These new technologies that remove carbon from the air. How is the CO2 molecule broken apart? I assume the two Oxygen atoms float away. My 2nd question is what happens to the carbon atom?
In: Chemistry
The carbon atom is called “coal”. It can be burned in power plants to make electricity without any expensive mining.
Thus when you hear about “new technology” it’s either a direct violation of the laws of physics, or the CO2 is being stored, or it’s going to take more energy which will make more carbon pollution.
It’s not literally stripping the carbon out of it’s molecules. Carbon capture technology is just a catchier way of saying carbon dioxide capture technology. The biggest of these technologies (and the only one actually being used on an industrial scale so far) is biomass: Literally planting forests and crops n’ stuff so that photosynthesis absorbs carbon out of the atmosphere and locks it up as glucose and other such molecules. Now incidentally in this case, oxygen *is* actually released from the process. If you want to know how that works, look up the biochemistry of photosynthesis, which is kind of complicated but TL;DR: Energy from sunlight is used to rip carbon dioxide apart on the molecular scale and glue it to a bunch of other carbons and hydrogens to form the very structure of the plant.
The other notable means of carbon capture is geological. Essentially, the natural erosion of certain kinds of rocks can cause the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to decrease. Through various means i don’t really remember, we can increase the rate at which CO2 is absorbed in this manner. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that the rate of this erosion was so high 650,000,000 years ago that so much CO2 was removed from the atmosphere that nearly the entire earth turned into a giant ice planet.
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