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Science

ADM Buries Corn Plant Emissions Equal To 1.2 Million Cars (bnnbloomberg.ca) 94

Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., one of the world's biggest grain traders, is injecting carbon dioxide released by its corn plants underground, using commercial-scale technology that's the first of its kind. BNN Bloomberg reports: The company just completed a project with the University of Illinois proving that its methods to capture carbon are safe, according to a Wednesday release. That will aid its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% against a 2019 baseline. In the project, ADM used wells to pump carbon dioxide 6,500 feet underground. The site was able to accept and store 1 million metric tons over three years. That's equivalent to annual emissions from about 1.2 million passenger cars, according to the release. The corn plant in Decatur, Illinois, where the emissions originated from processes the grain into starches and sweeteners, among other products. ADM has another well set to operate until 2022 that could store 5.5 million metric tons of the gas. Together, the two projects have already stored 3.4 million tons.
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ADM Buries Corn Plant Emissions Equal To 1.2 Million Cars

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  • by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @08:19PM (#61402088) Homepage Journal

    Because that's how you suffocate a bunch a people [wikipedia.org], or get an unstoppable, traveling mud pot [nationalgeographic.com]. Standing too close to any mud pot is actually quite dangerous because cool carbon dioxide gas will pool in the lowest point.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      Even if it did escape, it wouldn't be in a single catastrophic event.
    • My thoughts too. We need to capture carbon and convert it to something more stable. Like, oh I dunno, TREES?

      Trees capture CO2 and convert it to solid mass, facilitating long term storage in sophisticated facilities known as "forests". They also give off this stuff called Oxygen, which is a neat byproduct.

      • by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @08:58PM (#61402156)
        There's nowhere near enough land to compensate for fossil fuel emissions by planting trees.
        • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:00PM (#61402278)

          There's nowhere near enough land to compensate for fossil fuel emissions by planting trees.

          Indeed. We would need to plant an area twice the size of Eurasia. But Eurasia is mostly desert, grassland, farmland, tundra, or already forested.

          "Trees" proposed as a solution to climate change is mostly greenwashing to divert attention from the necessity of reducing fossil fuel consumption.

          There are many good reasons to plant trees. Solving climate change isn't one of them.

          • So more trees and pretty much ban most people in the city and suburbs from having cars. You still have commercial vehicles and semi-trucks for deliveries to the local stores but consume vehicle ownership would need to by and large end.

            Yeah. I don't see that happening either, but it would be pretty awesome if major metros were more walkable and bicycle friendly.

            One can dream.

            • ban most people in the city and suburbs from having cars.

              Or switch to EVs. I already have an EV and will never buy another ICE. The convenience of charging at home is too good to ever give up.

              You still have commercial vehicles and semi-trucks for deliveries

              They can also be EVs. The economics of EVs makes even more sense for short-range delivery vehicles because of their higher utilization factor.

              • Or switch to EVs. I already have an EV and will never buy another ICE. The convenience of charging at home is too good to ever give up.

                That's fine if the CO2 reduction that comes from switching to electric vehicles is significantly greater than the CO2 increase from:
                - additional fossil fuel power generation to charge cars
                - manufacturing and erecting wind turbines and solar farms
                - mining and transporting materials for same
                - replacing panels and turbines every 20 years or less
                - and a bunch of others I haven't thought of yet.

                I suspect representatives of the 'green' power sector are more than a little dishonest, or at least wilfully blind

                • EV's are pretty good, they waste less energy than a conventional fueled car. II did a comparison between a 1 litre corsa and a tesla and the tesla used around 20 euro's worth of electricity v 50 euros worth of unleaded for the corsa on a mile for mile basis.

                  so score 1 for energy efficiency for the tesla.

