My jaw dropped to the floor in disbelief the other day. A person in one of my lectures actually had the nerve to speak up and say, “Nothing that we can do could save our world.” He then continued to tell us about how there was no way that we could reverse what we have done to the ozone later and that there was no way or process to turn CO2 into something usable. Okay, okay, first of all, studies have been done to show that we have started to prevent, and even reverse, the depletion of the ozone layer. It was the second comment that nearly killed me and the rest of the lecture. As soon as he told us that it was impossible to turn CO2 into anything, we looked at him, gave it a few awkward seconds, and then someone asked, “Uh… what about plants, don’t they turn CO2 into oxygen?”

This coming from a BioChem major. So plants can do it–why can’t we? Plants and algae take water and carbon dioxide and combine them by using the sun’s energy to make glucose. This process is otherwise known as photosynthesis.

Some engineers and scientists are trying to capture the CO2 that is produced by power plants and industrial operations and put it underground–which is almost just as effective as taking a broom and sweeping all of the dirt under a rug. Others, such as China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Carbon Sciences, Santa Barbara are trying to capture the CO2 to  turn it into useful, salable products. CNOOC is doing this already by turning waste CO2 into food grade CO2 to make the bubbly in soft drinks and is also making CO2 into plastics. Carbon Sciences says it has a process to turn carbon dioxide into methanol which then could be converted into other fuels.

In order to do this, companies are trying to create artificial leaves–I hope that it works out! These artificial leaves would make a hydrocarbon fuel that would be endlessly renewable and carbon-neutral.

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