Monday, May 7, 2007

Artificial Trees

Klaus Lackner, physicist at Columbia University, has proposed artificial trees to suck carbon out of the air. The trees suck in carbon dioxide for storage under the ocean-floor in disused oil or gas fields.

Such trees could be planted anywhere. A small one could sit like a TV on the lawn to balance out the CO2 emitted by one person or family. A large tree, the size of a barn, could sit in the open air, near repositories for easy transportation and storage of carbon. Klaus Lackner estimates that some 250,000 such trees worldwide would be needed to soak up the CO2 produced by human activity annually.
BBC News, 21 February 2003 
Amazon.com News

More recently, Klaus Lackner's trees featured prominently in the BBC documentary
Five Ways To Save The World


1 comment:

Pradip Mukherjee said...

As global warming is cause of concern for every individuals,it is not one solution that can give us a relief.Two year back I wrote about deflection technology,placing mirrors in different angles in earth,which can be worked out by scientists,and return rays.Though it is possible in drawing board,feasibility and cost factor has to be worked out.Mangroves and artificial tree plantation,is a good option and cost effective-manually or by dropping plants from air.Thanks