Monday, August 4, 2008

Tucson company plans millions of CO2 collectors


An interview in a recent issue of Smithsonian with Lamont Doherty geochemist Wallace Broecker [right, credit Swedish Academy of Sciences] about his new book, Fixing Climate, that proposes large scale removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, mentioned that he is a technical advisor to Tucson-based Global Research Technologies (GTR). The company is developing a device that would remove CO2 per day from the air around us, that would then be sold for commercial uses, or more likely buried (geologically sequestered).

Broecker said, "We need something that can be manufactured, like air conditioners or cars, by the millions. Each day, a unit would take about a ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere, liquefy it and send it out through pipes to wherever it's going to be stored. The developers are now envisioning a device about 6 to 10 feet in diameter, 50 feet high. It would be like a little silo, in that shape so the wind could blow through it from any direction."

He estimated 17 million of the units would have to be deployed around the U.S. with many more than that worldwide.

Reports about GTR are appearing in the press as their ideas spread.