美国国家公共电台 NPR How One Company Pulls Carbon From The Air, Aiming To Avert A Climate Catastrophe

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

At a climate meeting in Poland this week, almost 200 countries are trying to reach a deal - a deal to dramatically reduce carbon emissions¹. A recent U.N. report finds that may not be enough to avoid the most dangerous climate effects. It says what's really needed is a way to actually pull massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the air. NPR's Jeff Brady traveled to Canada to see how one company aims to do that.

JEFF BRADY, BYLINE²: North of Vancouver in the picturesque³ small town of Squamish, we're at an industrial site to see what's behind a locked chain link fence.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHAIN CLANGING)

BRADY: It's raining, so the grounds of a company called Carbon Engineering are muddy. Our guide is chemist and engineer Jenny McCahill.

JENNY MCCAHILL: So we're walking up now towards our air contactor.

BRADY: This is the machine that sucks carbon dioxide out of the air. It looks like an oversized semitrailer with a huge fan on top. In front, it sounds like a waterfall.

(SOUNDBITE OF LIQUID RUNNING)

BRADY: The liquid has chemicals that capture and retain carbon dioxide. That may sound simple, but even though scientists say there's too much CO2 in the atmosphere now, it's still a tiny fraction - about .04 percent.

MCCAHILL: So you have to pull in a huge volume of air to get that CO2. And that's really the trick to direct air capture.

BRADY: Next, more chemicals are added. The liquid is heated and turned into white pellets that are 50 percent carbon dioxide. McCahill is holding some in her hand.

MCCAHILL: As you can see, those pellets are about a millimeter in diameter.

BRADY: They look like the things inside of a bean bag chair.

MCCAHILL: Yep.

BRADY: The pellets are superheated to further concentrate the CO2 into a gas. At this point, the company could inject that underground. That's one way to address climate change. But there's no business model for that right now, and Carbon Engineering is looking for profits. So it combines the CO2 gas with hydrogen extracted from water and makes a synthetic⁵ fuel. McCahill has a glass bottle of the clear liquid and says it's similar to crude oil.

MCCAHILL: It's a lot purer. So we don't have impurities⁶ like sulfur⁷ and nitrogen components⁸ that end up with that soot⁹ when you combust.

BRADY: Can I smell it?

MCCAHILL: Sure.

BRADY: So you're taking the cap off. And it sort of smells like an alcohol, maybe.

MCCAHILL: A little bit, yeah. That's kind of just the smell of the hydrocarbons¹⁰.

BRADY: Put this liquid through a refinery¹¹, and McCahill says you could burn it in your car. But that emits carbon dioxide. So, essentially¹², the company would just be moving carbon around, not reducing it. Still, CEO Steve Oldham argues there is an environmental benefit.

STEVE OLDHAM: We capture it again the next day. And we make more fuel out of it. So the CO2 becomes recycled. And consequently, there's no additional emissions from using the fuel.

BRADY: That's because Carbon Engineering's fuel would replace carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

OLDHAM: If you were to sell our fuel directly at the pump today, we're about 20 percent more expensive than regular gasoline.

BRADY: But you can't buy the fuel now. This is a pilot plant that removes just one ton of CO2 from the air each day and produces only about two barrels of synthetic fuel. Oldham says his company, along with investors¹³ that include Bill Gates, spent $30 million in nearly a decade perfecting this process. He says they're ready to build much larger plants now. The company says it can extract carbon dioxide from the air for less than $100 a ton. But some experts are skeptical¹⁴ it can be done that cheaply. Howard Herzog is senior research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative.

HOWARD HERZOG: The reality is it's a lot cheaper to keep CO2 out of the air than to capture it once we get it into the air.

BRADY: But many of his colleagues argue it's too late to rely on only reducing emissions with projections¹⁵ of dire⁴ consequences from climate change. Jennifer Wilcox is a chemical engineering professor at Worcester Polytechnic¹⁶ Institute.

JENNIFER WILCOX: Certainly in light of the recent climate report, we don't have the option of simply avoiding carbon emissions anymore. We now are at a point where we need to start removing CO2 directly from the atmosphere.

