This is probably the one technological breakthrough the world has been waiting for since the last couple of decades and it might still not yet be here in its complete form. The world has been praying for a scientific solution to the problem of global warming that has been created by science itself. While the natural solution to the problem would be to go green and to make sure that we reduce the usage of fossil fuels and grow more trees, it seems more and more unlikely in an industrially developing world. So some US scientists have turned to modern science to produce a device that can clean the atmosphere of carbon emissions. So do we finally have the magic scrubber to cool the planet?
Well, we do and we don’t. Unlike the highly improbable suggestions such as digging pipes underneath the ocean bed to increase the ability of the oceans as carbon sink; this one is a lot more simple and practical. Led by Klaus Lackner, a physicist at Columbia University in New York, plan to build and demonstrate a prototype within two years that could economically capture a tonne of CO2 a day from the air, about the same per passenger as a flight from London to New York.
The prototype so-called scrubber will be small enough to fit inside a shipping container. Lackner estimates it will initially cost around £100,000 to build. That still would be economically viable considering the amount of CO2 that it would absorb. But the tricky part lies in not so much absorbing CO2, but making sure that it is then disposed off safely. It still remains to be seen how this will be done and more importantly, if we can find a way to make sure that Carbon gases are converted in to some other form rather than remain the same.
Scientists have been skeptical about air capture devices for carbon because of the large amounts of energy they consume. Although it is relatively easy to find chemicals that absorb CO2, it is harder to then strip the gas from the so-called sorbent for reuse. But the fact that this team of scientists have found that moist air could do that means that this possibly is a viable solution for the future. Richard Branson has promised $25m (£12.6m) to anyone who succeeds. So if you want some cash then why not get started on it!
