Why Big Tech Is Throwing $1 Billion at Sucking CO2 From the Air – By Imad Khan (CNET) / Nov 11, 2022
The direct air capture industry is still in early stages, but government and corporate interests are pushing it as part of a solution to the climate crisis, despite cost and criticism.
This story is part of Choosing Earth, a series that chronicles the impact of climate change and explores what’s being done about the problem.
A pair of 2,000-gallon water tanks standing 15 feet tall occupy a cordoned-off portion of a parking lot down the street from Georgia Institute of Technology’s Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory. They’re being used to grow algae, but in an extreme and novel way.
Clear bags filled with a green, mucousy substance float in water while hanging from metal pipes nearby. The bags have tubes sticking out of them, being fed both water and carbon dioxide. That substance, algae, is the key to this whole experiment.
Algae are photosynthetic organisms found in water that, like plants, eat up carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Algae alone produce 50% of the oxygen in our atmosphere. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, are seeing if it’s possible to take existing carbon dioxide in the air, capture it and feed it to the algae. Once the algae is refined, it can be used in things from food to fuel.
CONTINUE > https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/why-big-tech-is-throwing-1-billion-to-suck-co2-from-the-air/
