The Growing Ingenuity for Capturing Carbon

Scientists are finding brilliant ways for us to reverse course on releasing carbon

Hiya!

I know global warming isn’t exactly a topic that brings joy and light into our lives, but it is our reality, and it isn’t going away any time soon. That being said, discussions on the subject don’t have to be all doom and gloom. There are some bright aspects to focus on that shine some light in the darkness. All you have to do is look around at the growing examples of climate ingenuity spreading around.

We may not freely admit it, but we humans love a good problem to solve. We love testing methods, finding solutions, and a good excuse to use our imagination. Well, global warming might just be the biggest, multi-generational problem we’ll face for a long, long time. There are several issues to focus on, but some brilliant minds have already begun the climate solutions trend by thinking of different ways to capture carbon.

Capturing Carbon

There’s a growing number of carbon-capturing facilities being built, which are already sucking up almost 45 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) every year, which is about the same as 10 million passenger cars. The idea behind carbon-capturing technology is to capture CO₂ generated by the burning of fossil fuels before it’s released into the atmosphere.

The facilities are stationary and placed in power plants or high carbon-emitting industrial plants that make chemicals, cement, and steel. According to an article by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Climate Portal, while new methods are “under development,” most carbon-capturing projects today use a liquid chemical to remove carbon before it reaches the facility’s smokestack.

What happens to the carbon once it’s captured? Well, according to the MIT article, the carbon is then compressed into a liquid state and transported through a pipeline to a storage site. From there, the CO₂ is pumped into geological formations, “like used-up oil and gas reservoirs, as well as formations that contain unusable, salty water,” more than 2,500 feet (over 7,600 meters) deep.

However, the article also states that,

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is the major use of CO₂ today. EOR is where CO₂ is injected into active oil reservoirs in order to recover more oil.

So, fossil fuels, which include oil, are the biggest reason for our carbon problem, and the current solution is to suck it out of the air before it reaches the atmosphere, then put it back into the ground so it can help create more oil for us to use.

Interesting.

It’s a start, I suppose, but thankfully, experts have come up with some better solutions.