Scientists envision trees – real or fake – extracting excess CO_² from air

There’s a showbiz joke about a Producer, Director and Screenwriter lost in the desert dying of thirst who spot an oasis. While the Director and Screenwriter kneel drinking from a small pond, they notice a rank yellow liquid streaming from above polluting the life-saving waters: the Producer is pissing into the pond. The panicked Director and Screenwriter beseech the Producer to stop and beg to know why he is pissing into their only source of life. To which the Producer responds “I’m making it better.”

In praise of synthetic trees
The San Diego Union Tribune reports that Columbia University geophysicist Klaus Lackner wants to make fake trees that are “better” than their centuries old counterparts. Better at least at extracting carbon dioxide (CO_² ) from the air.  Lackner’s claims that his synthetic trees are “about 1,000 times better than a real tree of comparable size” at sucking up carbon dioxide.

The problem with atmospheric carbon dioxide
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide BASICS »
Keeling Curve: Our Breathing Planet and CO2 Rising
Dr. Charles David Keeling BIOGRAPHY: Climate Science Pioneer
CO2 Now ONLINE » Greenhouse Gas Watchdog

On the other side of the leaf, old-school trees

Researchers at the University of Maryland and the University of Greifswald in Germany propose the answer is using lots of real trees.  If it were possible to manage all of the world’s forests the potential is there to offset all of the world’s fossil fuel emissions. However, biological trees age and die releasing the carbon dioxide they have captured in their tissues.  Scientists in this camp suggest burying the wood deep enough that it would not decompose, thereby sequestering the carbon.

Neither synthetic tree nor biological ready for carbon capture prime time

After a decade of work, the synthetic trees have just reached the testing phase. Basically they are giant filters that use a basic chemical process to grab CO_². The filters can be cleaned and reused, but there as yet is not a sound plan of how to store the captured CO_².  According to Lackner, in one year, a 20-square-inch resin membrane can take up the annual carbon emissions equivalent of one American.

As for tried-and-true trees, scientists estimate it would require roughly 2.47 billion acres of trees to remove global carbon dioxide emissions each year. That’s an enormous amount of space, greater than the entire surface area of the United States. It’s about one-fourth of all the Earth’s land surface currently covered by forest.

.: 08.28.08 San Diego Union Tribune » Leaves of Gas :.

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