| Sourced From Newsweek.com |
Whatever the world’s governments decide to do about climate change, one thing seems certain: the value of carbon is going to rise. Government and industry are beginning to invest in technologies to capture carbon from their smokestacks, and entrepreneurs are beginning to figure out ways to recycle it. One of them is Carbon Sciences, a Santa Barbara, California, firm that says it has found an efficient way of turning carbon dioxide and water into methanol, a type of fuel that racing cars now use instead ofgasoline. (Although the fuel would produce carbon when it’s burned, its net effect would be neutral, says the company, because carbon was used in producing it.) To make the fuel, Carbon Sciences uses enzymes similar to those that occur in nature. The firm has built a prototype methanol plant. The big question now is whether the process can be ramped up to large-scale manufacturing and made to produce gasoline. CEO Derek McCleish and President Byron Elton spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Anita Kirpalani about how inventions like this might help in the battle against climate change. Excerpts:
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Tags: Carbon Dioxide, carbon science, climate change solution