The Global Sustainability Alliance

Companies working together to solve global warming, water and waste problems.

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Gaia Engineering

In spite of all the rhetoric from politicians about impossible to meet “targets” approximately four new power plants are being commissioned a week and two of these are in China. Global fossil fuel energy consumption is increasing at an ever increasing rate[1], green wash abounds in industry and most realists do not believe we have any hope of meeting any targets let alone reducing emissions. The steady decline in oxygen as carbon combines with it during combustion gets less attention but is more alarming.

To be successful the solution to the carbon problem must be economic and produce saleable outcomes that have unlimited markets in size and over time otherwise it will not be implemented by business or the masses given their short term view, nor sequester sufficient carbon. The Gaia Engineering solution does all this and more. It has inputs of waste acid, CO2 and a salty brine or seawater and outputs of valuable salts, carbonate building materials and fresh water - all of which are saleable in very large quantities.

Around 7% of the crust is carbonate sediment and this represents the major proportion of billions of years of natural permanent sequestration and durable structures have been built using this natural carbonate for thousands of years. The technology developed by Gaia Engineering partners mimics this natural process by sequestering carbon dioxide using salty water or bitterns and further substitutes the major material flows on the planet by profitably putting it to use to construct the built environment.

Gaia Engineering involves building with man made carbonate and wastes and John Harrison, TecEco’s managing director has developed patented more sustainable and technically superior binders including Eco-Cement the flagship product which sets by absorbing CO2. A kiln is also under development by TecEco for making the binders without releases and software for implementing the companies cement formulations is being written by a subsidiary company TecSoft Pty. Ltd.

Gaia Engineering Diagram

TecEco have access to technologies to manufacture its cements and other carbonate building components that will be selected from the following:

Gaia Engineering Front End Processes

Process: Inputs: Outputs: Links:
Greensols Seawater or brines, waste acid and CO2 Mineral salts, carbonate building materials and aggregates, Eco-Cements and fresh water Greensols Pty. Ltd.
Hydropyrolysis of Bitterns .Bitterns and water Mangesium oxide and chlorine gas (or hydrochloric acid). This process could be combined with the greensols process to supply acid.  
Ultra Centrifuges Seawater or brine Provided materials can be found to withstand the forces involved, potentially similar by products to the Greensols process.  

Biomimetic

Carbonic anhydrase, saltwater or brines and CO2

Using carbonic anhydrase and other enzymes to mimic carbonate formation in nature.

 

Given the size of the built environment, volume of and potential reduction in impact of associated flows, TecEco binders used to cement together wastes and carbonates manufactured as part of the Gaia Engineering process to form building materials in a way that mimics nature is a low energy bottom up economic solution to the world’s most pressing problem that works because it profitably changes the fundamental flows that are damaging.

Gaia Engineering Flowchart

Our currently prefered Gaia Engineering configuration starts with the Greensols process which uses carbon dioxide from for example power stations and waste acid from for example mining to extract magnesium carbonate from seawater or suitable brines which can be cast as panels, blocks or other building components or crushed for aggregate. As there are 1.29 grams of magnesium in every litre of seawater and more in many brines there is enough of it to last billions of years with natural replenishment given current needs for sequestration. By products of the Greensols process include valuable minerals such as sodium bicarbonate as well as fresh water. Because the Greensols process does not work against the hydrogen bonding of water like reverse osmosis it represents a superior low energy alternative.

A proportion of the calcium and magnesium carbonates produced are then calcined in the TecEco Tec-Kiln which removes and captures the gas for recycling in the process and produces magnesium oxide which is the main ingredient of TecEco Tec, Eco and Enviro-Cements. Eco-Cements utilise other wastes and absorb more atmospheric CO2 as they harden and are used to bind together building components including stone, cast components and aggregates produced in the Greensols process.

A built environment of man made carbonate and waste materials could be recycled indefinitely and would store a massive amount of CO2 and other wastes, more than enough to solve the global warming and waste problems if compulsorily adopted by all nations.

The strategy of Gaia Engineering partners is one of attracting shareholders to provide resources and continuing efforts to engage larger players with a view to them adopting the technology and methods as only with the involvement of larger companies will there be rapid acceptance and implementation

TecEco are trying to increase the rate of exemplar building particularly in niche, difficult to implement applications and making efforts to connect with carbon trading to provide an incentive to overcome the conservatism, perceived risk and lack of financial incentives for larger companies.

TecEco undertake the manufacture of building components holistically on a whole of material basis and the formulation strategy for the company’s binders is best communicated as software being developed by its subsidiary TecSoft Pty. Ltd. that will in effect be a recipe book for man made carbonate materials of the future which solve rather than create problems.

Significant funding is required to fully develop the commercial potential of Gaia Engineering which should be mandatory for all countries to adopt if we are to survive the future. Several multinationals are now talking to TecEco including players in financial markets and the company now has in place several “option to licence” agreement with respect to it’s cement technologies.

The Gaia Engineering Tececology

The name Gaia Engineering is a tribute to James Lovelock who got us all thinking that “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." (Einstein)

Even if the annual flow of emissions was frozen today, the level of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere would still reach double its pre-industrial levels by 2050. Emissions are increasing rapidly and the level of 550ppm could be reached as early as 2035.

Our view is that this is a crisis and it is time we stopped stuffing around and went for the solution that can solve the problem quickly, economically and without huge suffering and losses.

Gaia Engineering is that solution

Our Mission

Our mission is to develop Gaia Engineering to substantially reverse damaging moleconomic flows that are a consequence of materials flows on the planet

As the built environment is man made and involves large flows it is the obvious place to geomimic nature and permanently fix CO2 and other wastes

We want governments to using the power of law to force people to use man made carbonate to build with to solve what is the greatest problem facing civilisation


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[1] BP Statistical Review of World Energy