Morts Musings

Artificial trees a solution to climate change?

by Mort on Aug.28, 2009, under Environment, Science

While most people would likely agree that real flowers are far superior to artificial ones, the same may not be true for artificial trees. At least not from an environmental science perspective.

This article on the BBC site caught my attention today; It not only appeals to my inner tree-hugger, but also to my geeky science streak too.

A prototype of Dr Lackners artificial trees. A possible weapon in the fight against climate change?

A prototype of Dr Lackner's artificial trees. A valuable weapon in the fight against climate change?

The piece looks at the possibility of using “artificial trees” as a method of carbon capture- one of our best options for reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide, and thus reducing anthropogenic climate change. Carbon capture isn’t a solution in it’s own right, in the longer term we need to look at developing energy generation methods which don’t spew CO2 out into the atmosphere, but, in the shorter term, while new technologies are being developed, it could be a valuable weapon in the fight against “global warming”.

The theory behind the artificial trees is that a large surface area is coated in a substance which will readily react with atmospheric CO2 to form a solid compound, thus removing it from the air. The chemistry behind the process is pretty simple, in fact anyone who remembers using Lime Water as a test for CO2 in science at school has used exactly the kind of process that we’re talking about here. (The cloudiness which one sees when CO2 is bubbled through lime water is due to the formation, & precipitation, of insoluble calcium carbonate.)

Dr Klaus Lackner, the man behind the idea, reckons that each of these artificial trees could capture up to 90,000 tonnes of CO2 each year, the equivalent of the 15,000 cars’ exhaust fumes, and if the idea is adopted it’s best use might very well be to line the sides of busy roads. Industrial plants have other options for carbon capture, and possibly more efficient ones than removing CO2 which has already made it’s way into the atmosphere.
With motor vehicles though it’s simply impracticle to try and capture CO2 as it’s produced. For a start burning 14g of petrol produces 44g of CO2, meaning that any carbon capturing vehicle would get heavier during the course of a journey, and as a result loose fuel efficiency. Clearly a non-starter.

Before you all rush out and start buying shares in artificial tree companies, it’s only fair to point out that it’s not likely to be a panacea for all our climate change woes. The biggest sticking point at the moment seems to be the question of renewing the “trees” once the CO2 binding chemicals have been used up; This in itself could be a logistical nightmare, and could potentially make the idea a non-starter, unless a cost effective, carbon neutral, method of collecting and cleaning the artificial trees’ foils can be found.

Obviously, Dr Lackner and his team continue to work on these details, and personally I hope they do manage to find a viable way to implement this technology. In theory it seems like it could be one of our best approaches to tackling excessive atmospheric CO2 levels in the time frame we have.
If you want to know more about the theory behind Dr Lackner’s artifical trees this BBC article goes into a bit more detail than the one I linked to at the top of the page, or if you wanted to get into serious levels of detail you could read his paper on Capturing CO2 from Air.

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