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3 American Scientists Invent CO2 Catcher: A Ray of Hope For The Future?

The Carbon Scrubber Courtesy The Guardian.gif 

Three American scientists have found a way to suck CO2 efficiently from the air. Wallace Broeker, Klaus Lackner and Allen Wright have designed a prototype called "scrubber" with funds from mail-order millionaire Gary Comer. Within two years they will build a machine that can draw out a ton of CO2 per day from the air.
As China and India become more and more industrialized, and each car we drive pumps thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide into the air every year, concentrations of this gas in the environment is rising up. It is has risen 40% since the Industrial Revolution.
News reports describing this invention do not say how scrubber can actually be used. But it is possible the invention can be attached to machines that generate the gas. It could also be located in strategic areas of cities and paid for by local governments. But if the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere is higher by far than the rate of extraction, then it might not be worth it. It will be like trying to empty the ocean into a hole on a beach. Then there is the problem of what will be done with the tons of CO2 extracted? Will it become another toxic trash like nuclear waste the world is struggling to dispose of?
A lot of questions but this is definitely news that will bring hope to some of my friends and millions of environmentalists who are terribly afraid of the fate of our petroleum addicted world.
Here are the links to the sources of this blog:
The carbon catcher Ed Pikington The Guardian
Could US scientist's 'CO2 catcher' help to slow warming? David Adam
Robert Kunzig and Wallace Broecker, Fixing Climate: The Story of Climate Science - and How to Stop Global Warming, Due out on June 2 from Profile Books. Available from Amazon UK:
GRT Announces Support of Comer Science and Education Foundation
The Scientists

Posted by nyamidie on May 31, 2008 06:59 AM |

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Comments

I've run across some interesting stuff lately about Carbon Farming, which might have a good deal more potential than any device. (see NPR story here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11951725 I've also read about a device which could extract the necessary ingredients for gasoline from the air, including carbon dioxide, thus setting up a type of recapture cycle. Major drawback at this point is that it requires a lot of energy to run!

Posted by: rebecca | May 31, 2008 08:16 AM

Thanks Kwami for posting this. I hope this kind of thing will be helpful. I find it's pretty easy for me these days to become a bit skeptical of new technologies that strive to allow us to keep doing what we're doing. I guess I hear a lot of promise in various alternative fuels and technologies, then a few years of looking closely at these shows that they are inherent with a lot of limitations or problems of their own.

Right now, the only thing that we know will help for sure is burning up less coal, oil, and natural gas.

Personally, I think if we are really going to avoid the most serious impacts of climate change, we will need both very significant technological advances, as well as tremendous lifestyle changes.

Posted by: Kathy | May 31, 2008 07:52 PM

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