A wedge gets thicker

 

The "wedge strategy" describes a multi-part way to address climate change. It's been around awhile, to the point that I'm not sure who else remembers where and when it started. (But I do; the original article was in Science, but it's described elsewhere, like here, which is an open-access update, which at the time of writing in 2021, was not very optimistic. The COP28 agreement might help.)

So, with that introduction, there might be some progress on one of the wedges, specifically carbon capture. This particular wedge hasn't seemed too promising, given the technological challenges. However, this recent article describes a potential low-tech approach.

The Lego-like way to get CO2 out of the atmosphere
A company says that it has found a way to remove CO2 from the air for less than $100 per ton

"Graphyte, a new company incubated by Bill Gates’s investment group Breakthrough Energy Ventures, announced Monday that it has created a method for turning bits of wood chips and rice hulls into low-cost, dehydrated chunks of plant matter. Those blocks of carbon-laden plant matter — which look a bit like shoe-box sized Lego blocks — can then be buried deep underground for hundreds of years."

" “The simplicity of the Graphyte approach is so exciting,” said Daniel Sanchez, who runs the Carbon Removal Lab at the University of California at Berkeley, and serves as a science adviser for Graphyte. “You don’t need very expensive equipment or processes. And it locks up a lot of the carbon in the wood — nearly all of it.” "

Here's the company Web site.

Graphyte.com

My question is: rather than just burying the blocks underground, why can't they build something with them underground?   I'm not sure what, but my first thought is -- housing for homeless people. 

It does say this on the website:

"Blocks are stored in state-of-the-art sites with sensors and tracers, enabling robust long-term monitoring. Storage sites can then be used as solar farms or working agricultural land."

OK, even though I advocate using parking lots for solar panel deployment, I guess this would work too.  And there are many abandoned industrial sites that could be repurposed.