Environment Fake Tree Turns Carbon Dioxide Into Baking Soda To Stop Climate Change

[tom_mai78101]

Climate change is a controversial topic if you don’t particularly like science or think arguing over goverment regulations is more important than avoiding drowning. While we aren’t going to start forcibly LARPing Waterworld anytime soon, there have been some pretty disturbing trends lately.

So, we need a solution that bottles up some of those greenhouse gases, preferably one that doesn’t have a fungus that can make things worse. Enter the geoengineers, who have invented a plastic tree that’s a thousand times more efficient at getting carbon dioxide out of the air than the real thing.

And, if that wasn’t weird enough, it does it by turning it into baking soda.

It’s actually pretty basic. You put up a fake tree with “leaves” that are impregnated with sodium carbonate. When it interacts with carbon dioxide, the magic of chemistry kicks in. The sodium carbonate yanks a carbon atom for itself, turning into sodium bicarbonate, while leaving the two oxygen atoms to float free and unencumbered through the atmosphere.


Also, it doesn’t need solar power to work. You can pretty much just leave these things lying around anywhere and they’ll do their job, because chemistry is cool like that. It also means that you can cram many more “leaves” into the “tree”, meaning you can suck up a lot more atmospheric crap.

It does need to be scaled up, but it’s a pretty ingenious solution to the problem. Also, hey, free baking soda!

Fake Tree Turns Carbon Dioxide Into Baking Soda To Stop Climate Change

Meet the fake tree that uses chemistry to save us from North Dakota as beachfront property.

uproxx.com

 

[FireCat]

It would be "cheaper to plant 10000 trees" than 1 of these crap things.

 

[Nyph]

It would be "cheaper to plant 10000 trees" than 1 of these crap things.

No it wouldn't, and 10000 trees would take up 10000x the space.
Also you could "spray" a fine sodium carbonate powder over a large volume of air and it would take out a lot of carbon dioxide.

But I don't think CO2 is anywhere near as much of a problem as its made out to be. It is plant food after all....

 

[FireCat]

No it wouldn't, and 10000 trees would take up 10000x the space.

Yes, It would. Btw: This "Fake plastic trees" won't take any space? hmm

 

[Accname]

Well i guess if you use the baking soda you will, at some point, release the CO² again. So this is more like a "cheap" way of getting baking soda.

 

[Dan]

If it's so important to get CO2 our of the air, there really needs to be more effort to stop putting it into the air in the first place. We have the capabilities to do so, we just don't want to because it's not profitable; which in turn, says something about the "urgency" of the matter. I think terraforming the Earth is probably a bit naive. Well, at least it gives geoengineers something to do... though I think their efforts could be used elsewhere.

 

[SouLEDGE]

We definitely have the capacity to reduce our CO2 emissions from the biggest culprits (those being large corporations and enormous industrial factories etc.), it would just cost a little money, which is the whole greedy problem behind it.

 

[Dan]

You call it a problem, but I would not.

 

[FireCat]

We definitely have the capacity to reduce our CO2 emissions from the biggest culprits (those being large corporations and enormous industrial factories etc.), it would just cost a little money, which is the whole greedy problem behind it.

QFT

 

[KaerfNomekop]

You call it a problem, but I would not.

Explain?

 

[Fatmankev]

Explain?

Yeah, right? I feel like greed is the cause behind half of all the world's strife. What're the benefits to it?

 

[Dan]

CO2 is not a concern of mine. I don't believe it deserves a place as a major concern at this point in human history. That is all.

It's easy to sit around and say that "people are greedy" and that "someone should do something" but no one actually does anything. You, yourself, are greedy. We all are. It doesn't benefit us to worry about CO2 emissions very much right now. We aren't even sure the impact. As much as you would like to think that we have conclusive evidence pointing to a "trend", we don't. It's like trying to predict--without a doubt--what the stock market will be doing next week. Our brief period of observations of the Earth is pretty analagous to looking at a particular stock for a week and concluding that it is in a down trend. There is no way to know--even if the stock went down the entire week--if it will continue to do so next week. There are simply too many factors and not enough history to know.

I think it's fine if people want to tackle problems that may exist in the future; but for me, there are many more important things to worry about than how much plant oxygen is in the air.

 

[FireCat]

It's easy to sit around and say that "people are greedy" and that "someone should do something" but no one actually does anything. You, yourself, are greedy. We all are.

That's easy for you to say! Can you donate some money @Dan?" And you can't say nobody do nothing. I'm pretty sure some people “trying” to do something about it. If they have money for it. But big industrial factories “It's their fault, so why not pay to fix it? Well, they have "hell a lot of money enough" to do something. But they don't do it Why? because, "They're greedy, pure and simple."

 

[SouLEDGE]

It's easy to sit around and say that "people are greedy" and that "someone should do something" but no one actually does anything. You, yourself, are greedy.

Yes, I am greedy in the sense that I would like to live a better life in the terms of my monetary status and living conditions etc. but I still make sure I recycle what can be recycled from my trash, and switch off my appliances and such when I don't need them.
I don't think it could hurt in the long wrong to reduce my carbon footprint (although now I'm sounding like a hippie)

I think it's fine if people want to tackle problems that may exist in the future; but for me, there are many more important things to worry about than how much plant oxygen is in the air.

That's your opinion and I respect you for it

 

[Fatmankev]

It's easy to sit around and say that "people are greedy" and that "someone should do something" but no one actually does anything.

Damn, make it sound like the whole damn world is turning into hippies, why don'tcha? I was stuck thinking you were saying you didn't see greed as a problem; I actually agree with you that there are many more important things to worry about than CO2 emissions.

So is this essentially performing the action of plants, as far as taking CO2 molecules and plucking out the C, releasing sexy breathable oxygen back into the air? 'Cuz it would be pretty cool if we could manufacture trees for this purpose, cutting out the 10-20 year interim for it to grow large enough to perform equivalently... it would definitely cost more money, but if time is money, then wouldn't it be worth it? On a space station or an undersea lab or some shit, a way to maintain O2 levels without a need for electricity and likely minimal maintenance? I see it being an interesting idea for that reason, if nothing else.

 

[The Helper]

For Great Justice!