A handful of private companies and researchers are putting their minds together to help fill the gaps in ideas of what was once a fringe idea: carbon capture. Though it may be seemingly an impossible idea to do such, experts do not want to miss out on any opportunity and possibility of helping prevent the worse from happening to the planet Earth.
In Zurich, Switzerland, circular vents are arranged in rows and they are all designed to do one thing: to such the carbon dioxide present in the air. Louise Charles, the representative from Climeworks, a start-up company that works on the many ways carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced from the environment.
They are currently working on how they could remove it from the atmosphere. However, to turn it into a meaningful business, they are looking for buyers who would want to purchase it. Their first client is a greenhouse just a few hundred meters away from their office. The company is looking for good fertilizers.
Down the road from Climeworks, professor Markus Friedl has started transforming carbon dioxide into usable fuel. Friedl emphasized that the beauty of methane is that its gas is easily stored. If compared to an electric car whose battery needs careful charging and highly dependent on solar power. Charging it during the Swiss winter can be quite a challenge.
"I am confident that this project would be part of the solution that will put an end to climate change," Friedl said.
At one of their most picturesque bottling plants in the middle of the Alps, Coca Cola was able to produce Valser, the world's first drink made from captured carbon. "Yes it's production is a bit more expensive, but to support such a cause, you might need to spend a little more," Wittweiler said.
And yet, even when you combine all the CO2 present in all the bottles of carbonated drinks, it is still less than a drop in the whole problem of climate change. The Valser plant consumes 600 tons of Carbon Dioxide each year while humanity is able to burn 37 million tons of CO2 in the air.
But before anyone dismisses the project altogether, it might be best to look into how it could work if every other country in the world would engage in it. If all these projects would be scaled up, the little change it is making now could be make a huge impact later on.
