EMISSIONS VACUUM

Zeman, the inventor of this cockamamie concept, says it best: "The best solution is always to not make the problem in the first place."

Cutting Carbon: New Tech Traps, Stores Airborne Emissions
October 8, 2007 (American Chemical Society via Science Daily)
and
The CO2 Sponge
September 26, 2007 (Environmental Science and Technology Online News)

WHO
Frank Zeman

WHAT
Air Capture, a system by which greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are captured from the atmosphere and sequestered.

Lab model: Catch the pollutants in the lower "traps" and strain impurties into the upper container for sequestration.

WHEN
Zeman’s concept ("Energy and Material balance of CO2 Capture from Ambient Air") is available now online and will be published later this month. It is entirely theoretical.

WHERE
Zeman’s concept ("Energy and Material balance of CO2 Capture from Ambient Air") is published in ACS publications' Environmental Science & Technology.

WHY
- Air Capture takes the “clean” coal concept one step further: Instead of merely capturing and sequestering the GHGs at coal plants, it would do so throughout the atmosphere.
- Natural drafts and other strategies would prevent low GHG concentrations in the ambient atmosphere (380 ppm, 2 oz CO2/4,697 cu ft) from making Air Capture impractical.
- Once captured, CO2 is absorbed by sodium hydroxide and rendered as limestone which can be heated to a gas and sequestered.
- $200/metric ton.

A larger working model. Now if they could build one the size of the moon and figure out how to power it with emissions-free fuel...

QUOTES
- Zeman: “Air capture of CO2 has come a long way in 5 years…it's moved to not only a design but a fully delineated technology…This is a patch solution…Does [air capture] condone the wasteful, SUV lifestyle? I don't know…"
- Greg Rau, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, also developing air capture technology: "Nature does this every day, all the time…The ocean has consumed 30% of all industrial CO2 emissions ever made."