DoE Considers Artificial Trees To Remove CO2 418
eldavojohn writes "CNN is running an article on a new angle of attack to reducing greenhouse gases. After meeting with the US Department of Energy on the concept, the researchers revealed the details that each 'tree' (really a small building structure in the concept design) would cost about as much as a Toyota and remove 1 ton of CO2 from the air per day. Don't worry, they're accounting for the energy the 'tree' uses to operate: 'By the time we make liquid C02 we have spent approximately 50 kilojoules [of electricity] per mole of C02. Compare that to the average power plant in the US, which produces one mole of C02 with every 230 kilojoules of electricity. In other words, if we simply plugged our device in to the power grid to satisfy its energy needs, for every roughly 1,000 kilograms [of carbon dioxide] we collected we would re-emit 200, so 800 we can chalk up as having been successful.' Each unit would remove 20 automobiles' worth of CO2 from the air and cost about as much as a Toyota... so the plan might be a five percent surcharge on automobiles to fund these synthetic tree farms."
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:1, Funny)
And if you're wrong, well-- the fish will have fizzy drinks for a change.
Re:Trees (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it's realy, really, really, really, old technology.
Re:How about 'non synth'? (Score:2, Funny)
Unit of cost (Score:3, Funny)
Can someone tell me how many bicycles in a toyota?
Ob. Ghostbusters ref (Score:1, Funny)
- And where do you put this CO2 once you catch it?
- In a storage facility.
- And would this storage facility be located on these premises?
- Yes, it would.
- And may I see this storage facility?
- No, you may not.
Replace SI with Toyotas! (Score:3, Funny)
length = one Toyota from fender to fender
mass = one Toyota
time = um - how long it takes a Toyota to go 1000 Toyotas in distance from a dead stop
electric current = the amount of current from the battery in a Toyota
thermodynamic temperature = ooh - this is a tough one...
amount of substance = one Toyota
luminous intensity = light from both front headlights of a Toyota on maximum brightness
I'm not sure how to do the temperature one, but the rest all seem to work...
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:4, Funny)
Incidentally, I dropped an apple out of my window yesterday and it fell up! True story.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:3, Funny)
Strange how you can say anything on the internet and claim that it's true.
Incidentally, I dropped an apple out of my window yesterday and it fell up! True story.
Sorry, that was my fault. I had the polarity of my neutron flow reversed.
Re:Why not real trees? (Score:3, Funny)
Americans only, eh? I forgot about how nobody else uses timber for anything, ever.
did you not get the memo? (Score:3, Funny)
we need TREES 2.0
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't it just a matter of time until it's back out into the air. I'm not sure about the body's absorption of CO2 in the digestion tract but isn't most of it, uh, belched right back out one way or another?
Just put it in cans of RC Cola. It will never again see the light of day.
Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming" (Score:2, Funny)
If that's what's going on then you would need to cool the ocean or as the ice melts it starts to escape.
Clearly we can just drop larger and larger chunks of ice in the water.
Solving the problem of Global Warming once and for all.
FTA.. (Score:3, Funny)
"LONDON, England (CNN) -- Scientists in the United States are developing.."
Wait.. where?