$25M Bounty Offered for Global Warming Fix

SaDan writes "Richard Branson is offering $25M as a bounty for a fix to global warming. The person or organization that can devise a method to remove at least a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from the atmosphere will be able to claim the bounty. There are a few catches, of course. There can't be any negative impact on the environment, and the payment will come in chunks. A 5 million dollar payout will be paid when the system is put into place with the remainder of the bounty to be paid after 10 years of continuous use."

Comments

Plant Respiration

[gbulmash]

How much carbon dioxide does a single tree consume in a year of respiration and how many trees could be planted for $25 million?

Either that or find a way to build large scale air scrubbers that simulate plant respiration (stripping the carbon atom off a CO2 molecule and releasing O2), then compress the pure carbon into bricks for use in industry. If it could be done cheaply enough it might not just be eco-friendly, but profitable as well, with the $25 million payment as a bonus.

- Greg

only a billion tons/year?

[dotmax]

Why, that's just ~32 tons of CO2 per second. Piece of cake.

Re:Irony of it all

[Mr. Sketch]

True, but he launched Virgin Fuels to research alternative fuels:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2862 259

FTA:

Branson, whose business interests include Virgin Atlantic airline and Virgin Trains, rejected charges that it was hypocritical for him to sponsor the prize. He reiterated a commitment made in September to invest $3 billion toward fighting global warming, saying he would commit all profits from his travel companies over the next 10 years.

As part of that pledge, he launched a new Virgin Fuels business, which is to invest up to $400 million in green energy projects over the next three years.

Re:Ok but that brings me back to the 2nd question

[SatanicPuppy]

Hydro never lived up to the hype. Dams silt up, dams ruin rivers, and, aside from a few really good spots, dams don't generate enough power.

If we went to fission with waste reprocessing, we could be in good shape...It'll provide more power and vastly reduce the amount of waste produced. We could even reprocess the waste we have now. The paranoia over radiation is so overblown, and has been hyped for so long that people just sort of accept that all nuclear power is going to lead to three eyed fish and crap like that.

Re:Ok but that brings me back to the 2nd question

[Broken scope]

You know... if there was a large industry for getting rid of nuclear waste... someone would find a way to do it quickly, safely, and cheaply just so they can be a rich bastard off of it.