Future Tech: Giant Carbon Sucking Trees Might Save The World

Future Tech: Giant Carbon Sucking Trees Might Save The World

Standing more than 300 feet tall and 200 feet wide, the potential savior of climate change disaster looks more like a massive fly swatter than a high-tech carbon sequester. Designed by Klaus Lackner, a professor of Geophysics at Columbia University, this “synthetic tree” is designed to capture and store massive amounts of CO2 gas. Nearly 90,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year — roughly the amount emitted annually by 15,000 cars — could be captured by the structure. According to the July issue of Outside Magazine, “the 100-by-200-foot steel rectangles would have surfaces that soak up carbon dioxide — simulating photosynthesis — then exhale the C02 in a concentrated stream that would be stored in underground chambers.”

Pretty interesting idea — but if the structures run off fossil fuels, rather than renewable sources, they might end up having a limited impact. Still, if we follow predictions that the world only has a decade or so before climate change becomes unavoidable, than any idea should be followed through; no matter how bizarre. From a recent MSNBC article,

“Paired with a windmill, the carbon-capture tree would generate about 3 megawatts of power, Lackner calculates, making the operation self-sufficient in energy. ‘The carbon-capture efficiency is better than a [living] tree,’ he says. ‘We can, with such a system, collect a significant fraction of the carbon from the air.’