Amplified Relief From Drought and Famine- A Spin-Off Technology From Fossil-Fueled Climate Restoration

摘要

The invention encompasses multi-stage naturally amplified global-scale carbon dioxide capture systems combining basic capture from (CCS—carbon capture and sequestration) clean-coal-fired and CCS gas-fired power plants, CCS natural-gas reformation systems, CCS cement plants, outdoor air, CCS home and building flues, CCS incinerators, CCS crematoriums, CCS blast-furnaces, CCS kilns, CCS refineries, CCS factories, CCS oil gasification systems and CCS coal gasification systems which yield concentrated carbon dioxide, with a collective, globally distributed capture capacity of up to 3 GtC/yr, feeding the captured carbon dioxide into land-based invention stage-1 bioreactors for rapid, selective, high capacity conversion to a high-density, fast-sinking marine algae by means of accelerated photosynthesis and/or coccolithogenesis (calcification) consuming carbon dioxide as the algae bloom, and transporting a primary fraction of the stage-1 bioreactor-produced algae to seaports for seeding the oceans at regular intervals in stage-2 operations-at-sea to produce naturally amplified 14 GtC/yr algal blooms at sea, the stage-2 operations circumventing classic prior-art (and natural) ocean fertilization limits of low bloom rate, grazers eating algae seed before it blooms, interfering buoyant algal species which don't clear the photic zone to allow light penetration for multiple blooms per year, and proximal post-bloom anoxia, and reserving a secondary fraction of the stage-1 bioreactor produced algae for feeding cultures of ocean grazers contained in a second bioreactor, in which the second bioreactor produces dimethylsulfide (DMS), a natural cloud seeding agent as the bioreactor-contained ocean grazer cultures eat the secondary fraction of stage-1 original bioreactor-produced algae. A total invention CO2 capture and safe storage capacity of 17 GtC/yr (land and sea) is projected during fair-weather, and a 40% foul weather down-time allowance ensures that an average 10 GtC/yr of impact capture would result. If emissions are concurrently capped by at 12 GtC/yr by 2023, with invention-assisted reduction to 6 GtC/yr by 2050, 3 GtC/yr by 2062, and 1 GtC/yr by 2078, atmospheric CO2 will be reduced to 280 ppm by 2075. The CIP invention production of DMS (both inland invention DMS production and invention ocean-amplified DMS production following ocean-amplified algal blooming and ocean-amplified capture of atmospheric CO2) may be used to seed rain-clouds over or adjacent to semi-arid lands, enabling drought and famine relief. If the rain clouds are seeded adjacent to semi-arid lands, winds may drive the rain clouds over the drought stressed lands.;A spin-off technology includes use of excess dead bioreactor algae for agricultural soil spreads to enhance soil moisture retention—which is important in maximizing drought relief.

主权项

1. A combination system for production of algae and secondary production of dimethylsulfide (DMS), a natural cloud-seeding agent, the system comprising: a CO2 source; and a first algae-producing bioreactor supplied with concentrated CO2 from the CO2 source; and a second DMS-producing bioreactor supplied with algae produced by the first bioreactor; in which the first bioreactor is configured to encourage accelerated growth and reproduction of algae as well as to enable development of a more concentrated final algal bloom; in which optical opacity limits on seed level and bloom concentration are circumvented by an optical thinning effect which enables greater light penetration into more concentrated algae suspensions; wherein the greater light penetration enables higher level initial seeding or inoculation of the bioreactor bloom space; wherein the higher level of initial seed accelerates blooming as a result of starting higher on an upward-bending nonlinear algal growth curve; and in which a normally inaccessible upper section of the nonlinear algal growth curve is conventionally inaccessible owing to optical opacity of concentrated algal suspensions; and in which the normally inaccessible upper section of the nonlinear growth curve is rendered accessible by the optical thinning effect which enables light penetration into optically thinned suspensions of concentrated algae; and in which the second bioreactor contains a culture of grazers that eat the algae supplied by the first bioreactor; in which grazer feeding on the algae causes the algae to release DMS.