stephanie
02-12-2007, 02:36 PM
:cuckoo: :alcoholic:
Monday, February 12, 2007
BY KITTA MacPHERSON
Star-Ledger Staff
A Columbia University geoscientist who is working on a secretive, controversial energy project in the Arizona desert may be a front-runner in a new scientific race that will bestow $25million on the person who finds a way to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Sir Richard Branson, the British billionaire, announced the challenge in London on Friday, pointing to the global emergency of climate change.
"Man created the problem, therefore man should solve the problem," said Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group. "Could it be possible to find someone on Earth who could devise a way of removing the lethal amount of CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere?"
No such carbon-capturing technology yet exists.
But the gargantuan carbon dioxide-gulping towers Klaus Lackner is testing in a vast desert terrain outside Tucson could make him Branson's guy. Lackner commutes to the research site from his post at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, just over the Bergen County border in Palisades, N.Y.
"I don't know of anyone in the world that's farther along," said David Downie, the director of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change at Columbia University. Several researchers said they instantly thought of Lackner once they understood the goals of the competition.
Many scientists, however, have long criticized Lackner's efforts as being pie-in-the-sky.
"I see no evidence that a quantifiably acceptable solution or pathway has been identified," said Jerry Mahlman, the former director of the federally funded Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University. "It's not what you say, it's what you can do. And at the moment, you can't do a lot."
Still others reject outright ideas like Lackner's on the basis that the technology does nothing to reduce CO2 emissions.
"This is like asking someone to design a giant sponge because we've been spilling lots of milk," said Kert Davies of Greenpeace USA, an environmental group in Washington, DC. "Actually, shouldn't we be focusing on ways to stop spilling the milk?"
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1171258553234190.xml&coll=1
Monday, February 12, 2007
BY KITTA MacPHERSON
Star-Ledger Staff
A Columbia University geoscientist who is working on a secretive, controversial energy project in the Arizona desert may be a front-runner in a new scientific race that will bestow $25million on the person who finds a way to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Sir Richard Branson, the British billionaire, announced the challenge in London on Friday, pointing to the global emergency of climate change.
"Man created the problem, therefore man should solve the problem," said Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group. "Could it be possible to find someone on Earth who could devise a way of removing the lethal amount of CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere?"
No such carbon-capturing technology yet exists.
But the gargantuan carbon dioxide-gulping towers Klaus Lackner is testing in a vast desert terrain outside Tucson could make him Branson's guy. Lackner commutes to the research site from his post at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, just over the Bergen County border in Palisades, N.Y.
"I don't know of anyone in the world that's farther along," said David Downie, the director of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change at Columbia University. Several researchers said they instantly thought of Lackner once they understood the goals of the competition.
Many scientists, however, have long criticized Lackner's efforts as being pie-in-the-sky.
"I see no evidence that a quantifiably acceptable solution or pathway has been identified," said Jerry Mahlman, the former director of the federally funded Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University. "It's not what you say, it's what you can do. And at the moment, you can't do a lot."
Still others reject outright ideas like Lackner's on the basis that the technology does nothing to reduce CO2 emissions.
"This is like asking someone to design a giant sponge because we've been spilling lots of milk," said Kert Davies of Greenpeace USA, an environmental group in Washington, DC. "Actually, shouldn't we be focusing on ways to stop spilling the milk?"
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1171258553234190.xml&coll=1