                  Wind Power can't power the whole grid (in ireland it maxes out at around 70 - 75%) more would risk destabilizing the grid. In practice this leads to days like today where wind is curtailed or wasted as the

                  • You simply cannot use cost as the metric. That gas/diesel gets taxes that the juice does not, particularly in Europe. In the US you can see some of that effect in the price variance state by state where each state tacks on some fuel tax over and above the fed fuel tax of 18c/gal. And hybrids essentially remove the regen energy losses seen in pure ICE vehicles. I still think hybrids are a better answer. Many get near 50mpg. The true cost of EV's is so obfuscated by tax incentives. How many would pay the extr
                    • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

                      How many people would be willing to buy fossil fuels if the subsidies that oil companies were to be removed and then added on top of the fuel taxes?

                      The United States provides a number of tax subsidies to the fossil fuel industry as a means of encouraging domestic energy production. These include both direct subsidies to corporations, as well as other tax benefits to the fossil fuel industry. Conservative estimates put U.S. direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at roughly $20 billion per year; with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil. European Union subsidies are estimated to total 55 billion euros annually.

                      https://www.eesi.org/papers/vi... [eesi.org]

                      By comparison, direct U.S. subsidies to renewables are much smaller, and renewable energy developers aren’t even able to access many of the same breaks that fossil fuel industries do. Moreover, most of the tax breaks that renewables get—like the investment and production tax credits for wind and solar—are only temporary (so far), with expiration dates looming. Looking at the permanent tax expenditures alone, these favor the fossil fuel industry over the renewable energy sector 7 to 1, with permanent tax spending for renewables totaling only around $1.1 billion in 2016.

                      https://generation180.org/the-... [generation180.org]

                    • Sure whatever. Except the oil companies pay taxes on profits. Those "subsidies" are just depreciation, which is given to the landowner not the oil company who paid for the lease. But pointless to argue. Keep believing.
                    • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

                      Renewable energy producers also pay taxes on their profits but are able to produce energy on far less government subsidies than the fossil fuel industry.

                      I did forgot to add into my initial response that simply using costs to compare EV and ICE vehicle is definitely not the way to do things. So at least on that we agree.

                      8^)

                  • Wind can't power the whole grid that we have today. But if we all had EVs, it could. Rather than try to "load follow" with peaking gas plants, just have the EVs adjust their charging rate up and down as they charge. Sure if somebody is on a long trip they might want to charge as fast as possible but many EVs charge while sitting in office parking lots or overnight in garages. Industrial users scale their usage up and down very quickly based on spot prices and EVs could do the same.
                • by nasch ( 598556 )

                  Electric cars are better than gas cars, full stop. Whether they're good enough is a separate question, but the idea that they are no better for the environment is false. Pick whatever source you prefer:

                  https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

          • by DrSkwid ( 118965 )

            > the necessity of reducing fossil fuel consumption

            you mean "luxury of reducing ..."

        • There's nowhere near enough land to compensate for fossil fuel emissions by planting trees.

          No problemo. We'll just chop some down to make room.

          • There's nowhere near enough land to compensate for fossil fuel emissions by planting trees.

            No problemo. We'll just chop some down to make room.

            This is actually not as stupid as it's meant to sound. Trees sequester the most carbon in their early life stages. Just make sure the harvested wood is used for things like furniture, building, and paper - not burnt.

            Although, on a more holisitc note, natural carbon sequestration is more than just trees. A mature forest (especially if wild, i.e. greater specie

            • Trees sequester the most carbon in their early life stages

              Who told you this? It is demonstrably incorrect for the vast majority of tree species.

              All growth in trees occurs in the cambium. This is a thin layer just below the bark. This layer is larger as the tree grows in diameter. All growth in trees is powered by photosynthesis. Photosynthesis occurs in the leaves. A mature tree has more leaves.

              Larger trees of most species sequester more carbon than younger, smaller ones. You have the situation exactly backwards, and are spreading misinformation.

              Although, on a more holisitc note, natural carbon sequestration is more than just trees.

