Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hi
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. I'm Lauren voge O Bom and this is
Speaker 1: another classic episode. This one originally aired in and it
Speaker 1: concerns an area of technological development that is still in
Speaker 1: development today, the capture of harmful carbon dioxide pollution to
Speaker 1: turn into useful fuel. Hey, brain Stuff. Lauren Vogel bomb
Speaker 1: here S fonte Arenas was a Swedish electrochemist who in
Speaker 1: predicted that man made carbon dioxide emissions would dramatically transform
Speaker 1: Earth's climate. You and I live in the future he
Speaker 1: saw coming. So far, the twenty one century has witnessed
Speaker 1: seventeen of the eighteen hottest years on record, and just
Speaker 1: as Arena is suspected, the main cause of this warming
Speaker 1: trend is all the CEO two we keep pumping into
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. The scale of the problem is jaw dropping.
Speaker 1: In the year seventeen alone, human beings un leased forty
Speaker 1: point five billion tons about thirty six point eight billion
Speaker 1: metric tons of this world altering greenhouse gas. Much of
Speaker 1: the blame falls on our transportation infrastructure. Around twenty of
Speaker 1: global CEO two emissions are made by cars, trucks, airplanes,
Speaker 1: and other vehicles, though, just out of saying when cow
Speaker 1: is another farm animals burper fart, they're contributing to climate
Speaker 1: change too. The methane and livestocks belches and flatulence makes
Speaker 1: up thirty of all agriculture related greenhouse gas emissions. But
Speaker 1: back to carbon dioxide. Wouldn't it be nice if we
Speaker 1: could pull CEO two out of thin air and incorporate
Speaker 1: it into a new kind of vehicular fuel that's better
Speaker 1: for the environment. We may be ready to start doing
Speaker 1: just that. In June, the energy research journal Jewel published
Speaker 1: a study led by Harvard professor David Keith, an experimental
Speaker 1: physicist and public policy expert. Keith founded the company Carbon
Speaker 1: Engineering in two thousand nine. The organization's mission is to
Speaker 1: quote develop and commercial is technology that captures industrial scale
Speaker 1: quantities of CO two directly from the air. With the
Speaker 1: help of Bill Gates and other investors, Carbon Engineering was
Speaker 1: able to open a nine million dollar direct air capture
Speaker 1: plant in twenty Located in Squamish, British Columbia. The facility
Speaker 1: uses large fans to pull outside air through filters coated
Speaker 1: with liquid solution that traps carbon dioxide. Then the captured
Speaker 1: gases converted into small pellets of calcium carbonate. Using these pellets,
Speaker 1: carbon engineering has made synthetic gasoline, diesel, and even jet fuel.
Speaker 1: The advantages of this air to fuel process are considerable.
Speaker 1: Whereas naturally occurring fossil fuels are notoriously finite, these man
Speaker 1: made liquids are renewable, and since they're produced with recycled
Speaker 1: c O two, they don't contribute to mankind's carbon footprint. Plus,
Speaker 1: our existing vehicles wouldn't need to be modified in any
Speaker 1: way to start running on these synthetic fuels. Over in
Speaker 1: Switzerland there's another carbon capture plant run by Climb Works,
Speaker 1: a separate come any which now sells recycled CEO two.
Speaker 1: But if this technology is going to make a significant
Speaker 1: dent in our carbon emissions problem, will need a lot
Speaker 1: of new plants. So how cost effective is that going
Speaker 1: to be? Last year, m I T engineer Howard Herzog
Speaker 1: estimated that it would cost an air capture facility a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to generate a single U S ton that's
Speaker 1: about point nine metric tons of usable carbon dioxide. Keith's
Speaker 1: new paper begs to differ. According to his calculations, the
Speaker 1: process costs a more reasonable ninety four dollars to two
Speaker 1: and forty two dollars per U. S ton Keith said
Speaker 1: in a press statement, we can confidently say that while
Speaker 1: air capture is not some magical, cheap solution, it is
Speaker 1: a viable and buildable technology for producing carbon neutral fuels
Speaker 1: in the immediate future and for removing carbon in the
Speaker 1: long run. Today's episode is based on the article carbon
Speaker 1: Captured a fuel is Almost here on how stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Mark Nancini. Brain Stuff is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio in partnership with has stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: and it is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts
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