Because my Earth’s too bootylicious for you, babe xo

Ok, so we know how to capture CO₂, we can even store CO₂; but how much junk can the Earth actually fit in the trunk? Formally, what is the expected global storage capacity for fixed Carbon Dioxide? Whilst we shall discuss methods of Carbon Storage (there are many), the one important thing to note now: Carbon is not stored in a gaseous state, but a denser super – critical state which means we can store a lot more than you’d think!

The IPPC Climate Change Synthesis Report estimates anthropogenic 2010 emissions at ~49±4.5 GtO₂-eq/yr^-1. To give a little perspective, anthropogenic emissions in 1970 were just 27 Gigatons (Gt) – a ~100% increase in 40 years, well done society. The figures for global capacity carry great amounts of uncertainty and range from320 Gt to 10,000 Gt. The main argument for geo – engineering and CCS is to prevent tipping points in the climate system. Even if we take a more reserved storage estimate of 3,000 Gt CO₂, and we store 25% of emissions per annum we are working on a timescale exceeding 75 years! The Manhattan Project took 4 years. Look what the world’s leading economies can do if they really put the effort in…

Figure 1. Density of Carbon Dioxide as a function of depth plotted against geo-thermal gradients, extracted from E.Lindeberg, 1996.