Do 'mechanical trees' offer the cure for climate change? - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-carboncapture/do-mechanical-trees-offer-the-cure-for-climate-change-idUSKCN1S52CG A Dublin-based company plans to erect “mechanical trees” in the United States that will suck carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, it said on Monday, in what may be prove to be biggest effort to remove the gas blamed for climate change from the atmosphere. The company, Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH), will build 1,200 carbon-cleansing metal columns within a year with which it hopes to capture CO2 more cheaply than other methods, following a successful test in Arizona over a two-year period, it said. That is enough to suck up nearly 8,000 cars worth of emissions per year of CO2.

How efficient is it compared to a few trees?

Doesn't sound like a lot to me at all.

It's a start. This issue wont be solved in one big go

I believe there are ways to turn CO2 back into fossil fuels, making them renewable resources. The only issue is that it's a lot more expensive than just digging a hole and pumping crude oil out of the ground.

I don't appeciate the phrasing "remove the gas blamed for climate change" as if we're not already certain of it Feels like climate-change skepticism seeping into the article.

on a similar note How Bill Gates aims to clean up the planet | Environment | The G.. Bill Gates says his company has the tech to do atmospheric carbon capture that is net energy neutral and economical to scale up, though the debate is still ongoing about how effective these technologies will actually be.

But do they use 96 batteries?

I frankly doubt "mechanical trees" that consume energy to entrap CO2 will be the key to solving it. Regardless of the amount, that's less than 8 cars per column. Even if that's just an early stage, it's unlikely to evolve by more than an order of magnitude. We'd need a shitload of those to curb climate change without drastically reducing our emissions in the first place. That takes up space and money to build. I'd rather we focus on developing solutions that also yield benefits regarding energetic autonomy, urban planning and generally more healthy attitudes regarding the relationship we have with our environment and the way we consume its resources.

Carbon capturing will absolutely be necessary to fight global warming, but at the moment it is much cheaper to just reduce emissions.

I was wondering if this was going to happen last week, I hope the tech gets invested into by governments

if we are relying on more new shinier technology to fix the problems caused by technology we've got no hope

It would be neat if whatever metal these are made of is suitable for artificial reefs once they are saturated with CO2

But what is the carbon footprint or w/e of making, installing, and maintaining the trees? Article didn't seem to say anything about that besides mentioning they use wind instead of some active intake.

You anprim bro?

At a certain point methane is going to become a bigger problem for us than carbon.

The interesting thing is that there are multiple ways in which we can/need to tackle the issue of climate change. As long as these don't have a huge carbon footprint, then I'm all for adding them to the pile of solutions.

Because "all technology bad"?

hemp does a much better job of absorbing CO2 and uses less land than a regular tree. there you go, no mechanical trees involved

Actual trees do more than simply absorb carbon dioxide. What about the ecological impact of forestation? What about reductions in heat, especially in cities roasted by the heat island effect? The idea of a mechanical tree ignores that climate change is a symptom of a greater underlying issue - a perverted culture of consumption and waste. Addressing the underlying societal issues and economic issues that led to climate change is the only way to move forward without cataclysmic consequences.

Hemp uses much more water per acre.

These systems do produce CO2 at a market competitive rate. We already do some CO2 capture for industrial purposes (e.g. welding, green chemistry, food additives, etc. etc.) and I can see this being a step-up for industrial ops. These systems are pretty passive if I'm remembering right. CO2 gets stuck on a membrane and then washed off in water, recharging the membrane. As far as CO2 capture goes, I'm more interested in biological systems. The "mechanical trees" only capture and release CO2. Plants/algae can fix CO2 into higher value chemicals and solid/liquid materials. Growing large quantities of Azolla would be a better plan IMO because you've got more flexibility with your end product. Azolla fixes nitrogen and can be used as fertilizer for higher value crops. You can use it straight as animal feed or process it for human consumption. You can extract lipids, terpenes, terpenoids, and other chemical products. It can be dried, compacted, and stored as a solid instead of a gas.

It reminds me of a small part from the book The Feed where they mention tearing down a forest to build an oxygen factory. Really though we need every help we can get

This is some Mega Man X shit

We hurt the planet enough that planting trees isn't viable and cheap? I would like to know more about why plants aren't the answer, maybe plants aren't as sell-able as a bunch of manufactured columns of co2 suckers.

A single key does not exist. It's going to take dozens and dozens of different projects and attitudes to fix it. Unfortunately in this world of "one thing solves everything" we opt to just not do anything and wait for that "one key" as the situation worsens.

Seen this shit in the Lorax and they just end up planting some real trees anyway

We absolutely need new shiny technology to mitigate the problems already caused. That doesn't mean we're going to stop preventing the harm existing technology causes. There's plenty of valid criticisms for solutions like these, but "it's technology" isn't one of them.

we need to outright reduce what we're already pumping out and use the tech we already have now rather than hold out on a prayer that we'll invent a silver bullet. the outright quickest and most effective way to stop continuing damage would be cessation of use of post-industrial technology but that's not going to happen.

So with the relatively low effect of the 'trees' (0.66 car/year, whatever that measurement actually is), how long would it take these to outweigh the effect of their own production and upkeep?