Synthetic Trees Trap 1,000 x the Carbon

Think regular trees trap a lot of carbon? Wait until you hear what scientists are proposing – synthetic “trees” that will trap 1,000 times the carbon.

The synthetic trees don’t look anything like real trees. In fact, they look like small futuristic homes. But scientists and developers say they might be exactly what we need to regulate carbon emissions in the atmosphere.

“Half of our emissions come from small, distributed sources where collection at the site is either impossible or impractical,” said Professor Klaus Lackner, Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University. “We aim for applications like gasoline in cars or jet fuel in airplanes. We are going after CO2 that otherwise is nearly impossible to collect,” he told CNN in this article.

The technology works like this: wind blows through plastic “leaves” that trap carbon and store it as liquid carbon dioxide. Apparently this type of thing already exists to trap carbon emissions at coal power plants but currently cannot be used elsewhere. These trees could be used just about anywhere.

“We’re probably not going to stop CO2 rising until it’s double what it was near-1800 and maybe even more than that,” he said. “I think we will find that the planet is too warm, ice is melting too fast… and we’ll want to bring the CO2 back down again. The only way we can do that on a short timescale would be to pull it back out of the atmosphere.”

The biggest obstacle to synthetic trees actually coming to fruition (pun intended) is the cost. They’re expensive. However, Boehner rationalizes it by saying each “tree” would cost about as much as a new car but would trap the carbon emitted by 20 cars daily.

Worth it? What do you think?