GB2489510A

GB2489510A - Carbon dioxide capture method and installation for cultivating shell-bearing gastropods

Info

Publication number: GB2489510A
Application number: GB1105505.0A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Peter Mcnulty
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2011-03-31
Filing date: 2011-03-31
Publication date: 2012-10-03
Also published as: GB201105505D0

Abstract

A method of capturing carbon from the atmosphere comprises cultivating green plants, harvesting the plants, processing the harvested plants into food for shell-bearing gastropods (e.g. snails) and green waste, feeding the food to the gastropods until maturity, harvesting the mature gastropods and separating the shells from the bodies, processing the bodies to obtain protein or fuel and processing the shells for use as a construction material. An installation for cultivating shell-bearing gastropods comprises food-processing apparatus for receiving green plant material and for separating said material into food for the gastropods and plant waste, containment means for containing the gastropods, feeding means for supplying the food to the gasÂtropods at a controlled rate conducive to growth of the gastropods, means for harvesting the gastropods from the containment means and processing means for processing the harvested gastropods to obtain protein or fuel and shells for use as a construction material.

Description

CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURE METHOD AND INSTALLATION FOR CULTI-

VATING SHELL-BEARING GASTROPODS

Field of the Invention

This invention relates to a method of capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and to an installation for cultivating shell-bearing gastropods.

Background to the Invention

Coal, gas and oil burning produce billions of tonnes of CO2 each year.

This is believed to contribute significantly to global warming, but while some are sceptical about this, it is clearly prudent to take steps to reduce levels of atmos-pheric carbon dioxide without waiting for final resolution of the debate. Carrying on as normal, producing energy, using fossil fuels, without a carbon capture programme, has enormous financial risks. In CO2 reduction, there are no quick fixes. Building the infrastructure to absorb this much CO2 will take at least a generation. However, nature found a way to reverse global warming in prehis-toric times by locking up excess carbon. How? Shell-bearing gastropods and plankton breed in a way that assumes most of its offspring will be predated up-on and not live to maturity. By early global warming many of their predators were destroyed and shell-bearing gastropods bred exponentially. Their shells created limestone and chalk around the world and their bodies contributed to the gas and oil that is trapped underground. Photosynthesis created the forests that made the coal seams underground. All the above are natural carbon cap-ture processes. Coral reefs will only absorb and store CO2 when the oceans are less acidic.

Summary of the Invention

According to the invention, there is provided a method of capturing car-bon from the atmosphere, comprising cultivating green plants, harvesting the plants, processing the harvested plants into food for shell-bearing gastropods and green waste, feeding the food to gastropods until maturity, harvesting the mature gastropods and separating the shells from the bodies, processing the bodies to obtain protein or fuel and processing the shells for use as a construc-tion material.

The invention also provides an installation for cultivating shell-bearing gastropods, comprising food-processing apparatus for receiving green plant material and for separating said material into food for the gastropods and plant waste, containment means for containing the gastropods, feeding means for supplying the food to the gastropods at a controlled rate conducive to growth of the gastropods, means for harvesting gastropods from the containment means and processing means for processing the harvested gastropods to obtain pro-tein or fuel and shells for use as a construction material.

The installation preferably comprises means for collecting waste excret-ed by the gastropods and for composting said waste together with the waste plant material.

Milling means may also be provided to crush the shells to produce a par-ticulate material for construction use, for example as an aggregate in place of sand. However, since the shells are substantially formed from calcium car-bonate, the particulate material may alternatively be used as a feedstock in the manufacture of cement.

The gastropods are suitably terrestrial snails, since these can readily feed on land-grown plant matter.

Brief Description of the Drawing

The drawing is a flow diagram illustrating a method in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description of the Invention

In order for the method of the invention to have a significant impact on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, it will need to be continuous twenty four hours a day, very repetitive and on an enormous scale. Plants capture CO2 by photosynthesis which makes food for snails. It is not necessary to pro- duce finished crops (wheat, rice, apples, etc.), just large amounts of green ma-terial. The snail food is processed through the snail food preparation area and then fed to the snails.

It is not sufficient to keep snails in a field and expect them to absorb enough CO2 from the atmosphere to make a difference to global warming.

Snails in the wild live a short life and when they die their shells and bodies are converted back into basic elements. The shell is broken down by decaying plant material and the bodies are consumed by predators. Only in a protected envi-ronment of a purpose-built and designed facility will it be possible to reproduce the natural carbon process in an acceptable time.

Inside the snail farm, of which it is envisaged there will eventually be 4000 across the world, there will be one thousand three hundred trillion snails being processed at any one time. Each snail farm will be designed to produce 1 million tonnes of snail shells per year. It is estimated to take 5 million snail shells to make a tonne of captured CO2. To produce I million tonnes of snail shells a year equals two tonnes every minute. You cannot process this many snails without a very large and totally automated facility. In any one farm, many vertical layers of snail production may be employed to minimise the amount of land required, but it is envisaged that each farm might occupy a few square kil-ometres.

When snails are kept in a purpose-designed facility they will grow from egg to maturity in 90 days. The snail example is based on the small grey snail, which is the typical snail served in a restaurant.

