The next level

Scientists at the Stanford University Global Climate and Energy Project have proposed taking the global warming fight to a whole new level. Instead of managing the emissions, instead of simply trying to reduce the carbon we put into the atmosphere, the Stanford team proposes a carbon negative strategy in which plants are deployed on a massive scale to grab carbon out of the atmosphere.

In this, the Stanford team has identified the biomass as one of the most promising ways to achieve carbon negative systems, on a large scale. These biomass-based systems are called bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

The basic idea is to break the carbon cycle. As plants grow they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Rather than letting carbon cycle back into the atmosphere, there are various ways to capture and convert it into other useful products. Conventional industrial carbon capture is based simply on direct storage but there are improved solutions.

A company had announced two years ago that it had developed a proprietary microbe that thrives in the carbon rich, hydrogen poor waste gases from steel mills. The initial process yielded pure ethanol, and the plant has since stepped up its carbon recycling platform to produce 2,3-Butanediol -- a foundational chemical for making any number of products that are normally made with petroleum, including plastics and synthetic rubber as well as fuel.

Aside from steel mills the system also works on industrial flue gas from other types of facilities, and on synthetic gas derived from other systems including biogas (from landfills or manure biogas systems), biomass, municipal waste, agricultural or forestry waste, and even burning tires.