              Yes, but nearly al

              • Its the rate of growth. Younger trees have a faster growth rate versus mature trees. A mature tree has stored more carbon obviously as wood but continues to store additional carbon at a slower rate than a young tree. So if you had a place to store logs one could conceivably cut down the tree once its growth has reach some max rate and thus future rate of growth was on the decline so you could then plant a new seedling to keep the rate of growth high.
      • My thoughts too. We need to capture carbon and convert it to something more stable. Like, oh I dunno, TREES?

        Trees are not stable. They die and release all their CO2 if you do not bury them deep under ground. There is a reason they have been around for billions of years without sucking up all the CO2, they are carbon neutral.

        • This, and all the nonsense about farm animal farts. Farm animals eat the carbon captured by plants. They don't add extra carbon, and methane breaks down comparatively quickly.

          But at least with trees, you can either bury them, or treat the wood to make it less biodegradable and use it for building material.
          • This, and all the nonsense about farm animal farts. Farm animals eat the carbon captured by plants. They don't add extra carbon, and methane breaks down comparatively quickly.

            It's not farts, it's burps. The rest of us know this, and if you knew anything about this, you'd know it too. Methane takes about a year to break down, during which time it is a much stronger GHG than CO2, and then it breaks down into CO2 and water vapor! The idea that methane is a small problem because it is short-lived is both false and stupid.

            But at least with trees, you can either bury them, or treat the wood to make it less biodegradable and use it for building material.

            If you bury the trees then they tend to decompose anaerobically and they release most of their carbon anyway. You don't have to treat the wood to make it less biode

            • It's not farts, it's burps. The rest of us know this, and if you knew anything about this, you'd know it too.

              If you bothered to read, I mentioned burps in another reply. I mentioned farts because that's what gets written about. But I took care to mention burps long before you decided to reply.

              The idea that methane is a small problem because it is short-lived is both false and stupid.

              The IDEA is that the livestock methane came from plants, which absorbed the CO2 from, ultimately, the air. The methane that gets released by animals do not come from some magical breaking of the conservation of matter. I'm talking about methane in the context of livestock, not methane in general, and to not take that into acc

              • by nasch ( 598556 )

                According to this source it's 12 years, not one year. And reducing methane emissions can have a climate change benefit regardless of where it came from originally. It shouldn't be the top priority, but if we can do it (for example the findings about feeding cows seaweed) there's no reason not to.

                https://clear.ucdavis.edu/expl... [ucdavis.edu]

                • The point is livestock recycles carbon. It doesn't generate new carbon that wasn't in the cycle before. Spending any effort on research is a waste of time when there are much bigger sources of non-recycled methane.
                  • by nasch ( 598556 )

                    But they don't just release carbon, they turn carbon dioxide into methane, which is much worse for the years it's in the atmosphere. And this is a waste of time only if the people working on it are also in a position to solve some other climate problem and are spending their time on this instead. Which sounds unlikely to me, and while it is possible it is not axiomatically true.

                    • It's much worse only by a equal volume comparison. There's still much more total CO2 and non-livestock methane in the atmosphere than livestock methane, and CO2 lasts for hundreds of years in the atmosphere. The timescales for livestock methane simply doesn't matter for the sources of most of the atmospheric carbon.
        • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

          Trees don't release ALL of their carbon when they die. You don't even have to bury them for this to be true. There is a portion of the tree that will decompose into humus (soil). Some of the carbon that is captured by trees will be taken up by insects, animals and other plants that feed on fallen trees. I have no idea what the proportions are but there will be a significant proportion that is permanently captured.*
          There was a time that CO2 accounted for much more of the atmosphere than it does now. Part of

          • There is a portion of the tree that will decompose into humus (soil).

            This presumes that the tree isn't consumed by fire which honestly, seems to happen with increasing frequency on this planet.

            You are correct that sometimes it won't all be released at once. However, even releasing 50% of the CO2 in 50 years time means that we cannot rely on trees to sequester CO2. I'm hoping in the next 30 years that nuclear energy (of some sort) becomes a cheap and widely deployed source of electricity. With cheap clean energy we can do direct air capture of CO2 and then turn it into a n

            • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

              Even if the tree is consumed by fire it doesn't release all of the stored CO2. There will still be ash and coals that aren't fully burned.

