KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When is a tree that acts like a tree not
a tree at all?
When it’s a metal tower that absorbs, transforms and stores
carbon dioxide and is made by two teenage math and science whizzes as a
research project on climate change.
Tyler Clark, 17, of St. John, Kan., and Ben Davis, 16, of
Wichita, Kan., both high school juniors attending the Kansas Academy of
Mathematics and Science at Fort Hays State University, expect to build what are
being called “artificial tree towers.” The towers will reduce the
carbon footprint and play a role in slowing global warming.
The young scientists envision a day when carbon-converting
artificial trees stand in backyards across the country, next to
air-conditioning and heating units.
“We hope to have a prototype by December and a
full-scale model by the end of summer,” Clark said. “But it won’t
look like a tree. More like a big, tall column or rectangular pyramid.”
These carbon-dioxide-munching contraptions won’t save money
but just maybe the planet by reducing the climate-warming carbon dioxide
threatening Earth.
Extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is not an
original idea. It’s been around for years.
David Keith, a professor at the University of Calgary in
Alberta, developed carbon-dioxide-catching towers years ago. Keith’s concept
uses resin to capture carbon dioxide as bicarbonates in a dry form. When
flushed with water, the carbon dioxide is dumped.
But the youths at Fort Hays State want to make the science
small and affordable for the average consumer.
Chuck Rice, a soil scientist doing research on climate
change at Kansas State University, said that while the premise was good, the
next question was “how to dispose of the CO-2 once it’s collected.”
Clark and Davis have ideas about disposal, but they said they
were still researching.
They are also trying to figure out how much their artificial
trees will cost to build.
“I guess it would be a little more than pocket
change,” Clark said.
Paul Adams, who teaches global climate change at Fort Hays
State, will help them write grants to fund their project.
But for starters, materials will come from the university’s
department of technology studies, where some students have volunteered to help
build the first model. Clark estimates it will be about 6 to 7 feet tall and 3
to 4 feet wide.
“We’d like to put the towers on college campuses around
the state,” Davis said.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
