A concept image of a fully built wind wall in action. Image Credit: YouTube / Carbon Engineering
An ambitious new plan could see carbon dioxide being sucked out of the atmosphere and turned in to fuel.
Canada-based company Carbon Engineering is aiming to not only help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere but to also turn in to a type of low carbon fuel.
The system, which should prove particularly advantageous in areas such as deserts where planting lots of trees isn't viable, consists of a large wall of fans that suck in the air and extract the carbon dioxide in much the same way as trees do when they capture the gas and turn it in to oxygen.
A video explaining in more detail how the whole thing works can be viewed below.
I can foresee this being a technique to filter air and conserve energy in a large base on a moon or another planet. This machine would be more economical in cities than maintaining trees between skyscrapers and apartment buildings, filtering far more air than trees can. I'd like to see these sorts of things used more.
This could be a perfect solution for cities in the world like Beijing with terrible pollution and smog problems. Its a band aid fix I know but could help clean the air and lets face it, they're not making large changes to combat the problem otherwise.
If we start using this in really big scale, there might be a risk that we bring down carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere too much so that a new ice age will begin. We humans are quite good at messing with the climate.
This could be a perfect solution for cities in the world like Beijing with terrible pollution and smog problems. Its a band aid fix I know but could help clean the air and lets face it, they're not making large changes to combat the problem otherwise. The Beijing fog problem cannot be solved with CO2 extracting technology as the fogs dangerous contents are fine dust, NO2 and SO2 and these materials do not get extracted from the air by the device/technology that is in discussion here.
This is a great start. You cannot improve a technology unless you start somewhere. I don't think anyone is saying to use these instead of trees. Just in addition to trees.
The Beijing fog problem cannot be solved with CO2 extracting technology as the fogs dangerous contents are fine dust, NO2 and SO2 and these materials do not get extracted from the air by the device/technology that is in discussion here. Yeah didn't think that through before I posted did I?.. thanks for the correction.
Not trying to sound pessimistic ("fail"), this could give vunerable countries/ regions an out. Places like the Amazon/ Brazil now have a reason to continue chopping/ deforestation then install the fans in the freshly made City next to the Amazon! That said, it is a great 'addition' for cities/ deserts etc
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