Scientists to Vie for $25M Climate Prize

Newsday ^ | 2/9/07 | TARIQ PANJA

[kiriath_jearim]

LONDON -- Sir Richard Branson on Friday announced a $25 million prize for the scientist who comes up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, comparing it to the 17th-century quest to revolutionize navigation by determining longitude.

The Virgin Group chairman was joined by former Vice President Al Gore and other leading environmentalists as he announced the challenge to find the world's first viable design to capture and remove carbon dioxide from the air.

A landmark report by the world's leading climate scientists and government officials, published in Paris last week, warned global warming will continue for centuries, creating a far different planet in 100 years.

[pabianice]

Anyone see the comedy here from a guy whose jet fleet pumps millions of pounds of crud into the atmosphere?

[hardworking]

Cool! Er...Hot! Whatever.

[3niner]

Let's see, CO2 is a byproduct of human energy consumption, so let's use lots more energy to get rid of it. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[capt. norm]

$25 million prize

It was going to be $24,999,999.00 so generous Al chipped in to bring it up to $25 million.

[MUSIC]
"Happy happy joy joy,
Happy happy joy joy....."

[just a dude]

I nominate Johnny Appleseed!

[AmericaUnited]

I'll invent plants that use carbon dioxide!!! I WIN!

[Restore]

Can someone point me to the actual challenge, i.e. the specifics of it?

[TheDon]

Sir Richard Branson on Friday announced a $25 million prize for the scientist who comes up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere

Here's two:

Me thinks Sir Branson is too cheap to pay me however.

[smonk]

here are a couple:

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[<1/1,000,000th%]

Sir Richard Branson and algore are bribing global warming scientists???

[jslade]

Hey Richard, Plant a shiite load of trees. Where do I collect?

[Restore]

Can someone point me to the actual challenge, i.e. the specifics of it?

Oops, found it.

[Centurion2000]

LONDON -- Sir Richard Branson on Friday announced a $25 million prize for the scientist who comes up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere

It's called forest and plankton farming, where's my check!?!?!?!

[Dr. Frank fan]

the challenge to find the world's first viable design to capture and remove carbon dioxide from the air.

Main Entry: ²plant
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English plante, from Old English, from Latin planta
1 a : a young tree, vine, shrub, or herb planted or suitable for planting b : any of a kingdom (Plantae) of multicellular eukaryotic mostly photosynthetic organisms typically lacking locomotive movement or obvious nervous or sensory organs and possessing cellulose cell walls

[Sherman Logan]

Any machine would have to process enormous volumes of air, as CO2 is only about 400 ppm. This means a 100% efficient process would have to process 2500 kilograms of air to remove 1 kilogram of CO2.

[AndyTheBear]

The vast majority of "green house" gases is water vapor. And extracting it is trivial.

[Fluke Codewriter]

Besides Plants and Plankton... let's Imagine for a second that this Device works.

WHO is to judge How Much CO2 to remove? What if a Tad Too Much is removed? Trees start dying all over the place. We then end up on a Death Spiral - even if the machines are turned off, the Balance was upset, we get Increased CO2 with a Lack of Trees to filter it. Wildlife starts perishing. Insects gone. Ain't no Mulligans on this one. Sometimes, I just want to screem at this Lemming Insanity.

[AndyTheBear]

"Could it be possible to find someone on Earth who could devise a way of removing the lethal amount of CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere?"

And what about the lethal amounts of oxygen? Excuse me while I take a sip of C02 laden water (soda).

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off

~Branson is a (very rich) Joke.~