Gathering carbon dioxide could slow down climate change
After the news year 2020, which was dominated by Corona reporting, other topics will increasingly appear again in 2021. One of them is the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, which could become a problem for us in the long term. Another is air pollution in cities around the world, which in Europe alone kills over 50,000 each year. So it’s time to tackle open problems.
If we look at the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, a new record was reached in the last week. This was namely over 415 shares per million. A U-turn still does not seem in sight. So what can be done to reduce the CO2 concentration on our planet?
One solution remains the old-fashioned reforestation in place. Plants and trees continue to help us a lot in removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Oxygen and sugar are produced from carbon dioxide, and carbon is stored in the soil. Due to global warming, however, this effect disappears, since photosynthesis can only make a contribution up to certain temperatures.
New technologies offer another solution. In the future, systems in many places will probably suck air out of the atmosphere, pass it through filters and then expel it after it has been cleaned. Filters capture the CO2 and pump it into the ground. In an alternative solution from Canada, the air flows through a potassium hydroxide solution that binds CO2 molecules and then also compresses it.
By 2030, the global market value of these so-called DAC technologies could reach up to 100 billion dollars. Current approaches are still relatively expensive, but due to constant further development and scaling effects, prices could steadily decrease in the foreseeable future. If you look into the year 2100, a study comes to the conclusion that by then a quarter of the global energy demand will be required by DAC machines.
Own opinion:
Removing CO2 from the atmosphere is a promising approach to saving our planet. Nevertheless, this should only be a supplement to achieve our climate goals, but not the solution. After all, we should start with the emission sources and thus reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
via The conversation
