Swiss company Climeworks has developed a system to remove carbon dioxide from the air and keep it from being re-released into the atmosphere.
Their technology uses a process called direct air capture, which processes air through filters that can capture and trap carbon dioxide. The air exits the system with 90 percent less carbon than air entering the system. At a geothermal plant in Iceland, Climeworks technology has been used to create the world’s first negative emission power plant, which removes more CO2 from the air than it produces.
While captured carbon can be used to create carbon-neutral fuel, plastic and a range of other materials, the Iceland plant has found a way to inject it underground and transform it into stone, preventing the carbon from being re-released into the atmosphere for millions of years.
So far, direct air capture is only a small part of the global effort to mitigate climate change. It is currently prohibitively expensive and small in scale, but is developing quickly and attracting funding from power investors like Bill Gates.
For the world to meet the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement, we’ll very likely need to not only reduce carbon emissions but also remove emissions from the air. Direct air capture plants like Climeworks and others aim to do so while providing jobs and powering a “new, clean economy.”
Watch the video above to see the new technology in action.
Homepage photo by Arni Saeberg.
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Tag: carbon dioxide
Can a Little Bit of Compost Help Fight Climate Change?
There are plenty of reasons why compost is beneficial to the environment. This nutrient-rich mulch enriches soil and helps plants grow, reduces the need for fertilizers and as it turns out, can also play a big role in reducing carbon in the atmosphere.
Experiments conducted on a Marin County ranch found that a single layer of compost has significantly increased the soil’s ability to store carbon (an effect that’s been observed for the last six years), the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
If scaled up, this eco-friendly solution could potentially slash California’s carbon pollution. According to the research, if compost were applied to a mere 5 percent of California’s grazing lands, the soil could capture a whole year’s worth of greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s farm and forestry industries. Researcher and bio-geochemist Whendee Silver theorized to the San Francisco Chronicle that if compost were applied to 25 percent of California’s grazing land, the soil could absorb a whopping three-quarters of the state’s annual emissions.
Here’s how it works: Compost nourishes plant growth. And as a plant grows, it sucks in the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Carbon, as well as being used to create new plant tissue, is also pushed into the soil via the roots.
Compost helps cut greenhouse gases in other ways as well. We’ve mentioned that composting helps divert unwanted food scraps and other organic material from the landfills, which are the U.S.’s third largest source of methane emissions behind the oil and gas and agriculture industries.
The Marin county composting experiment has also benefited the land in other ways. Ranch owner John Wick has observed an increase in native birds and plants, as well as green grass year round (which is especially remarkable in a state that’s experiencing a historic drought).
So if composting is so great, why hasn’t California (and other states) spread the solution? Well, as the San Francisco Chronicle explains, even though the process is relatively low-tech, it requires a lot of time and money.
However, many cities such as Denver; Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore., and New York City have compost-collecting programs. And in San Francisco and Seattle, residents are fined if they fail to compost. So as more cities and states green up, there will certainly be much more mulch to spread around.
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Scientists Have Figured out How to Convert CO2 Into a Useful Material
We all know that carbon dioxide, or CO2, isn’t just plant food. Due to human activity (from burning petroleum, coal and natural gas), too much of this naturally occurring gas is released into the air, where it becomes a greenhouse gas that traps heat and bakes our planet, contributing to climate change.
However, several companies are finding ways to capture this excessive carbon and turn it into a wide range of useful products. National Geographic recently featured three of these businesses that are sparing the atmosphere from this harmful pollutant.
1. Baking soda — Skyonic in Austin, Texas
This environmental engineering firm’s patented SkyCycleTM technology can capture more than 94 percent of emitted CO2 from a plant’s flue gas stream, according to MarketWatch. It then converts the captured emissions into baking soda and other chemicals that can be sold to cattle and oil industries. “We can take something that’s waste and turn it into something that’s profit,” President and CEO Joe Jones tells Bloomberg. “In a world that’s unsettled on carbon, we’re making actual progress.”
2. From wasted CO2 to fuel — Joule in Bedford, Massachusetts
This biofirm uses genetically engineered pond scum that can turn CO2 straight into fuel through photosynthesis. Sounds a little sci-fi, but what this company has done is created liquid fuel without needing a dinosaur to fossilize for millions of years underground, as National Geographic puts it. “What we are producing is really the same product that is being produced by the fuel industry today. We’re just doing it in real time,” says Tom Jensen, the company’s head of corporate development. Incredibly, if this technology is successfully scaled up, Joule’s fuel would only cost $50 a barrel, or $1.20 gallon, the company says.
