The group Carbon Engineering (CE) has built a giant wall of fans that is said to suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turn it into fuel.
The company plans to use this particular technology in areas like the desert, where reforestation is not an option.
CE's technology strategy is to develop a low-risk, chemical-based CO2 air capture system that can be brought to the market in the coming years. The air capture system combines proven, scalable industrial technologies with CE's proprietary designs and innovations, according to the Carbon Engineering website.
This technology is an attempt at the creation of artificial trees, which is one of the many geoengineering solutions scientists have proposed to battle climate change. Only instead of turning CO2 into oxygen, this giant wall of fans turns CO2 into clean energy fuel.
Air flows in through the series of fans. It is then fed into a CO2-rich solution, helping extract carbon compounds from the air. That solution is then purified, at which point the company can take the CO2 for reuse or disposal in underground facilities, according to Popular Mechanics.
If developed, this technology can provide pure CO2 on-demand for industrial use, and atmospheric CO2 can be used via multiple production pathways to manufacture ultra-low emissions fuels, Carbon Engineering states on its website.
