You might not know it, but the hot water and rocks deep within Earth are teeming with undiscovered life. Dr. Tanvi Govil is one of the biologists studying this new frontier of microbial life that thrives in extreme places.
On the scale of hundreds of years, thousands for some trees, tens of thousands plus if you sink fast growing trees deep in a cold sea. It is a thoroughly proven technology. If deployed at scale likely good enough to get us over the the hump to a renewables based technology without frying the Earth.
The problem is it’s not actually profitable (pretty cheap though) like the tech in OP’s article with patents and income streams (but only for fossil fuel energy generation). You’d think survival would be adequate motivation, but no.
More power to the people making this tech, everything is welcome, but if they’re going to lock it behind patents for 20 years it’s unlikely to be what is needed now.
I think microbes are probably a lot easier, faster, and more cost effective to produce compared to plants. It can survive in harsh conditions and create rock from the C02 at a fast rate according to the article.
Not only that, but they believe the active enzymes in the microbe can be optimized and engineered, then mixed into a liquid substrate. Becomes an enzyme-based CO2 filter with the byproduct of Calcium Carbonate, which can be used in concrete. The article talks about filling trucks with these and passing the emissions of coal-fired power plants through them.
That would be an incredible innovation. You don’t have to stop at coal either, it’s just the dirtiest. Nat gas, trash, oil, wood and anything else burned on a huge scale could be curbed.
The trouble with cow farts is the methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas that eventually turns back into CO2 in the atmosphere anyway. Concentrated methane sources tend to either be captured for use as fuel, or flared with a burning flame to reduce the greenhouse effect (at which point carbon sequestering might work). Less concentrated sources, like livestock farts, can’t really be dealr with in the same way.
If they could create a plant that fits on a truck and can remove a ton of carbon a day then they’d have another crazy invention on their hands, this just does it and creates rock … damn.
So they take CO2 from the atmosphere and chemically transform it into solid materials that reduce greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere?
Congratulations you have invented plants.
Read the article. They’re hoping to mass manufacture the enzymes involved, which have the following advantages over carbon capture through plant life:
Sounds like you want a peat bog
Plants solid material is only temporary.
Plants eventually decompose, releasing the CO2. Rock generally doesn’t have that problem
On the scale of hundreds of years, thousands for some trees, tens of thousands plus if you sink fast growing trees deep in a cold sea. It is a thoroughly proven technology. If deployed at scale likely good enough to get us over the the hump to a renewables based technology without frying the Earth.
The problem is it’s not actually profitable (pretty cheap though) like the tech in OP’s article with patents and income streams (but only for fossil fuel energy generation). You’d think survival would be adequate motivation, but no.
More power to the people making this tech, everything is welcome, but if they’re going to lock it behind patents for 20 years it’s unlikely to be what is needed now.
I think microbes are probably a lot easier, faster, and more cost effective to produce compared to plants. It can survive in harsh conditions and create rock from the C02 at a fast rate according to the article.
Not only that, but they believe the active enzymes in the microbe can be optimized and engineered, then mixed into a liquid substrate. Becomes an enzyme-based CO2 filter with the byproduct of Calcium Carbonate, which can be used in concrete. The article talks about filling trucks with these and passing the emissions of coal-fired power plants through them.
Well that would be a disaster
A bigger disaster than dumping it into the atmosphere?
That would be an incredible innovation. You don’t have to stop at coal either, it’s just the dirtiest. Nat gas, trash, oil, wood and anything else burned on a huge scale could be curbed.
What about all the farting that cows do?
That’s methane. And it’s mostly from their poop, not farting.
It’s a disaster. And that industru is also a major cause of deforestation.
We have to stop buying meat.
The trouble with cow farts is the methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas that eventually turns back into CO2 in the atmosphere anyway. Concentrated methane sources tend to either be captured for use as fuel, or flared with a burning flame to reduce the greenhouse effect (at which point carbon sequestering might work). Less concentrated sources, like livestock farts, can’t really be dealr with in the same way.
Yep, you could even pepper the interstate highways of America with them and just let them passively eat the CO2 particles that cars are putting out.
Weeks instead of years. Could be big for assisting in the fight against climate change.
The downside of that kind of stuff is that you need a balance. Scrub too much CO2 and it’s trouble again.
If we can get atmospheric CO2 back down to where it was 100 years ago that would be an amazing problem to have.
Look up the Oxygen Catastropy, also called Oxygen Holocaust.
That’s what happens if too much carbon is removed from the atmosphere and thus there’s too much oxygen in it.
Great, in 50 years we’ll be desperately switching back to fossil fuels to prevent an ice age.
I had figured space flight. Either way, I guess.
Being able to teraform is huge on earth and abroad. Cool stuff either way.
If they could create a plant that fits on a truck and can remove a ton of carbon a day then they’d have another crazy invention on their hands, this just does it and creates rock … damn.
It reminds me of Prototaxites.