              I will agree that trees aren't the complete answer to sequestering CO2 but it helps in the process.

      • by codeButcher ( 223668 ) on Thursday May 20, 2021 @04:49AM (#61402994)

        Trees capture CO2 and convert it to solid mass, facilitating long term storage in sophisticated facilities known as "forests".

        I am with you, of course, but it seems that the Enlightened Modern Man still thinks in some primitive ways: we see discrete and independent entities (trees, carbon) and see the problem in the transformation from the one to the other.

        In reality life is much more complex, it is an intricate "web" of interactions between organisms. Natural carbon sequestration is more than just trees. A mature forest (especially if wild, i.e. greater species diversity) would have a whole ecosystem of trees, shurbs, weeds, earthworms, insects, fungi, soil bacteria etc. etc. - carbon-based lifeforms - that all play their part in sequestering carbon in their bodies while living and multiplying.

        I was struck by the subject of Terra Preta in the Amazon. Initially this carbon-rich, and very fertile, soil was formed by the addition of biochar to the soil. Biochar, compared to charcoal, has a lot of microscopic voids, thus presenting a huge surface area on which soil micro-organisms can grow and multiply, and also absorb and store moisture and nutrients coming from outside. Hence the fertility, even though carbon itself is relatively inert. The real kicker in this however was that the layer of Terra Preta in the surrounding soil was found to be regenerating itself without any further human input by as much as 1cm a year. Micro-organisms live in it, multiply, then die, leaving their carbon-containing bodies behind and sequestering carbon - microscopic quantities per individual, but on a massive scale.

        In the mean time, we go and denude a piece of soil and break up its structure, then plant some single crop (like TFA's maize) and Roundup the hell out of it, which all kills the soil ecosystem, making the soil lose fertility, then we add artificial fertilizer to still get production out of it, which is also harsh on the soil ecosystem, then feed ourselves this nutritionally inferior product. But just think if all that farmland actually was also sequestering carbon underground WHILE providing nutritious food to us...

        • I was struck by the subject of Terra Preta in the Amazon. Initially this carbon-rich, and very fertile, soil was formed by the addition of biochar to the soil. Biochar, compared to charcoal, has a lot of microscopic voids, thus presenting a huge surface area on which soil micro-organisms can grow and multiply, and also absorb and store moisture and nutrients coming from outside. Hence the fertility, even though carbon itself is relatively inert. The real kicker in this however was that the layer of Terra Preta in the surrounding soil was found to be regenerating itself without any further human input by as much as 1cm a year. Micro-organisms live in it, multiply, then die, leaving their carbon-containing bodies behind and sequestering carbon - microscopic quantities per individual, but on a massive scale.

          Rainforests as a rule sequester almost no carbon because of the rate of decomposition. It is fast enough and there is enough water in the soil that most of the decomposition is anaerobic, in which conditions the least carbon is sequestered.

    • Given the amount of travel, a significant amount of it will end up turning to limestone or caliche. Still a possible problem unless done in an area where little grows, but tolerable.

    • ... and all those suffocated people will immediately cut their carbon production by over 99%.
    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @09:56PM (#61402262)

      At the temperature and pressure at 2 kilometers underground, CO2 is a super-critical fluid, not a gas.

      The CO2 is not mobile, and it injected into shale formations that held methane for millions of years despite methane being far more mobile than CO2.

      Significant leaks are unlikely.

      • injected into shale formations that held methane for millions of years

        Until they were hydraulically fractured.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        At the temperature and pressure at 2 kilometers underground, CO2 is a super-critical fluid, not a gas.

        Right, and when you drive through a tunnel in a large mountain, your car gets crushed by the pressure of all that rock overhead /s.
        Hint: the cracks and fissures in which they inject the CO2 are not under pressure/tension, or the rock would be unstable and collapse. The pressure from the CO2 comes from it trying to revert from gas to liquid, and not being able to expand due to the surrounding rock. Depth has little to do with it.

