Clean the Air With Your Own Personal CO2 Scrubber

Those intrepid Canadians are up to their environmental hijinks again. Scientists at the University of Calgary have built a machine that will suck carbon dioxide out of the air in an attempt to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The gargantuan machine works by drawing in air and binding the CO2 to sodium hydroxide so it can be separately piped away. It’s a bit more complex than that, involving several more “chemical intermediaries,” but the point is it can remove a ton of carbon dioxide using less than 100 kWh of electricity.

To put that in perspective, the machine draws in roughly 10 times the amount of C02 that it releases during an hour of operation. Obviously such a machine is a bit expensive, and thus not quite ready to be installed in every home in America, but as Cars.com’s David Thomas put it to me, “Yeah, but in 10 years this thing will be the size of an iPhone and everyone will have one.”

Here’s hoping.

A Better CO2 Scrubber (Popsci.com via Gizmodo)