DoE Considers Artificial Trees To Remove CO2

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."

Comments

Re:More hair-brained ideas for "Global Warming"

[Icegryphon]

Just remember if you break a CFL to follow these important Steps EPA.
Glenn Beck has a wonderful joke about it on his show.

stop making fun of the global warming schemes

[circletimessquare]

just play the game

for example, i'm going to the DOE and i'm going to get $24 million in feasibility study funding for what i call "artificial carbon dioxide"

what you do is, in power plants and automobiles where carbon dioxide is typically produced, you replace the real carbon dioxide with artificial carbon dioxide. its all automatic and costs zero energy, don't worry about the specifics

then the artificial carbon dioxide takes up the space in the air normally occupied by real carbon dioxide, FORCING it to precipitate out of the atmosphere as harmless dry ice. you could even have it precipitate out into ice cream vending machines, so it even makes kids happy!

see? stop grumbling about these hare brained schemes. its more fun to play along

My half-brained solution

[Daimanta]

If they start conjuring up half-brained ideas I should be able to do the same.

Plant massive amounts of apple trees in apple orchards. The trees will absorb the CO2 and produce apples. Then force kids at highschools to eat apples instead of unhealthy crap and it will help to reduce the obesity problem!

Sure, this plan is flawed and won't work in practice but it stops EBIL GLOBAL WARMING and that's good enough for me.