Removing Carbon From the Atmosphere

Vyom Gupta

Removing CO2 From the Atmosphere

The entrapment of greenhouse gases plays a big part in global warming and Carbon

Dioxide as at the forefront of this problem. As the amount of carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere increases, the more we expedite the global warming process. In order to

delay the effects of carbon dioxide, we need to find temporary solutions to decrease the

amount of Carbon in the atmosphere.

In the meantime, the first solution is (used by Climeowrks and Global Thermostat)

using direct air capture devices and having them pull out CO2 from the air by sucking in lots

of air and then through a series of chemical reactions remove the CO2 and re-releasing the

air. Because CO2 is only found in one of 2,500 molecules, large volumes are going to be

needed to efficiently remove the carbon. The main idea an is industrial cooling tower

containing a liquid hydroxide solution which will capture CO₂ and convert it into carbonate.

The carbonate would then be converted into small carbon pellets. Finally, the carbon pellets

will be heated in a kiln and transformed into pure carbon dioxide gas, which can be turned

into synthetic fuel.

The second main solution is a synthetic forest. The primary advantage to a synthetic

forest is that it requires much less land for an equivalent amount of work. The Amazon is

capable of capturing 1.6 billion tons of CO2 each year. This is roughly equal to 25 percent of

our annual emissions in the US. The land area required for a synthetic forest to capture the

same is 500 times smaller. In addition, for a synthetic forest, you don't have to build it on

arable land, so there's no competition with farmland or food, and there's also no reason to

have to cut down any real trees to do this. Basically, we are turning atmospheric CO2 into

gasoline.

As a global community, it is important that we try to reduce carbon emissions in our
own lives and try to support these large projects aimed at reducing the carbon concentration
in the atmosphere in order to keep our environment healthy.

Works Cited:

http://www.climeworks.com/co2-removal/

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44396781

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2013/02/artificial-trees-as-a-carbon-capture-alternative-to-geoengineering/

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/06/seas-david-keith-has-a-plan-to-slash-costs-of-co2-capture/

https://phys.org/news/2015-02-electricity-biomass-carbon-capture-western.html