What if the gasoline you used in your car actually came from the air we breathe today? Sounds like something straight from science fiction, right? Wrong.
Thanks to an ingenious idea come to life created by an independent Canadian company known as Carbon Engineering it no longer has to be from sci-fi at all! The project they’re currently on is in the form of a large machine; this machine absorbs the carbon dioxide emissions from the air for around 300,000 cars. That’s a lot of exhaust!
It all works by utilizing a CO2 absorbent liquid poured through the top of the machine. The captured gas then gets captured as a carbonate solution and eventually turns into carbonate solids. The solids themselves are then burned and the escaping pure CO2 gas is then captured and collected.
This is how the carbons in the air are captured and collected.
Here’s how this collected gas could easily be turned into oils to be used again!
More than 100 kilos of CO2 are captured by the prototype machine in Calgary per day as it stands, with the end goal being to increase that number to match our current output. The funny part about this idea is that we can already do this – scientists already know how! It’s people like Carbon Engineering President David Keith who understand the things we need to do if we want to leave anything left of this world to the coming generations, and hopefully his efforts won’t be in vain.