anyhow , it works like this..

You put whatever you want to burn in the chamber and then , well ... burn it. This produces heat , which kaes steam , which drives turbine blah blah blah but what about THE CO2? Well, the gases that this produces will be sent through filters that remove :

. Ash particles (visible)
. Ash particles / dust (not really visible)
. And hopefully , carbon .

Now , this isnt supposed to be foolproof , but hey , i though of this when i was 10 and people said it was a good idea and no-one had made a serious entry for this competition yet. I know that Carbon and Iodine stick together , that might be a starting point, but these filters would have to be properly invented. Also , the smoke can be run through a condenser , to help it react.

Then these remaining ash particles , and ash from the fire and the filter residue... in essence , all the ash , can be used as fertiliser... yes , it works in small amounts. These would have to be very few, as there would be ash to spread over a large area ... 1/2 per city , maybe. Perhaps more.

See what you think of it.

Step 2: JPs Idea - H2 Fuel , O2 and Fresh Water

Right , let me explain the diagram first. You should be able to see the dam with the water behind it on the top. The grey box at the bottom is a turbine to generate electricity , like any other hydro-electric dam. The water is then terraced into steps. These are individually electrolysised ( This is when you run electricity through a solution to get certain things out of it. It's used in aluminium and copper production , and in hairdressers, but when used on water it splits it into O2 and H2 ). This breaking the water up makes it shallower , with a greater surface area - it will electrolysise better. Once any remaining water reaches the bottom, it will be dragged through filters in a 2nd dam by gravity , which can then flow into a reservoir .

Alos , the electrolysis has other effects on the system . Good & bad . Good - it will help to seperate the water from certain impurities , and help to reduce the risk of contamination for water treatment companies. Bad - this will produce lots of chemical scum that was already in the water . This will be seperated and reguarlly have to be removed from the electrodes before scale occurs. However , it should be full of minerals and other useful substances , so it could be seperated for chemical use. If not , it should still be useful as slag , for road-building and some concrete.

The Hydrogen generated will power hydrogen fuel cells and be used in the chemical industry. The Oxygen ... I am not saying that all of a sudden there is a miraculous demand for O2. Remember , the ratio of Hydrogen to Oxygen in water is 2:1 - H2O - so most of the produced gas will be Hydrogen anyway. This will simply mean that when pure o2 is needed , for metalwork construction , chemical use or hospitals , etc, that these will not have to be produced by another factory in an un-enviromentally friendly way .

Step 3: Mine - to Eliminate Methane From the Permafrost

Now look at this picture .

The bubbles are of methane . This is 23 (or is it 24) times more dangerous than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. The permafrost , a layer of soil that covers sub-arctic / tundra areas like siberia / russia , is full of rotting vegetation , which produces methane. This becomes trapped in the ice.

As global warming melts the ice , it releases methane , so the world gets hotter ,so more ice melts, so more methane is released ... it's a chain reaction. This is very detrimental to the earth and is , of course , a quite literally growing problem. Now the apparatus on the top is to try and remove this methane ... or at least some of it.

The central pillar is a drill. This can be hand-worked or can be powered by an engine , biomass if nessecary . Yes , CO2 , i know , but methane is A LOT worse , so a little for a lot . Now there is a furnace nearby ... it could burn wood (no shortage of that in the Siberian forest) or frozen peat which collects in nearby bogs , whichever is less polluting. Unless there is some other plentiful , usable , less polluting substance nearby , which could be useful.

The heat from this melts the ice , which is run through a turbine to generate electricity. This could ither just be used commercially , or as an electric heater to help melt the ice. Also , the mehtnae that is released by the drilling will be burnt to help melt the ice ... in the end , not much wood , etc would have to be used.