    • by kvutza ( 893474 )
      Thanks for the links, they are interesting regardless of the issue discussed here.
    • Hey I am a nympho and I get turned on guys who I know little ...Oh .. I'm waiting >> https://lst.to/dfick [lst.to]
    • A lake, possibly 500 feet deep, and bedrock down to 6500 feet, don't work quite the same way. If they did, oil & natural gas wouldn't need drilling/fracking to release at any rate that is a danger to humans.

      • by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

        It's a win/win. Dump the CO2 into the lake and you don't need to carbonate it for soda?
        I know they're different concentrations, however dumping it into lakes seems like a bad idea as well.

  • Who's cars? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FeelGood314 ( 2516288 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @08:19PM (#61402090)
    The average Canadian car produces 4600kg of CO2. I suspect that since Americans drive bigger cars they are closer to 5000kg meaning 1.2 million American passenger cars will annually produce 6 million metric tons of C02. When the first line is off by a factor of 6 I suspect reading the rest of the article is a waste of time.
    • Re:Who's cars? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:06PM (#61402292)

      Many screwy figures like this are a result of confusing CO2 with carbon.

      6 million tonnes of CO2 contains 1.6 million tonnes of carbon.

      Sometimes the confusion is deliberate, but more often just journalistic incompetence.

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Many screwy figures like this are a result of confusing CO2 with carbon.

        6 million tonnes of CO2 contains 1.6 million tonnes of carbon.

        Sometimes the confusion is deliberate, but more often just journalistic incompetence.

        The problematic gas is CO2 - it's a greenhouse gas that's fairly common in the atmosphere.

        The easiest way to get rid of CO2 is to sequester carbon - by converting CO2 to Carbon and O2.

        Carbon by itself is a great material - very useful for many things, but not so great when paired with oxygen,

        • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

          The easiest way to get rid of CO2 is to sequester carbon - by converting CO2 to Carbon and O2.

          Is this really the easiest way? It would take energy to convert CO2 into carbon and oxygen. Where is that energy coming from? If you are going to use renewables then you are talking adding a LOT of extra renewable energy creation just to convert the CO2 instead of sequestering it. I would have to assume that the splitting of CO2 would use significantly more energy than sequestration.

    • "I suspect that" != "I have evidence that"

      Just sayin'

  • that this is actually happening and not just future-speak. I'd be interested to know what the marginal increase in costs are for the starch and sugar production with the mitigations in place, as opposed to dumping it into the atmosphere (virtually free)
  • by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Thursday May 20, 2021 @12:07AM (#61402492)
    So when it comes to global warming, I couldn't car less.
    • I have a picture of some moron at a climate rally holding a sign that says, "Don't blame me. I ride the bus!"

      • Why do you think that person was a moron? Do you consider all climate activists to be morons or do you find bus-riders particularly moronic for some reason?

        • Neither of those things.

          I consider someone who thinks a bus runs on magic unicorn dust to be a moron. Same for people who think electricity comes from wall sockets, food comes from grocery stores, or money comes from governments.

    • And, apparently, neither does the Biden admin. He commissioned a study by some outfit called the Environmental Justice Committee. Their report was just delivered ( https://thehill.com/policy/ene... [thehill.com] ) and it specifically forbids spending any monies that would reduce CO2 impact. Yes, that means that if someone comes up with a tech that sequesters CO2 this bunch would oppose that. Such groups do not care about the environment, they only care about telling you what to do.
  • As a plant, I would assume it absorbed CO2, although most is soon released when we eat the corn.

    • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      The conversion "processes [of] the grain into starches and sweeteners, among other products" is what is producing the CO2.
      Although technically the corn plant does also release CO2 as it grows via respiration. 8^)

  • by countach ( 534280 ) on Thursday May 20, 2021 @12:29AM (#61402536)

    Hmm, if this was done at scale, wouldn't the loss of all the oxygen to the planet be a problem?