BRADY: Wilcox and others say the technology needs more research and development.

NOAH DEICH: I see this industry similar to the renewable energy industry maybe 20 or 30 years ago.

BRADY: Noah Deich heads the California group Carbon180 and says direct air capture needs the kind of private and government investment that helped wind and solar grow. Earlier this year, Congress gave the fledgling business a hand, expanding tax credits for extracting carbon.

DEICH: I think an even bigger opportunity on the policy front is in California.

BRADY: Deich says the state has a carbon trading program for transportation fuels like gas. That could be a big boost for Carbon Engineering's fuel. Back at the company's plant in British Columbia, CEO Steve Oldham wants more government programs that put a price or tax on carbon dioxide emissions.

OLDHAM: It will force companies that have a carbon footprint today to find ways to mitigate¹⁷ that carbon footprint. And we're a very good way of doing so.

BRADY: Oldham says his company plans to soon build its first full-sized plant, one that will suck much more carbon dioxide out of the air and, he hopes, become a model for many more plants in the future. Jeff Brady, NPR News, Squamish, British Columbia.

(SOUNDBITE OF TESK'S "SNAPBACK")

1 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 picturesque   

adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的

参考例句：

• You can see the picturesque shores beside the river.在河边你可以看到景色如画的两岸。
• That was a picturesque phrase.那是一个形象化的说法。

4 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

5 synthetic   

adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品

参考例句：

• We felt the salesman's synthetic friendliness.我们感觉到那位销售员的虚情假意。
• It's a synthetic diamond.这是人造钻石。

6 impurities   

不纯( impurity的名词复数 )； 不洁； 淫秽； 杂质

参考例句：

• A filter will remove most impurities found in water. 过滤器会滤掉水中的大部分杂质。
• Oil is refined to remove naturally occurring impurities. 油经过提炼去除天然存在的杂质。

7 sulfur   

n.硫，硫磺（=sulphur）

参考例句：

• Sulfur emissions from steel mills become acid rain.炼钢厂排放出的硫形成了酸雨。
• Burning may produce sulfur oxides.燃烧可能会产生硫氧化物。

8 components   

（机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分

参考例句：

• the components of a machine 机器部件
• Our chemistry teacher often reduces a compound to its components in lab. 在实验室中化学老师常把化合物分解为各种成分。

9 soot   

n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟

参考例句：

• Soot is the product of the imperfect combustion of fuel.煤烟是燃料不完全燃烧的产物。
• The chimney was choked with soot.烟囱被煤灰堵塞了。

10 hydrocarbons   

n.碳氢化合物，烃( hydrocarbon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Hydrocarbons (HC), like carbon monoxide, represent unburned and wasted fuel. 碳氢化合物(HC)像一氧化碳一样，为未燃尽的和被浪费掉的燃料。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• With this restricted frequency range it is not applicable to hydrocarbons. 这个较紧缩的频率范围不适用于烃类。 来自辞典例句

11 refinery   

n.精炼厂，提炼厂

参考例句：

• They built a sugar refinery.他们建起了一座榨糖厂。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。

12 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

13 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

14 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

15 projections   

预测( projection的名词复数 )； 投影； 投掷； 突起物

参考例句：

• Their sales projections are a total thumbsuck. 他们的销售量预测纯属估计。
• The council has revised its projections of funding requirements upwards. 地方议会调高了对资金需求的预测。

16 polytechnic   

adj.各种工艺的，综合技术的；n.工艺(专科)学校；理工(专科)学校

参考例句：

• She was trained as a teacher at Manchester Polytechnic.她在曼彻斯特工艺专科学校就读，准备毕业后做老师。
• When he was 17,Einstein entered the Polytechnic Zurich,Switzerland,where he studied mathematics and physics.17岁时，爱因斯坦进入了瑞士苏黎士的专科学院，学习数学和物理学。

17 mitigate   

vt.（使）减轻，（使）缓和

参考例句：

• The government is trying to mitigate the effects of inflation.政府正试图缓和通货膨胀的影响。
• Governments should endeavour to mitigate distress.政府应努力缓解贫困问题。