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从空中拉碳可以对气候有区别吗?

在斯阔米什,不列颠哥伦比亚省的一个安静的砂石路上的一小块土地上的最后注定要成为一个海边住房开发,坐在一个小的工业用地。有一个谷仓大小棚,几罐和管道,并在该中心,呼呼了,一个巨大的风扇。它看起来像一个相当正常的工厂。

不过,虽然工厂通常会创建温室气体排放,唯一的这一次的目的是将它们吸起来。

该公司的试点项目背后,卡尔加里为主碳工程, is one of a handful of businesses around the world working to develop "air capture" technologies to remove planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These companies aim to mop up our waste carbon and help cool the planet, complementing efforts to reduce emissions and increase energy efficiency.

“如果我们希望有一个稳定的环境,我们必须将排放至零或接近零,”杰夫霍姆斯,为碳工程业务发展经理说。“这里面有[排放]很多过于昂贵或具有挑战性的削减。”虽然许多工厂和发电厂可以很容易地转换为可再生能源运行,或可以捕捉自己的二氧化碳排放量和掩埋,一些技术,如飞机,预计将保持燃烧的碳氢化合物很长一段时间。

很难从源头上捕捉那些分散的排放量,“这样能够捕获二氧化碳从空气中好像画面的很大一部分,”福尔摩斯说。

没有人会认为空气捕捉是灵丹妙药,including Carbon Engineering’s founder and executive chairman, Harvard University engineer David Keith. The technology realistically can't suck up the roughly 36 billion tons of CO2 we emit each year, nor does it address other greenhouse gases such as methane. Even scaling up to a target of 1 billion tons of captured CO2 each year would be a massive task, as would finding places to put all that carbon.

虽然没有人设想的一道风景很快点缀着大量的负排放的工厂,许多人认为一个利基市场今天可以吸出二氧化碳的天空,并把它很好地利用植物。直到掩埋它成为一个更经济可行的命题,选项粘附的碳转化成碳酸饮料,温室,塑料,混凝土或合成燃料。

What exists today are pilot projects aiming to knock down the technical and economic barriers to full-scale deployment. And they have solid backers: Carbon Engineering is funded in large part by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

如果碳工程有我行我素的话,斯阔米什工厂的一个全尺寸的版本将被吸了每年100万吨二氧化碳的在不那么遥远的未来。一千个这样的工厂将能够提取地球上目前排放量的近3%。

空气捕获“是不是远离是一个非常大的一块拼图气候的”,根据诺亚Deich酒店,新的,非营利性的执行董事和创始人中心去除碳根据加州大学伯克利分校的一个智囊团。

The idea of air capture has been around for decades; a variety of chemical reactions that can absorb CO2 from the air and spit it back out as a concentrated stream of CO2 gas are well known. But engineering a full-sized factory and running it has seemed a prohibitively expensive proposition, until recently.

An analysisinNature Communications在八月的结论是“负排放”一种或另一种策略 - 包括种树或转向农业废弃物变成木炭包的二氧化碳排放到土壤 - 将需要保持在2摄氏度的地球变暖。在研究人员的情况下,作为传统缓解技术,世界将需要每年吸涨1.8十亿到40十亿吨二氧化碳并将其锁定了。这可能使二氧化碳去除大未来行业的一切,我们目前做的CO2排放。

关于温哥华的一个小时的北,斯阔米什似乎一个奇怪的地方,处理空气污染:这是加拿大的极限运动的首都之一,空气是干净的。但是,这是空气捕获点:你不必脱光从烟囱中的碳;你可以从任何地方得到它。

碳工程的方案是基于非常简单的化学反应。该公司的风扇空气吸入填充有氢氧化钾的细滴流的网,拉二氧化碳在溶液中。即通过充满微小,油箱抽沙状石灰球,其中CO2硬化成石灰岩涂层。

人们可以停在这一点上,简单地埋石灰石球,但需要不断购买更多的石灰就使这是一个非常昂贵的操作。相反,公司再生,它需要在900摄氏度的炉爆石灰石材料返回大部分灰砂和释放CO2作为可投入使用纯天然气。该公司使用的能源主要来自水电发电。

在斯阔米什中试工厂只设吸涨1每吨二氧化碳的一天。而就目前来看,工厂经营者甚至不打扰保持是什么;他们只是发泄回空中。“这是抓放,”福尔摩斯说,笑了起来。这第一家工厂的一点是让工程师制定出错误,拨弄流量,浓度和颗粒大小,以优化流程,并获得数据显示它可以高效和经济。

“我们一直都知道这将是一个艰难,它是一个资本密集型技术,而不是一个应用程序,”福尔摩斯说。“但另一方面,没有科学秀瓶塞。所以我们说,‘让我们挽起袖子,做工程。’”到目前为止,该公司已经募集约$ 1600万辆,三分之二的私人捐助者,包括盖茨和其余大部分来自政府补助。

