Discussion Module 7 - Reducing Air Pollution
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Humber College *
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3100
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Geography
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Apr 3, 2024
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docx
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Uploaded by ChancellorCobra42
Research and discuss an
already existing idea
of how to reduce air pollution on our planet. You must find and locate one specific technology or plan of action. This idea cannot simply be an education campaign to "reduce greenhouse gas emissions" collectively. Find an example that is actively trying to remove pollutants from our atmosphere.
Using your example, discuss how it works and how it could have a significant positive effect on air quality. Be sure to also acknowledge all potential limitations of this idea. Cite your sources with in-text citations and include a references list.
Each month, we see new heights set across the globe for record temperatures. Atmospheric CO2 is at an all-time high, reaching 420 ppm in 2022. This is a stark contrast to the 280 ppm that our planetary atmosphere experienced during the 6,000 years of human civilization prior to the advent of the industrial era. During said era, humanity has released an estimated total 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 pollution
into the atmosphere (Stein, 2022). Unfortunately, our planetary environmental systems for sequestering carbon only account for 2.6 billion tons annually (Noelle Eckley Selin, 2019). Humanity does not have the
luxury of waiting over 500 years for natural cycles to clean up our atmospheric contamination if we wish to maintain the status quo of our modern society. Direct air capture (DAC) technologies are different from other forms of carbon capture because they are not typically intended to be installed at a point of emissions (like a factory or power plant), but rather can be placed anywhere. This is because these technologies attempt to broadly extract carbon from the ambient atmosphere. These technologies accomplish this in two distinct approaches: solid DAC and liquid DAC. Solid DAC uses solid adsorbents in a vacuum or operating at a medium temperature, while liquid DAC will utilize an aqueous basic solution which releases the captured CO2 into storage tanks through high temperature operations (Budinis, 2023). In terms of technological development, DAC methods are still in their infancy. In 1999, Klaus Lackner at Arizona State University made the first suggestion to use DAC methods to slow down global warming (Ozin, 2022). A decade later, a handful of entrepreneurs in startup DAC companies were still seeking funding and investment for pilot projects and studies. The later half of the 2010s saw several facilities begin operations, and today there have been 27 DAC plants commissioned, with 130 more projects working through various stages of proposal and development. The 27 commissioned plants expect to capture 0.01Mt of CO2 per year(Budinis, 2023), a plainly insignificant amount in comparison to atmospheric concentrations. According to Ritchie and Roser (2021), the world emitted 37.12 billion Mt of
CO2 in 2021, which is over 100 million tons of carbon on a daily basis. Current technologies are clearly unable to scale their solutions to meet the problem, but hope can be found in the incredible pace of modern technological development and improvement. The youth of DAC technologies means that the field is brimming with new discoveries just waiting to be found. As the technologies mature, develop and
refine their methodologies, operational efficacy and efficiencies will almost certainly see substantial improvements. It’s a race against time to save the planetary environmental systems and the human civilizations they support, but DAC technologies could end up pulling the planet back from the brink of extinction.
References
Budinis, S. (2023, July 11). Direct Air Capture - Energy System
. IEA. https://www.iea.org/energy-system/carbon-capture-utilisation-and-storage/direct-air-
capture#tracking
Noelle Eckley Selin. (2019). carbon sequestration | Definition, Methods, & Climate Change. In Encyclopædia Britannica
. https://www.britannica.com/technology/carbon-sequestration
Ozin, G. (2022, September 7). Direct air capture: A little history
. Advanced Science News. https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/direct-air-capture-a-little-history/
Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2021). CO2 emissions. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
Stein, T. (2022, June 3). Carbon dioxide now more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
. Www.noaa.gov. https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/carbon-dioxide-now-more-than-50-higher-than-pre-
industrial-levels
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