    • Unsure why.
      We're just putting it back where we found it.

      Ignoring the fact that this doesn't come anywhere near counteracting the amount of CO2 we're moving from buried to the air, even if we stopped all fossil fuel burning this minute, we'd still have over 100ppm of CO2 we could grow into plants, and then bury before we even hit the levels that existed before the industrial era.
    • If this was done at scale, how much underground volume would need to be found and what happens when it fills up?

    • Hmm, if this was done at scale, wouldn't the loss of all the oxygen to the planet be a problem?

      Interesting question. The oxygen was locked up when we burned the coal, natural gas, or oil.Up to now, we've sorta assumed plants will re-liberate the oxygen via photosynthesis, leaving that carbon lying around somewhere. When we sequester CO2, the net effect is we've removed some fossil carbon from the ground, removed any hydrogen, added oxygen, and re-buried it.

      That being said, there's a lot of oxygen in the oceans and atmosphere so I'd be surprised if this was a noticeable effect.

  • we are pulling out huge amount of carbon out of Earth's crust, and release to the atmosphere.
    Am I the only person who feels this extremely stupid?
    • by nasch ( 598556 )

      Yes, you're literally the first person in the history of humanity to think that maybe we should stop burning fossil fuels. Thank you for thinking of it.

      • by bocsi ( 5463102 )
        1. pull out carbon from the crust
        2. take its chemical energy from it
        3. use huge amount of taxpayers' money to pump the CO2 back to the crust (do not forget handling+safety costs forever)
        4. Profit!! for the old energy companies, everyone else just sucks

        TL DR: do not pull out carbon from the crust, that will cause excessive damage and huge problems up here.
  • I didn't RTFA obviously. I know how to use Slashdot after all :D.

    How much energy does this process take and how is that energy produced? I mean imagine it being coal and the process of hiding the CO2 producing more CO2 than 1.2 million passenger cars.... Germans would call that a veritable Schildbuergerstreich.

  • Instead of pumping it under the ground, they should synthesize oil from it with renewable energy. Oil is still a good energy storage medium. Carbon-neutral fuel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    • Or even come up with a way to turn it into sugar? After all, this is what plants do, albeit slowly. I am wondering if there is an industrial-scale way to do that chemistry (not a chemist, obviously)

    • by nasch ( 598556 )

      Sequestering it removes it from the atmosphere, which is better than carbon neutral, which puts it back.

  • Maybe this is obvious, but does anyone know what they mean by Corn Plant Emissions? Last time I checked, corn comes from a plant that uses carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. Are they referring to emissions from parts of the picked corn plants that are not used for anything? Emissions from the machines processing the corn?

  • The problem is going to be solved with technology, not badgering and political grandstanding. Projects like this are excellent.
    • You can't solve any sort of global problem like this without the support of governments and the people they represent, therefore if you want to get politics out of the equation you'll have to abolish all governments everywhere on the planet, i.e. anarchy. That's not a solution either. To some people living in an 80's post-apocalyptic movie might look cool and edgy, but I assure you it would suck.
  • Seriously. The world needs to get fucked if it thinks this is any kind of solution. Well, it already is, so have at it!
  • So they're literally pumping a gas underground? Won't it just seep back out, or literally explode back out if there's a disturbance of the underground area (I hesitate to say 'earthquake' here)? Won't this underground area/well/whatever you want to call it eventually reach a level of pressure where you can't use it anymore? Does it get absorbed by the local geology? Lots of questions.
    Meanwhile this just seems to me to be a feel-good measure for PR purposes. The real solution is to stop burning things to ge
  • I may be able to clarify a few things from the article. While I am not an expert in the field, I actually work for the college where the injection well is located (we're right across the street from the ADM corn processing plant). This project is part of a 30-year study into carbon sequestration; the injection well has been actively functioning for about 10 years now (the well head is about 200 yards away from my office).

    To answer some basic questions: ADM is in the business of turning corn into high-fr

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