The Recycling of CO2
I am asked to explain on a daily basis why we can’t spend our intellectual resources on finding ways to recycle carbon by “Capture and Reuse,” instead of creating the largest commodities market in the world around trading carbon. This is absolutely a direction we should head. Until we find a way to eliminate excess CO2 output, we need to look at all our options. One of these options is recycling CO2.
Scientists are looking into ways to combine CO2 with chemicals or minerals to create compounds that can be used for fertilizers, fuels, resins, chemicals and a range of other products that reuse the CO2 that we emit. At a range of around 30Gt/y of anthropogenic CO2 emissions we have an abundant supply from which to draw. CO2 can be extracted even before combustion of fuels in a power plant further reducing total CO2 emissions.
The age of static ideas on how things are done and how things are used or can be used is long gone. We now have the greatest number of educated minds we have ever had in history which affords us an unprecedented opportunity to invent and create our way out of this current challenge.
