In the news article I presented in class, I discussed how scientists and engineers are thinking of ways of using technology to directly remove carbon emissions from our atmosphere. Through a multitude of methods both natural and man-made, all collectively known as negative emissions technologies (nets), these technologies show us interesting ways to effectively “scrub” carbon from the atmosphere. Scientists, however, aren’t convinced of the viability of many of these technologies, and that they may cause more environmental harm than good.

The nets listed in the article are direct air capture, enhanced weathering, ocean fertilization, and bioenergy methods like burning plants and planting more forests. Direct air capture involves building machines that specialize in sucking carbon emissions directly from the air. To be an effective method, however, we would need an incredible number of machines produced. Thousands upon thousands. This would not only be extremely costly, but it would take a significant amount of resources to produce that many machines, which makes this method not very viable or sustainable.

Enhanced weathering is the breaking down of certain rocks by naturally combining with the carbon in the air. It’s suggested that we should crush the mineral olivine down to fine sand and spread it across beaches. The issues with this method, however, is that it would require a ton of mining. Constant mining for minerals and the collection of resources needed to grind down the mineral. It simply would not be feasible to mine that many materials and distribute them globally. And again, isn’t a sustainable practice as we are collecting a large amount of nonrenewable materials.

Ocean fertilization involves the sprinkling of iron and other nutrients in the ocean in order to replenish phytoplankton population. Phytoplankton are tiny, microscopic plants that will utilize the carbon as they grow and sink when they die, taking the carbon with them. This method is a bit controversial, since the sprinkling of iron into the ocean is essentially ocean dumping. Also, there isn’t nearly enough research to suggest that this method would at all be effective. One study was conducted at a salmon fishery in Canada, however this study should not be trusted since it was conducted without any scientific oversight and was the source of outrage among scientists. And once again, where do we get the iron? This would be another massive use of resources and would not be sustainable over time.

The last two methods involve terrestrial plants, either burning them to utilize the carbon or through planting more forests. Burning them simply wouldn’t be nearly as effective as even the other methods, because you’d have to burn a lot in order to take out as much carbon as we put in. Personally, I think that planting more trees would actually be the most beneficial of all these methods. You’d be replenishing habitats, provide resources and shelter to the populations in those areas, while also contributing to reducing the carbon load on our atmosphere. However, the world currently cuts down way more forests than we plant, and planting new forests would require a lot of land.

While there is merit in trying to engineer our way out of the climate crisis, there are issues with our approach. The reasons being that, along with all the ones listed above, the economic costs to implement these methods is too high, and it’s just easier and more effective to reduce the amount of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere altogether.

Sources:

• Fountain, Henry. “Can We Really Scrub Carbon Dioxide From the Atmosphere?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Feb. 2018.
• Norton, Michael, and Molly Hurley-Depret. “Negative Emission Technologies Will Not Compensate for Inadequate Climate Change Mitigation Efforts, Say European Science Academies.” EASAC Website, EASAC, 1 Feb. 2018, easac.eu/press-releases/details/negative-emission-technologies-will-not-compensate-for-inadequate-climate-change-mitigation-efforts/