Posted on 05/31/2008 4:05:10 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Scientists say they have invented a machine that can suck carbon dioxide out of the air – potentially creating a vital weapon in the war against global warming.
The blueprint for the CO2 'scrubber' raises the prospect of a generation of machines which would help reduce the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere by the use of fossil fuels.
The team of US scientists now plans to build a prototype which would capture one tonne of CO2 from the air every day.
Though the idea is considered a holy grail in the battle against climate change – and Sir Richard Branson has put up £12.6 million for anyone who makes it a reality – the machines would fall far short of a quick fix.
The prototype, being built at a laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, by a company called Global Research Technologies, will cost about £100,000 and take about two years to construct.
The devices – each nearly the size of a shipping container - would have to be produced in their millions to soak up human carbon emissions.
The idea is bound to be controversial, with environmentalists seeing so-called technological solutions to global warming as undermining attempts to promote greener lifestyles and industries.
But physicist Klaus Lackner, who led the U.S. team behind the invention, said the CO2 scrubber offered more hope than current efforts to cut carbon emissions by reducing fossil fuel use.
' I'd rather have a technology that allows us to use fossil fuels without destroying the planet, because people are going to use them anyway,' he said.
Scientists say it is not difficult to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by absorbing it in various chemical filters. But the problem has been how to clean those filters of CO2 so they can then be reused to carry on the job.
Professor Lackner, of New York's Columbia University, says the solution lies in a newly discovered property of absorbent plastic sheets known as 'ion exchange membranes' which are routinely used to purify water.
It turns out that humid air can make these membranes 'exhale' the CO2 they have trapped – leaving them clean and ready to absorb another load.
The Lackner team says the captured carbon dioxide could then be pumped into greenhouses to boost plant growth.
What is the cost????
(I'm sure Sir Richard will be awarding that prize money to the Pope now, right?)
There’s already a machine that can remove carbon dioxide from the air. It’s called a tree.
Or we could just leave it in the atmosphere...also to promote plant growth.
BTW My oldest son and I were kicking around the idea of making a video of someone holding a tree "hostage" and telling the greenies that unless they send us money we'll torch the tree.
We'll use a propane torch to make the tree "scream" and wait for the bucks to roll in. Could even have the greenies do a rescue effort but they'd be too stupid to know how to dig the tree up and transplant it.
Might be worth a few bucks on Break.com.
prisoner6
Yes, but... Once we remove all the CO2 from the air what will your tree breath then! Or the rest of the plant life for that matter.
You beat me to it.
"Commence Operation 'Vacusuck'!"
Here the green weenies tip their hand, yet again. It is not about global warming. It is about control. They want to require greener lifestyles and industries, which will be defined however they want to define them, and the global warming myth is the club they are going to use.
That's a lot of greenhouses! How about the energy needed to produce all that glass?
..reminds me, anyone interested in buying a sealed bucket of ozone?
The Pope makes trees? I’d never have guessed!
Of course, such a direct solution to a non-problem totally removes the need for the draconian measures that the socialists want. A device like this is their worst nightmare. They will fight it like the plague - proving to all that they really have no interest in the environment (or they don't really believe the Global Warming BS themselves.)
Possibly because the alternative is, it works all too well, and then the VGWC (that's Vast Global Warming Conspiracy ;-)) would have nothing much to complain about -- or to dream up their little international socialist schemes over?
They simply couldn't allow capitalist enterprises to call their bluff...
Ya gotta love how liberal girlymen ALWAYS latch on to "manly" terms to describe things they are doing or farting around with.
Isn’t it a heck of a lot easier to pull carbon out of an exhaust stream at the point of generation, when it might be 5% or more by volume, than to pull it out of the general atmosphere, where it is 0.03%, at most?
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