The snail farm produces three snail products: a shell, a soft body and waste. Each of these products is the result of a carbon capture process. The shell is a solid stable material, the soft body is unstable and the waste is a semi stable form of carbon capture. Shell

The snail shell is captured carbon and it is chemically identical to lime-stone and chalk. The snail shell is to be converted into building materials. Four billion tonnes a year every year is a lot of material to use and the obvious use for this is to build offshore reefs which protect the environment and create new forms of inexhaustible tidal energy for example by causing the formation of tidal races in coastal areas which can then be harnessed for power generation. Oth-er uses for the shells are as a feedstock to the cement industry. Coral will not act as a carbon sink because the seas are becoming more acidic. The new reefs must be designed to encourage biodiversity of the marine environment, fish production and tourism as well as the de-acidification of the oceans, which is achieved simply by the presence of calcium carbonate-based materials in the sea-water.

Snail body The snail body is one and a half times the weight of the shell. Each plant will therefore produce approximately one and a half million tonnes of snail bod-ies every year. After building the 4000 snail farms approximately 6 billion tonnes of snail bodies are produced every year. What to do with approximately 6 billion tonnes of snail bodies? Snails are a carbon-based life form and snails and their cousins were the basic feed stock that created gas and oil under the ground. All that was needed was a hundred million years.

Combining a continuous supply of snail bodies with modern bacteria that is genetically modified to consume the snail bodies and produce a liquid fuel as a by-product producing renewable liquid fuel which will be continuously recy-cled.

Other uses for snail bodies are animal and fish-farming feedstock and compost. Waste

All the waste from the snail farm is composted and recycled. Waste from the experimental fuel manufacturing facilities, dead bacteria etc. will also be re-cycled and composted. There are no harmful side effects. There are no harmful pollutants. Even the burnt fuel produced in accordance with the invention will not create pollution as the carbon dioxide will be recycled. The compost is needed to maintain and improve the land fertility that produces the food for the snails. This amount of compost produced in 4000 locations across the world will change agriculture into a more sustainable organic mode. Composted waste represents a carbon capture semi-stable material of ten billion tonnes per year.

Compost in this state is stable from between two weeks and two hundred years.

After the four thousand snail farms are built and the production of com-post will enable new forms of agriculture to be developed. It will be possible to include slow release fertilisers in the compost which will change the economics and pollution from agriculture. Fertilisers are the largest consumable expense that agriculture has and in its present usage a significant portion of these end up polluting rivers and coastlines, creating dead zones. It is hoped that in the future using carefully-engineered compost materials will change the nature of waste from farms, reducing harmful effects and at the same time being econom-ic. Carefully designed reefs would also contribute to tidal and sea current flows to assist with the repair of marine dead zones.

Numbers 4000 snail farms are to be constructed over a fifty year period. The rea-son for 4000 separate farms is that each farm will consume approximately 6,000,000 tonnes of food. Each farm will have a capacity of 1,000,000 tonnes of snail shells, 1,500,000 tonnes of soft body and 2,500,000 tonnes of waste.

5,000,000 snail shells weighs 1 ton.

Each minute 2 tonnes of snail shells are produced and from egg to ma-turity takes 90 days.

The number of snails in a snail farm at any one time is 10,000,000 x 60 x 24 x 90 = 1,296,000,000,000 Snail egg production Each mature snail produces approximately 100 eggs per month.

10,000,000 snails eggs are produced every 1 minute, therefore the num-ber of mature snails in the production facility is 100,000 x 60 x 24 x 30 = 4,320,000,000 4000 snail farms will produce about 20 billion tonnes of product.

4 billion tonnes will be stable shells and this amount will be locked away each year in reef and building projects. The balance will consist of fuel and compost.

You can change the numbers significantly by shortening the cycle or by using larger or smaller snails. It always comes down to the volume of captured carbon dioxide by plants being converted into solids by snails.

Claims

CLAIMS1. A method of capturing carbon from the atmosphere, comprising cultivating green plants, harvesting the plants, processing the harvested plants into food for shell-bearing gastropods and green waste, feeding the food to gas-tropods until maturity, harvesting the mature gastropods and separating the shells from the bodies, processing the bodies to obtain protein or fuel and pro-cessing the shells for use as a construction material.
2. A method according to Claim 1, comprising processing the bodies to obtain protein for animal or fish feed.
3. A method according to Claim 1, comprising treating the bodies with bacteria to produce a liquid or gaseous fuel.
4. A method according to Claim 1, 2 or 3, comprising collecting waste excreted by the gastropods and composting said waste together with the green waste to form a soil-improving material.
5. A method according to any preceding claim, comprising crushing the shells to form a particulate material.
6. A method according to any preceding claim, wherein the gastro-pods are snails.
7. An installation for cultivating shell-bearing gastropods, comprising food-processing apparatus for receiving green plant material and for separating said material into food for the gastropods and plant waste, containment means for containing the gastropods, feeding means for supplying the food to the gas-tropods at a controlled rate conducive to growth of the gastropods, means for harvesting gastropods from the containment means and processing means for processing the harvested gastropods to obtain protein or fuel and shells for use as a construction material.
8. An installation according to Claim 7, comprising means for collect-ing waste excreted by the gastropods and for composting said waste together with the waste plant material.
9. An installation according to Claim 7 or 8, comprising milling means to crush the shells to produce a particulate material.
10. An installation according to Claim 7, 8 or 9, comprising a fish farm receiving fish feed from said processing means.
11. An installation according to Claim 7, 8 or 9, comprising a chicken-rearing facility receiving feed protein from said processing means.
12. An installation for cultivating shell-bearing gastropods, substantial-ly as described.