Manually Removing Carbon Dioxide from the air

Some of the latest efforts in finding out how to reduce Climate Change focus on how to manually take Carbon Dioxide out of the air instead of how to avoid releasing it. While there’s no reason not to try to do both, there’s good reason for this approach. We release CO2 from millions of little sources all over (like from cars) and it’s impractical to control emissions for each little source – unlike controlling it at a thermal plant which is one big source. Such efforts are called Geoengineering because we try to manipulate the constituents of the earth itself.

The latest in this field is the development of synthetic trees to remove Carbon Dioxide from the air. These ultra efficient and cheap devices take carbon out of the air and turn it into another form where it can’t trap heat unlike gaseous CO2. Each unit costs the same as one car and takes out CO2 equivalent to 20 cars. Meaning that a 5% tax on each car would serve to build enough “trees” to completely negate their CO2 emissions. Sounds good?

The biggest problem in my opinion is what to do with the “modified (in this case liquid) carbon dioxide” that is collected. We need a safe way to dispose of it. Before we used fuel, all this carbon was locked into fossil fuels deep inside the earth. We need to find a similarly efficient way of getting rid of it. Putting it in the oceans would turn the water acidic, kill off marine life and make the water even less efficient at doing its job of absorbing CO2.

It’s a bit like putting the Genie back in the bottle. Once the carbon is out of the ground via drilling for oil, how on earth do we get rid of it once it’s satisfied our energy needs? That’s the big question.