is separated . The gas is then sent through an underground pipeline to a greenhouse to help grow vegetables . However , according to co-founder Jan Wurzbacher , the collected CO2 can also be used elsewhere commercially . “ Once captured , this CO2 can then be sold on the merchant market for the food and beverage industry and can be used for the production of synthetic renewable fuels and materials ,” he said .
Speaking to sciencemag . org last year , Christoph Gebald , Co-founder and Managing Director of Climeworks , said : “ Highly scalable negative emission technologies are crucial if we are to stay below the two-degree target [ for global temperature rise ] of the international community .”
Climeworks is not alone in combatting and finding new uses for CO2 .
Global Thermostat Silicon Valley-based Global Thermostat has been making waves on the carbon capture front since 2010 . Their power plant quite literally reverses the process of carbon production by sucking
CO2 out of the air and then turning it into useful products for use in plastics and synthetic fuels .
Speaking to Forbes , Global Thermostat CEO and Co-founder , Graciela Chichilnisky said : “ If you think of a dehumidifier , it takes water molecules from the air ; our product does the same . But instead of taking water , we ’ re taking CO2 . It ’ s a power plant that cleans the atmosphere . We call it ( the process ) ‘ carbon negative ’.”
While not everyone is sold on the idea of ambient air carbon capture , Chichilnisky said : “ Our technology is very , very low cost . We don ’ t use electricity . We use low temperature heat and we can produce CO2 in any amount practically .”
Making CO2 a commercially viable product is certainly one half of the discussion , but the other is surely around the positive impact these innovations could have on the environment , and therefore , cities of the future . This is something that Global Thermostat ’ s Chichilnisky has considered : “ We are writing the future because we are changing the use of energy .”
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