The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognises carbon capture and storage among the solutions for eliminating CO2, without giving it a central place in its models. This videographic explains how CO2 capture in the air works. VIDEOGRAPHIC
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00:00Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will not be enough to limit the rise in temperatures
00:12to 1.5 degrees, the target of the Paris Agreement. According to UN experts, it is necessary to
00:19use techniques for the elimination of carbon dioxide, or CO2, in the air. There are a dozen
00:25techniques, such as planting trees that absorb CO2, and ocean fertilization to increase the
00:30ability of phyoplankton to absorb CO2. But the technique attracting the most interest
00:35is direct CO2 capture in the air, in order to transform it into rot, also known as carbon
00:41dioxide removal, or CDR. The principle is to suck in air with a fan. The air passes
00:47through a filter which, thanks to chemical processes, traps the CO2. The purified air
00:53is then expelled from the rear of the fan. The filter is heated to recover the CO2. Dissolved
00:59in water, the CO2 is then injected deep into rocks, between 800 and 2,000 metres deep.
01:06In contact with the elements contained in the rock, the gas mineralizes in less than
01:10two years, a process that when occurring naturally takes hundreds of thousands of years. If theoretically
01:16CDR can be installed anywhere, this technique has significant limitations, for the moment.
01:23It must be located near water resources, it is very energy intensive, and to be non-polluting
01:28its power supply must come from renewable energy. Current capacities are undersized.
01:35The total amount of CO2 captured with CDR is measured in thousands of tons. Billions
01:40of tons will have to be captured within 30 years. This means an increase of at least
01:46five orders of magnitude. Finally, the very low concentration of CO2 in the air, 0.041%,
01:55requires treating huge quantities of air, which increases the cost of this process.
02:10For more information visit www.nasa.gov