Transcript Artificial Trees

Artificial
Trees
Lauren Batlas,
Maggie Sauber, and
Cara Vecchio
Preventative Climate Change
Efforts
 The
government has tried to mitigate
global climate change by limiting the
amount of greenhouse gases
produced.
 For
example, the government has set
regulations for businesses to cap the
amount of CO2 they can release.
Changing Our View Towards
Environmental Efforts
 “The
human response to the CO2 crisis
will likely have to be reactive rather
than preventative” –Wallace Broecker
-Hertog Global Strategy Initiative’s summer lecture series at Columbia
University
 Using
geoengineering to try to eliminate
CO2 already in the atmosphere is an
attempt to fix the damage we have
already caused
Artificial Trees
 Mimic
how real trees remove CO2 from
the air through its leaves
 Artificial trees are “several thousand
times more effective at removing CO2”
 Non-specific in source when targeting
CO2
 Regulations
focus on power plants
 Artificial trees work to remove any CO2 in
the air
People Involved
 Wallace
S. Broecker and
Robert Kunzig originally
proposed the idea of
artificial trees.
us.macmillan.com
 Klaus
S. Lackner then
pioneered a majority of
the work following the
project proposal.
engineering.asu.edu
Location
 Will
be beneficial and effective at any
location because CO2 is well-mixed in
with the air
 Highways
were the
prime
suggested
location
phys.org
Cost to Build
 Initial
Cost: $20,000
 Price
will fall eventually
 Just
below how much a average family
car costs in the US
 70
million cars are produced each year
 100 million trees needed to offset the last 200
years
Step One: Capture of CO2
A
passive, sorbent-based air collector
with the filter surfaces covered with or
made from a CO2 selective sorbent.
 The ‘leaves’ of the structure are coated
with said sorbent.
 Air that comes in contact with sorbent
surfaces will relinquish some or all of its
CO2.
So what kind of sorbent?
 Initially
sodium hydroxide was used as the
sorbent, but it took too much energy.
 Because most aqueous hydroxides would
face the same limitations, they shifted
focus from fluid sorbents to a solid resin.
 After much research and
experimentation, a strong-base ionexchange resin was decided on.
Step Two: Removal of captured
CO2 from filter
 Simply
exposing this resin to water releases
CO2 from the material
 This creates a cycle where CO2 is loaded
onto dry resin, driven off the resin by
moisture, then repeated once the resin
dries.
 This resin can be regenerated many times.
 The extracted CO2 then can be dried and
compressed to pipeline pressures.
Step Three: Storage of Removed
Carbon Dioxide
 This
essentially creates a CO2 pump
 A large market is found in enhanced oil
recovery, where CO2 facilitates the
production of oil.
 CO2 can react with water to produce a
combination known as syngas.
.
What to do with CO2?
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/13/carbon-capture
Concerns…
Lackner estimated
that one artificial
tree can take in
700kg of CO2 in
24hrs… but 700kg
only equals the
breath of 13 people
for one day and
night.
Large amount needed
A
lot of artificial trees would be needed
to make a significant impact
 More machines means more resources:
 Electricity
 Water
 Land
space
 Money
How Much Money?
 Funding
=
biggest hurdle
 $20,000 per
machine
 Who’s going to
pay?
 Government

Industries
http://www.mennofoundation.ca
Global CO2 Levels
Lackner
estimates 10
million such
artificial “trees”
would be
required to drop
atmospheric
concentrations
by 0.5 ppm per
year
Public Gratification
Even if millions of
artificial trees were
deployed, it would
take decades at
least to restore preindustrial
atmospheric
concentrations of
CO2.
www.savagechickens.com
Bibliography
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Biello, D. 16th of May 2013. "400 PPM: Can Artificial Trees Help Pull CO2 from
the Air?”http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/prospects-for-direct-aircapture-of-carbon-dioxide/ Scientific American. Accessed 3rd of October
2015
Fox, T. 2009. Geo-engineering Giving us the Time to Act?. Institution of
Mechanical Engineers 1-24.
Kunzig, R. “The Big Idea.” http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/bigidea/13/carbon-capture. National Geographic. Accessed 3rd of October
2015
Lackner, K.S. 2009. Capture of carbon dioxide from ambient air (Links to an
external site.). The Eurupeon Physical Journal Special Topics176: 93–106. doi:
10.1140/epjst/e2009-01150-3.
Metz, B., O. Davidson, H. de Coninck, M. Loos, L. Meyer. 2005. Carbon Dioxide
Capture and Storage. IPCC. 107-115.
Schiffman, R. 13th of February, 2013. “Artificial Trees’ as a Carbon Capture
Alternative to
Geoengineering.” http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2013/02/artificialtrees-as-a-carbon-capture-alternative-to-geoengineering/ Yale Climate
Connections. Accessed 4th of October 2015