Columbia University Develops Synthetic Tree that Captures CO2 1000x Faster

www.greenoptimistic.com...

Columbia University has announced the development of a structure that could capture carbon 1,000 times faster than a real tree. Does it mean we will not grow trees anymore and we’ll only use plastic ones for decoration? That would be sad! But the invention has a huge potential as professor Klaus Lackner said, the “tree” could be used for capturing carbon which has been already emitted into the air by car gasoline or airplane fuel. The geophysics professor said he has been working on this project since 1998 and sees a bright future for his invention considering the actual global pollution.

The concept is said to be flexible in size and could be placed nearly anywhere. It works by collecting carbon dioxide on a sorbent, cleaning
and pressurizing the gas, and releasing it. As a sponge
collects water, the sorbent would collect carbon dioxide. Depending on size, each synthetic “tree” could absorb one ton of carbon dioxide per day which is approximate the amount produced by 20 cars. Things look nice when we think about the results but they come with high expenses. Manufacturing of the structure will costs about $30,000. As the global economy is going down each day, probably this project won’t see the light of market till later. Another reason would be that, for example US would need at least 6,8 million “trees” to clean the CO2 from their 135 million cars, and the costs are incredible high. So at least in the next few years we must go back to the roots and plant
more trees if we want our planet cleaner.

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[edit on Sun Jun 28 2009 by Jbird]

Looks good. If Alex Jones is right, maybe this is what some of our carbon tax dollars will be going.

reply to post by MajorDisaster


Although this might look great on the surface, it is only half the process.

Plants grow faster with higher concentrations of CO2, BUT, they give back oxygen. I like oxygen..sort of need it you know?

This is really messing with nature in my opinion as the smart thing to do is to plant lots (I mean lots) of trees. Nature has the answer already.

CO2 levels have been much higher in the past and the planet did quite well..
Then we came along and messed things up in no time at all..

Originally posted by MajorDisaster
www.greenoptimistic.com...

Another reason would be that, for example US would need at least 6,8 million “trees” to clean the CO2 from their 135 million cars, and the costs are incredible high. So at least in the next few years we must go back to the roots and plant
more trees if we want our planet cleaner.

Excuse me? It's as simple as 135,000,000/20 = 6,750,000? That's so completely daft when you consider that there are already absorbers in place, most namely the existing ocean and trees.

Originally posted by Lennonist
Looks good. If Alex Jones is right, maybe this is what some of our carbon tax dollars will be going.

Heh, that's a nice idea, but I think we all know where the carbon tax dollars will really go - straight into the banksters' pockets

We'll for those in the human community that believe the all important food chain driving gas of CO2 to be an unholy pollutant, "problem" solved. I'm looking forward to the follow up synthetic oxygen maker that works 1000x faster than plants to replace all the oxygen not being made by the plants that were starved to death by this little wonder of science.

Ugh. I kind of like having lots of CO2 in the atmosphere (it's only a trace gas), which only comprises 0.03 percent of the entire atmosphere.

Maybe that's "too much," and causes the planet to warm. It would make some sense that this is the case (I guess), but plants thrive on CO2. The more of it, the faster they grow, the healthier they are, the more oxygen they produce, the more bountiful their fruits.

So is it really a good idea to use synthetic trees to scrub carbon out of the air? I think regular plants do the job a lot better -- and there's no need to buy them from some company -- they are naturally occurring in nature

Not good.

They overdo it and suck too much carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

This will suffocate plant life and hasten the onset of the next ice age...which is probably just around the corner, anyway.

But, maybe this is what they're aiming for?

reply to post by MajorDisaster


My bet are still on trees. Trees do one or more things popular science has yet to unravel - regulation of living energies.

Imbalance of which can result of a variety of disorders, kinda like 'mental disorders'. More volatile behavior for example in a group of people or animals. If this is a reason to take out trees, in certain locations, especially in cities, you can be sure, this is a conspiracy.