US scientists develop "CO2 converter"

[masked_marsoe]

Originally Posted by http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/carbonemissions.climatechange

It has long been the holy grail for those who believe that technology can save us from catastrophic climate change: a device that can "suck" carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, reducing the warming effect of the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas produced each year.



Now a group of US scientists say they have made a breakthrough towards creating such a machine. Led by Klaus Lackner, a physicist at Columbia University in New York, they plan to build and demonstrate a prototype within two years

Good for them, but there's already something out there that does it cheaper, and more efficiently, is readily available to all countries (rich and poor).

Spoiler:

[Tas]

Looks prettier too, so as long as they are more cost and space efficient than these scrubbers... but if they are not, well... trees will always have a place in my heart.

[LIGHTNING [NL]]

If you read the article you'd see it's not a CO2 coverter. The machine takes the CO2 from the air and seperates it. This requires a whole lot less energy than converting it, so it's much more efficient.

Either way, you'd need millions of these machines to effectively cancel out our effect on the enviroment, so it's still not a miracle breakthrough, but hopefully, they'll further develop this technology until it's so small you can mount it in cars...

[Mr. Matt]

They would require 60,000,000 of the things to compensate for worldwide CO2 pollution, with each one being fifteen metres high, two metres wide, and costing about £300,000,000,000 per year in total to maintain. And they don't convert carbon dioxide either, they just store it.

Not really a solution to anything, if you ask me.

Source: BBC NEWS | Wales | Giant trees 'to clear excess CO2'

[Mephistopheles]

Sorry Klaus, but storing separated CO2 on the ocean's ground or somewhere else could be a final solution for many people dying from unexpectedly erupting CO2 deposits...

And as mentioned before, trees are obviously more effective, pleasant and cheaper in the long run when it comes to actually solving the CO2 problem.

[Zipacna]

That statement (the one from the guardian) is quite... nonsense... CO2 has nothing to do with the effect of the greenhouse gases... and the area you'd have to take the CO2 from is not from the planet's surface! You'd have to take it from where it heats up: right beneath the ozon layer of our nice little blue planet!

[nanobot_swarm]

Yes why use a stupid machine when a tree can preform a superior job, and look better while doing it

[Zipacna]

Agreed.

[Anlushac11]

For the most part a tree is also self maintaining and needs relatively little maintenance. Its also solar powered so little energy usage. It also has limited self repairing capabilities too.

Its mean time between failures beats pretty much any machine too.

[Admiral Donutz]

Obviously trees are better for all of the above reasons. But further development of this technology would be interesting, we may develop more efficient (useful) machines. We may in time even develop a machine that does a better job at converting then trees (though replicating, let alone surpassing nature is a huge huge challenge). So I say, interesting, lets see where this may lead us.