What if we could better recycle carbon?
In a previous blog, I talked about the value of coal in our global economy. Despite the movement to renewal sources of energy, coal, oil and natural gas are still dominant forms of energy, particularly in China and India, but also here in the US and in many parts of the world.
I recently had a conversation with my brother, a mining engineer with decades of experience working in coal mines across the US and Germany, we got to talking about why fossil fuels are the bad actors in this global climate crisis.
We know that fossil fuels are the largest emitters of GHG (greenhouse gasses) and contribute the most CO2 into the atmosphere. To remove fossil fuels from the energy equation, we have focused our attention on renewable sources such as wind and solar. But it’s slow going. In the US, 78% of our energy comes from fossil fuels, and only 12% from renewable sources. While we wish to move faster to renewable sources, it’s going to take time.
(Source: Center for Sustainable Systems at University of Michigan)
One way to make lemonade out of this basket of lemons is to also focus on capturing the carbon outputs from fossil fuels for repurposing into useful products. We don’t hear so much about this aspect of the sustainability equation, but there are several initiatives working to encourage technology to figure out uses of the carbon output as raw materials for new products. In fact, Carbon X Prize is encouraging innovation in this space with $20M in prize money.
My brother is keen on the idea of recycling the carbon output from coal-powered power plants by utilizing the CO2 to grow plants in greenhouses. As kids we all learned the concept of photosynthesis in school. Remember that? Plants and trees take sunlight and CO2 and convert it into oxygen and energy in the form of sugars. This is why the great rainforests of the world are often referred to as the lungs of Earth. How about we take that CO2 from those power plants and push it into greenhouses that leads to more abundant food sources?
The concept isn’t new. As early as 2004, MIT researchers were reporting on how to best capture carbon for such purposes. But today is different than 15 years ago and perhaps the next innovators will come up with reasonable solutions to this problem. It will take time to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. We might as well put the by-product to good use.
