JUN 24

If we start to sequester large amounds of CO2, is it refined in some way to allow the oxygen to escape? Otherwise I'd wonder if there would be any long term affect on the amount of O2 in the atmosphere, since the oxygen had previously been free in the air.

Humans have yet to develop any technology that rivals it's natural equivalent. Yes, perhaps these structures can capture more CO2 per year than a natural tree, but one should not neglect all of the additional benefits that trees provide ... wildlife habitat, O2 production, erosion protection, etc. Fill the world with real trees, I say, and leave this foolishness on the drawing board.

@Flahooler,

Amen to that! Perfect example is a recent story on the discovery of a process that uses ordinary chicken feathers to store hydrogen as efficiently as carbon nanotubes. Look how long it took humans to come up with the carbon nanotube ... chickens, on the other hand, have been making feathers for quite some time.

Well at least they wont die. We wont be able to use them for paper. What happens overtime? Will they deteriorate?

Ok, so these things absorb carbon 1000 times as quickly as trees. But I bet they cost way more than 1000 times as much as planting a tree, so the economics probably just aren't there. And what's the value of capturing the carbon close to the release site? It makes no difference to the atmosphere whether the CO2 is absorbed next door to the coal plant or on the other side of the world.

Planting natural trees probably costs less, has fewer embodied emissions, and contributes many ancillary environmental benefits beyond carbon absorption.

I can't see using synthetic trees as a long term goal. I mean, that's just asking for trouble. I'm sure creating these trees is using some form of energy that could be better spent somewhere else.

I say plant a thousand trees instead of one synthetic tree.

Why do something if nature already provides it?

Ok, I am not Einstein, but isn't it plastic one of the major toxic pollutants of our time ? (composed of toxic chemicals [hydrocarbons, sufur, chlorine ...etc], which pollute earth, air and water)

What is the composition of these plastic leaves ? (quantity/tree)

Could the trees be recycled, when a more developed kind is developed ?

What is the goal of these trees ? Hope it won't be a way to justify more deforestation...

At the end, the tree might have untold impacts on the environment !

Thanks to give us more information

This really depresses me. Are you serious? Synthetic trees?

Heck, if you're capturing CO2, releasing the oxygen and compressing the carbon, keep compressing it and just crank out diamond glass panes. No need to shuttle carbon off to the coal mines. It's quite useful right here, just not floating around in the air.

For those dogging artificial trees, not ever climate is capable of growing trees. A good chunk of Arizona can't support anything taller than a 1' shrub.

The problem is the large amount of energy it probably needs to absorb and then compress the CO2 into a liquid form

i think the whole idea of the plastic tree was to capture a ton of CO2 at the point of production/emission, which sounds good on paper, but I think it would be impractical in the long run. The real solution is to plant "and protect" at least 100,000 new trees year to revitalize/expand all the forests (and related habitat) that used to scrub our air clean for free, oh and keep it cool too. This would also include protectingour existing forests, but the much more expensive selective logging that ecologically friendly forest management supports should be the status quo, producing prices for hardwood that bring the true cost of foresting to the consumer (just grow bamboo, and use recyceled wood as ther is tons of that stuff around) Oh, and stop cutting down all of our exisitng forests right away. We've had cheap energy for seveal decades, as well as cheap wood, and cheap clean drinking water. If we decide to change our habits of over consuming and start to reuse, recycle and rethink how our large populations consume, then ... well we will have to find another planet to start all over again ;-), I suppose that is why we have NASA? So, now that i have solved all of the worlds problems i will go to bed now ;-). Good night!

Instead of putting so much effort into making a synthetic tree, why not plant real trees that do the same thing. It's extremely hard for us as humans to even reproduce what nature already does, let alone try to improve upon it.

I think we should stop synthezizing, co2 is not only bad , there is probably a reason for it ... now we want to stop cows from farting ??? http://dailynewsarchive.com/ar...57645.html

This is a waste of grant money that could better be spent on things like wind energy and the like....rubber trees?!? Have they thought about what this could possibly do to Wildlife?? Leave to Humans to waste time, money, energy on making fake trees instead of just planting the real deal..