3. Green plastics — Novomer in Waltham, Massachusetts
This chemical company uses carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide as a raw material to produce plastics, polymers and other chemicals. According to the company, while most plastics are manufactured almost entirely from fossil fuels, Novomer’s technology replaces up to half of the fossil fuels in the materials with carbon dioxide. National Geographic reports that the company currently sells its products in three forms: hot-melt adhesives (for autos, shoes, furniture, textiles), rigid insulating foam (used for insulating homes and buildings) and coatings (used for decoration and protection of metal, plastic and wood). “Converting carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide from pollution into valuable materials has the potential to transform the plastics and materials landscape on a global scale,” says CEO Jim Mahoney.
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Meet 3 Young Innovators Who Could Make The World Cooler — Literally
Miles Barr wields the power of invisibility and draws energy from the sun. George Ban-Weiss can make the temperature drop in an entire city. And Emily Cole harnesses light to transform matter.
The three 30-somethings aren’t members of Marvel’s latest squad of superheroes. They’re part of a different high-powered team: MIT’s 35 Innovators Under 35.
Every year, MIT Technology Review Magazine picks 35 young problem-solvers to feature on its list, which includes scientists, inventors or entrepreneurs working on groundbreaking tech advancements in fields such as medicine, computers, data mining and robotics.
At least three of the members of this year’s list — Barr, Ban-Weiss and Cole — are working on new ideas that could help fight global climate change.
INVISIBLE MAN
Miles Barr, a 30-year-old entrepreneur, wants to turn every cell-phone screen into a solar panel without anyone noticing the difference.
He’s the cofounder of a company called Ubiquitous Energy, which is developing transparent — effectively invisible — solar panels. The technology’s implications for mobile devices are potentially transformative. No more battery-life worries: Every time you use your phone or tablet outside, it would be drawing power from the sun.
Barr also envisions larger-scale applications, like replacing entire windows with power-generating, transparent solar panels. The technology could mean less reliance on energy from fossil fuels, meaning less pollution overall.
SILVER SURFER
George Ban-Weiss, a 33-year-old professor in the University of Southern California’s school of engineering, came up with a simple idea to cool down Los Angeles: Paint roofs silver.
Black roofs soak up rays from the sun, making buildings hotter and heating up the air. Cool roofs — ones that reflect sunlight rather than absorb it — can make a measurable difference in the temperature in a city.
After Ban-Weiss presented his findings on cool roofs to the mayor of Los Angeles, the city passed a law requiring cool roofs for all new or refurbished roofs on residential buildings. It’s a change that could mean people in L.A. will have to run their air conditioners a little less, and the city will feel even cooler.
WONDER WOMAN
Excess carbon dioxide is making the planet hotter. But the harmful gas could be put to good use: making plastics, so says Emily Cole. The 31-year-old is the chief science officer at a company called Liquid Light, which is working on ways to convert CO2 into more useful chemicals.
Cole has helped develop technology that uses light to trigger reactions converting carbon dioxide into over 30 different chemicals. Liquid Light is focusing on ethylene glycol, which is used in plastics manufacturing, as it’s first commercial product.
Click here to meet the rest of MIT’s 35 Innovators Under 35.
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Do Ants Hold the Key to Reducing Pollution?
Ants — some bite, some eat wood and others just come crawling when there’s food left out on the counter. Turns out, however, that these insects (that most of us find downright annoying) could be helpful in reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
How so?
A recent study from Arizona State University, conducted by geology professor Ronald Dorn, found that the presence of ants can cause certain rocks to capture carbon dioxide, therefore preventing it from going into the atmosphere. This CO2 absorption isn’t small either. Ants can increase the natural amount a rock takes in by up to 335 times.
What’s the secret to this powerful partnership? Well, even Dorn doesn’t quite seem to know yet. In fact, he basically discovered the connection by accident. Back in the early 1990s, he was conducting a study about the weathering of minerals, and one of the rocks he was studying happened to become ant-infested. The bugs were annoying to him, pouring out whenever he tried to drill for a sample. Over time, however, he realized their effect on capturing carbon dioxide.
Even without the help of insects, though, rocks absorb a lot of carbon from the air.
The dangerous polluter seeps into calcium and magnesium deposits found in many rocks, which then transforms into limestone or dolomite. If it weren’t for rocks taking in carbon, our earth would be a whole lot warmer and air dirtier than it already is.
“When I take students on field trips, I make them kiss the limestone, because that limestone is just CO2 that’s just locked up in rocks and how Earth has remained habitable,” Dorn told Scientific American.
With carbon-rich rock already having contributed so much to our environment, the effect of ants speeding up the process could be huge. After all, there’s an estimated 10 trillion of the tiny insects on earth at our disposal. Even better would be if researchers could figure out exactly what the ants do to the rock to make it absorb carbon faster. Then, the solution could be mass-produced.
Until that’s the case, we’ll just have to settle for welcoming ants into our yards and enjoying our little patch of cleaner air.
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