阳炎有一个小工厂使用可再生能源,轮流CO2和水成柴油,生产燃料,他们说只比化石燃料品种更加昂贵。

碳工程’s plan for the next few years is to turn its carbon dioxide into synthetic fuel, with the aim of supplying enough for the bus fleet in the small community of Squamish, population 17,000. Making fuel out of CO2also isn’t cheap, 但这是可以完成的。在与汽车制造商奥迪的合作伙伴关系,是德国一家名为阳炎has a small plant that turns CO2 and water into diesel using renewable energy, producing a fuel that they say is only slightly more expensive than the fossil-fuel variety.

与CO2创建燃料实际上将使该公司的努力碳中性的,而不是碳负。然而,霍姆斯认为,使零碳燃料的空气的可能是这个星球上相比更容易,例如,斜升农业生产,使生物燃料。

其他一些公司现在正在大踏步相似,但他们也为拉动微量从空气中的碳。基于苏黎世Climeworks在10月宣布,它将通过中期-2016建立了第一个商业工厂,提供900吨每年二氧化碳的排放到当地温室刺激植物生长。

Climeworksis focused on providing climate-friendly carbon dioxide for uses such as carbonating beverages or making synthetic fuel.

Climeworks’系统是不同的 - 它已经开发吸收CO2在其表面上的新的材料,然后将其释放时加热至约100℃,因此它可以一再吸收更多的CO2。现在,Climeworks集中在用于诸如碳酸化饮料或制造合成燃料提供气候友好二氧化碳。

同时,纽约市为基础的全球恒温已经有一个试验工厂并在加州门洛帕克2010年以来运行;一个在2013年第二次启动该公司使用胺吸收二氧化碳 - 无论是从the air and from the more-concentrated source of power-plant flue gas — and then releases it using waste heat from power plants or industry. Global Thermostat’s commercially available units can collect up to 10,000 tons of CO2 per year, and multiple units can be tacked on to power plants to capture more CO2 than the plants emit. The company says it can capture CO2 for less than $25 a ton — compared to Carbon Engineering’s and Climeworks’ estimates of $100 a ton — making its process competitive with other sources that commercially produce CO2.

All three are on the shortlist for the维京地球挑战, a $25 million prize offered by airline entrepreneur Richard Branson and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore to anyone who can demonstrate the economic feasibility of removing several billion tons of CO2 from the air annually for 10 years. Like many such prizes it is so far unclaimed, showing just how hard it is to do this on a commercial basis. A similar prize —碳X在9月宣布 - 将提供$ 20百万人谁可以显示废碳被转化为一些商业上可行的。

One of the field’s pioneers — Klaus Lackner, who founded the company Global Research Technologies to pursue his idea of "artificial trees" for air capture — has taken his vision back to a more academic setting: the new中心负碳排放亚利桑那州立大学。

从长远来看,碳工等公司像它希望全世界都会把价格上的碳排放量,从而使其财务值得企业喜欢储存CO2。在此之前,对CO2的最大,最成熟的市场是具有讽刺意味的注入它放回油井推助了最后的油。其他公司如雨后春笋般涌现,试图create greener options for air-captured CO2. California-basedNewlight技术, for example, makes a plastic called AirCarbon out of air and methane emissions. New Jersey-basedSolidiahas developed a cement that consumes CO2 while hardening.

碳捕获现在大约在同一舞台上的太阳能电池板是在20世纪80年代:该技术存在,但如果没有补贴它不能使一个商业案例。

Deich酒店说carbon capture is now at about the same stage as solar panels were in the 1980s: The technology exists, but it can’t make a solid business case without subsidies. "Thirty years of aggressive R&D later, solar is now challenging fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis in many regions," said Deich, who is trying to help the same happen for carbon capture.

While the economics are daunting, most argue there’s no harm in trying, so long as emissions reductions continue, too. A few scientists, however, argue that carbon capture is a silly or even dangerous diversion. Mark Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere and Energy Program at Stanford University, said, "Solar panels and wind turbines are money better spent. Trying to take carbon out of the air is just a distraction." Princeton engineer Robert Socolow has argued that if you build a renewable energy power plant, you’d be better off using that energy to displace a fossil fuel-burning plant than to power a carbon-capture factory.

在“道德风险”的理论补充说,空气捕获威力手政治家技术“得到监狱出来”牌,给予他们需要让排放横行的借口。“如果人们都在说,‘嘿,不用担心排放,我们就抓住它,并在未来,风回来的某个时候’这是显着危险,”福尔摩斯同意。“但没有人这么说。”

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