Is Sucking Carbon Out of the Air the Solution

by bernt & torsten

In British Columbia, there is an industrial plant that aims to replicate what those millions of trees do: suck carbon dioxide out of the air. 

The plant was built by Carbon Engineering, using a technology known as direct air capture (DAC). In a long, squat building, a huge ceiling fan draws air inside, where it reacts with a liquid chemical that grabs hold of CO2 molecules.

This “sorbent” flows into a nearby machine that transforms the gas, which is then stored in pressurized tanks. The goal is to help rid the atmosphere of its most ubiquitous climate change culprit.

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Shallow dive: The carbon cycle is a series of chemical reactions and tectonic activity, carbon takes between 100-200 million years to move between rocks, soil, ocean, and atmosphere in the slow carbon cycle. It makes more sense we stop cutting down trees, replanting a forest, restore our marshes, use gardens and our lawn to build food forests. Then capturing carbon from the air so we can just live our lives as in the status quo.

Source: MotherJones