Premise:  Congress is divided, the country is divided, no one knows what to do about “global warming.” 

Target:  General Circulation magazine, newspaper supplement, etc. 

The CO2 Cloud Silver Lining or Ironies in Science 

          Controversy continues between the government and free market scientists.  Why should we believe one over the other?  What is the truth of global warming and climate change?  Is it caused by man?  Is it natural.  Can there be a silver lining?

          The new SCAF Patents say there is a silver lining no matter who is right about global warming.  Elementary carbon and carbon dioxide gas the global warming believers want to sequester are marketable products with great value and consequence to the world economy.

          Inventor Adrian Vance, a former science teacher, writer-producer of educational film and computer programs has long been dubious of the idea of anthropomorphic global warming, but saw something previously unseen in plant physiology that he says will turn out to be a great boon to mankind.

          When the controversy was first mentioned in print in the 70’s Vance did a series of experiments with plastic bottles, thermometers, water, carbon dioxide and air quickly finding that water vapor was by far the best absorber of infrared or “heat” radiation. “The most difficult part of the experiment was getting the CO2 dry.  I had to bubble it through concentrated sulfuric acid and that is not something you want students working with if you can avoid it,” said Vance who was then writing and producing educational films for the school market.  He was trying to produce a demonstration students could do, but the concept proved too tricky for classroom use.

          “Over the years I watched the hysteria grow and made my case to as many of the promoters as I could but got nowhere.  I believe it was because I did not have a Ph.D. that they disregarded me.  There is a lot of snobbery in science,” he said.

          Nonetheless, Vance carried on with his crusade picking up an occasional ally on the way.  “It took me a long time to realize how important politics is in science in spite of having been raised on a college campus by two college professors.  In science peer review committees scrutinizing submissions take turns reviewing and authoring.  To make friends in your field you write a paper and ask others to be co-authors.  That means they read it, make suggestions which you may or may not use, but their names go by yours and they can include it in his "published" credits.  When the House Committee on the Environment interviewed six of the 44 government scientists in on this group they uncovered the game in ten minutes, but this is how politics works so they’re sensitive to it.

          Knowing what you’re up against is helpful, but does not assure victory.  Adrian continued to write, talk and eventually broadcast on the subject but everywhere met doubting looks and laughter.

          “I finally had to accept that carbon dioxide control and taxation were going to happen so I flipped the question to, “What can we do with the stuff.”

          “I can remember my astonishment to see how green plant stomata worked getting 44% of the plant mass as a trace gas and yet in the literature CO2 was not considered a fertilizer!  Only recently has it been called "an aerial fertilizer" by defenders.  The other "fertilizers" were oxides or hydrides of nitrogen and nitrogen was the smallest part of the plants molecular structure appearing only in the proteins when plants and their products are primarily sugars, starches and cellulose.

          “I turned back to my old curiosity the stomata, the little valve that admits air to the circulatory system of the plant.  I calculated that the plant had to process 1200 liters of air to get about half a pound of carbon to make a pound of sugar, starch or cellulose.  And, it looked like a process wasting a lot of water in exchange.  The plant was throwing away water to get carbon in a poor, but essential bargain."

          The next question for Adrian was would a green plant accept carbon dioxide from roots, the only other way to get chemicals into the plant.

          “I went to Kmart and bought the two most identical Diffenbachia plants I could find on a display of 12 of them.  The clerk saw me pondering them and asked if I needed help. I told her I wanted the two most identical.  She said, “They don’t breed you know,” so I said madly, “Well, we’ll see about that!” and bought two.

          One plant received distilled water as it was more like rain than tap water and the other got carbonated water.  Both received equal amounts sufficient to more than soak the pots in which the plants were growing.  It was seen that of the 60 grams of water put on each plant about 20 grams ran through, but that was where the similarity ended.  The plant with the CO2 grew faster and gained mass where the pot getting water alone lost mass initially, but then began to grow slowly.  Clearly the CO2 supplemented plant was taking and using aqueous CO2.

          In spite of the success it was clear that water was not the ideal medium for delivering carbon dioxide to plants.  A liter of water will take only 8.8 grams of the gas, 4.5 liters, which is very little and it would be added to ground water already present over-saturating the soil during some seasons.  What would be the result?  A diluted solution with reduced effect?  Increased water use?  Expensive delivery and maintenance systems?  It soon became evident that using water to deliver CO2 would cause many problems.

          Adrian had seen sub-soil plows in use in central Illinois as a teenager.  They were used to open deeper earth to surface water, disturb and destroy burrowing insect and animal pests, bring minerals depleted from many plantings up to the surface.  He wondered whether or not this system could be adapted to the delivery of carbon dioxide and how well it would work.

          Gas capture is the critical issue in sequestration.  The literature had shown anhydrous ammonia was well captured when soil was injected to a depth of only four inches.  However, ammonia gas is so soluble 1100 volumes of it dissolves in one volume of water.  That is not the case with carbon dioxide, but it is sufficiently soluble that it would stay where put when injected at a depth of 18 inches. With soil having about 10% cold water the gas would dissolve quickly if a reasonable amount were presented.  That rate is about 1200 liters per minute from each sub-soil spike at the normal pulling rate of one to three mph.  These rigs have six or eight spikes typically which means it can handle a very large amount of gas and fertilize many acres of modern crops that produce twice as much food on a fraction of the water normally needed.

          The water saving with ordinary plants is 20% to 30% in pots.  We believe it will be 50% with subsoil injection as the water is deeper, cooler and better sealed.  With less immediate loss the flow of CO2 will be more regular and effective.  In our experiments the rate of transpiration dropped to the lowest level for one day immediately after watering with carbonated water which indicates loss of the gas from the surface.  With 18 inch deep injection we will not have as rapid losses in yet another finding for the system.

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