Page 28 - Aruba Today

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 26 OctOber 2018
Report: Efforts to suck carbon from air must be ramped up

WASHINGTON (AP) — The ide.
nation needs to ramp up — Burning more biofuel —
efforts to suck heat-trap- like wood — and captur-
ping gases out of the air ing the carbon dioxide af-
to fight climate change, a ter combustion and either
new U.S. report said. burying it underground or
The report Wednesday from making it into solids that
the National Academy of can be spread on dirt.
Sciences says technology "These technologies will
to do so has gotten bet- clearly help since we have
ter, and climate change is screwed up a lot," said
worsening. By mid-century, Nobel Prize-winning at-
the world needs to be re- mospheric chemist Mario
moving about 10 billion Molina of the University of
metric tons of carbon di- California San Diego, who
oxide out of the air each wasn't part of the report's
year. That's the equivalent panel.
of about twice the yearly The good news is that tech-
emissions of the U.S. This illustration provided by Carbon Engineering in October 2018 shows one of the designs of the nology in this field has ad-
Last year the world put company's air contactor assemblies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. vanced more in the past
nearly 37 billion metric tons Associated Press nine months than it had in
of carbon dioxide into the the previous decade, said
air, and emissions have The report comes on the heat-trapping gasses like they can store more car- study co-author Christo-
been rising. heels of a United Nations carbon dioxide from the bon dioxide and produce pher Jones, an engineering
Steve Pacala, Princeton science report that paint- atmosphere that are gen- more food. professor of Georgia Tech.
University biologist and ed a bleak picture of the erated from human activi- — Conserve and restore Pacala said the natural
chair of the panel, said in world's ability to avoid dan- ties like burning coal and coastal plants, like marsh- methods like tree plant-
an interview that having gerous warming. Wednes- natural gas for electricity, lands and sea grass beds. ing is pretty cheap and
ways to remove heat-trap- day's study "is sort of more or burning gasoline and — A relatively new technol- available now. But he said
ping gases from the atmo- optimistic; it gives some op- diesel for transportation. ogy called direct air cap- they can only do so much
sphere would make the job erational advice," said Kate The technologies outlined ture. Pilot projects have because "there's a limit to
of tackling climate change Gordon, a research scholar include the simple and the started using giant fans available land."
"much easier." at the Columbia Center for futuristic: that pull in air, use a chemi- Jason Furtado, a meteo-
"It causes one to think dif- Global Energy policy who — Plant more trees and cal reaction to suck car- rology professor at the
ferently about the climate was not part of the report's manage forests better, and bon out, and then inject it University of Oklahoma
problem when you have a panel. limit the amount of land underground. who wasn't part of the re-
backstop," he said. "And The 370-page report called used by people. Plants take — A still-to-be-worked out port, called the bioenergy
the ultimate temperature for the nation to invest in carbon dioxide from the air technology that relies on method the most promis-
we have to suffer through is technologies and meth- and use it to grow. certain types of rock that ing, but not necessarily the
going to be lower." ods that would remove the — Conserve soils better so can absorb carbon diox- easiest.q

Russian rocket puts satellite

into orbit, 1st since failure

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV cosmos had suspended all crew — NASA's Serena
MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian Soyuz launches until Thurs- Aunon-Chancellor, Rus-
Soyuz rocket put a military day, pending a probe. sian Sergei Prokopyev and
satellite in orbit on Thursday, The official panel is yet to German Alexander Gerst
its first successful launch produce its formal verdict, — was scheduled to re-
since a similar rocket failed but investigators have re- turn to Earth in December
earlier this month to deliver portedly linked the failure after a six-month mission.
a crew to the International to an element jettisoning A Soyuz capsule attached
In this photo taken on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018 and distributed Space Station. one of the rocket's four to the station that they
by Roscosmos Space Agency Press Service, a Russian Soyuz-2 The Russian military said side boosters from the main use to ride back to Earth
booster rocket takes off from the Plesetsk launch facility in
northwestern Russia. a Soyuz-2 booster rocket stage that apparently had is designed for 200 days in
Associated Press lifted off from the Plesetsk been damaged during fi- space, meaning that their
launch facility in northwest- nal assembly at the Russia- stay in orbit could only be
ern Russia. leased Baikonur cosmo- extended briefly.
A Soyuz-FG rocket carry- drome in Kazakhstan. Flight controllers could op-
ing NASA astronaut Nick Russian space officials plan erate the station without
Hague and Roscosmos' to conduct two other un- anyone on board in case
Alexei Ovchinin failed manned Soyuz launches the Russian investigation
two minutes into the flight before launching a crew drags into next year, but
on Oct. 11, sending their to the space station. No NASA Administrator Jim
emergency capsule into a date for the crew launch Bridenstine has said earlier
sharp fall back to Earth. The has been set yet, but it's ex- this month that he expects
crew landed safely, but the pected in early December. Roscosmos to launch the
Russian space agency Ros- The current space station next crew in December.q