Climate Change Can Be Stopped by Turning Air Into Gasoline

Climate Change Can Be Stopped by Turning Air Into Gasoline by Robinson Meyer (The Atlantic)

A Harvard professor says his company should be able to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, at industrial scales, by 2021.

A team of scientists from Harvard University and the company Carbon Engineering announced on Thursday that they have found a method to cheaply and directly pull carbon-dioxide pollution out of the atmosphere.

 

Their research seems almost to smuggle technologies out of the realm of science fiction and into the real. It suggests that people will soon be able to produce gasoline and jet fuel from little more than limestone, hydrogen, and air. It hints at the eventual construction of a vast, industrial-scale network of carbon scrubbers, capable of removing greenhouse gases directly from the atmosphere.

The process seems to make carbon dioxide, and our reliance on petroleum more of a neutral effect. Scientists hope to stop carbon dioxide pollution first…and then we can think about removing it from the atmosphere.

Keith said it was important to still stop emitting carbon-dioxide pollution where feasible. “My view is we should stick to trying to cut emissions first. As a voter, my view is it’s cheaper not to emit a ton of [carbon dioxide] than it is to emit it and recapture it.”

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