For those who don't know, each year we emit into the atmosphere around 37 billion tons of CO2. Hardly imaginable quantity that is causing our climate to warm up, with the disastrous consequences that all the experts do not stop predicting.
And although the majority continues to consume with joy as if the fateful tomorrow were never to come, there are some sensible and responsible people who try to put means to try to lessen this disaster.
And one of the means is to remove a part of the CO2 that we already have in the atmosphere. Although it must be recognized that at the moment it is a very new process, that it is expensive, and that one day it may become cheaper when current CO2 extraction processes are improved.
There are few companies that do it, and the few that do exist are very small, although some are already growing, as is the case with Climeworks. This company has a small plant and offers CO2 compensation services (carbon offset) to companies that want it, such as Microsoft.
In offsetting carbon (carbon offset) there is a lot of cheating on the part of the companies, since they announce that they do it but in reality it is a lie, and what they do is "greenwashing" to acquire a better image in the market. Pure facelift attempt, that is, a hoax.
The process to remove CO2 is somewhat complex. Large fans blow the air through filters that retain CO2; and when the filter is full, the fan is stopped and the filter is taken to an isolated location where it is heated to 100 degrees to extract the stored CO2. Once extracted, it is dissolved in water and injected deep underground so that it reacts with the rocks and remains stored there for many years.
I have read that Climeworks' carbon capture has been certified by the auditing company DNV, which gives it a touch of seriousness in the market. It is very important to end the "greenwashing" of companies and have accurate information.
In this field of CO2 extraction, there is still a long way to go. Climeworks says it intends to remove about 1 Megatonne of CO2 from the air in the year 2030, and 1 Gigatonne in the year 2050, but much more needs to be removed.
Let's hope that there are more companies that join in the elimination of CO2 from the atmosphere, while we pollute less every day. The challenge is more than difficult and I am not very optimistic about it.
In a few years we will see the situation we are in, and what ecological heritage we leave to our heirs. But for now the prospects are downright bad. A shame !!.
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