{"id":813,"date":"2010-08-04T13:59:28","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T18:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/?p=813"},"modified":"2010-08-04T14:02:55","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T19:02:55","slug":"could-we-breathe-as-if-there-were-no-factories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/2010\/08\/04\/could-we-breathe-as-if-there-were-no-factories\/","title":{"rendered":"Could We Breathe As If There Were No Factories?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We keep hearing about how various solar power approaches are key to our energy and environmental future, yet none seem to be applied all that decisively. Here&#8217;s a newly announced approach that should either be debunked or applied resolutely.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/STEPcarboncapture1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-815\" title=\"STEPcarboncapture\" src=\"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/STEPcarboncapture1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"260\" height=\"256\" \/><\/a>Researchers who have developed the STEP (Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo) process say it could decrease carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels in 10 years. That is, we could have the atmosphere we had before factories, automobiles and trucks started appearing on earth.<\/p>\n<p>Why wouldn&#8217;t that be considered a goal worthy of priority sponsorship, providing it&#8217;s truly feasible? \u00a0In one continuing STEP activity, we could put the debate over a healthy atmosphere aside; science could triumph.<\/p>\n<p>What is it about announcements that seem so promising, and then aren&#8217;t heard about again, at least on a scale sufficient to make a real difference?<\/p>\n<p>In this case, scientists at George Washington University and Howard University, both in Washington DC, and strategic, even, to government, say that &#8220;by using the sun&#8217;s visible light and heat to power an electrolysis cell that captures and converts carbon dioxide from the air, a new technique could impressively clean the atmosphere and produce fuel feedstock at the same time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wisdeo.com\/articles\/view_post\/7546\">The new process<\/a> is described in a paper \u00a0just published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. \u201cThe significance of the study is twofold,\u201d Stuart Licht, a chemistry professor at George Washington University, told\u00a0<em>PhysOrg.com<\/em>. \u201c<a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/www.physorg.com\/tags\/carbon+dioxide\/\">Carbon dioxide<\/a>, a non-reactive and normally difficult-to-remove compound, can be easily captured with\u00a0<a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/www.physorg.com\/tags\/solar+energy\/\">solar energy<\/a> using our new low-energy, lithium carbonate electrolysis STEP process, and with scale-up, sufficient resources exist for STEP to decrease carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels within 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So if this is indeed feasible, why don&#8217;t we get on with it? Or is our society in a continuing cycle of discussion and debate that keeps promising approaches to environmental goals from being applied not only successfully, but decisively? One would hope not. \u2013 <em>Doug Bedell<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(Image copyright: Stuart Licht, et al. \u00a92010 American Chemical Society)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We keep hearing about how various solar power approaches are key to our energy and environmental future, yet none seem to be applied all that decisively. Here&#8217;s a newly announced approach that should either be debunked or applied resolutely. Researchers who have developed the STEP (Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo) process say it could decrease carbon [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions\/821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.encoretechresources.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}