Scientists to Vie for $25M Climate Prize (Sir Richard Branson)

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2007/feb/09/020900221.html

Sir Richard Branson on Friday announced a $25 million prize for the scientist who comes up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, comparing it to the 17th-century quest to revolutionize navigation by determining longitude.

The Virgin Group chairman was joined by former Vice President Al Gore and other leading environmentalists as he announced the challenge to find the world's first viable design to capture and remove carbon dioxide from the air.

A landmark report by the world's leading climate scientists and government officials, published in Paris last week, warned global warming will continue for centuries, creating a far different planet in 100 years.

"Man created the problem, therefore man should solve the problem," Branson said. "Could it be possible to find someone on Earth who could devise a way of removing the lethal amount of CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere?"

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[amitten]

1. Yay!

:bounce:

This will happen! Nothing is impossible!

25 mil is a pretty damned big incentive!

[phantom power]

2. He must not realize that we already know how to do this.

it's not a matter of "knowing how," it's a matter of choosing to do it. Doing it on a scale that will make any difference will essentially require building large numbers of dedicated energy sources. As in hundreds, or thousands, of power plants. Each dedicated to an industrial-scale CO2-extraction plant. Then there is also the question of what to do with this CO2. How do we bind the carbon? It needs to be something both chemically stable and environmentally benign. I'm sure there are options, but I don't know what they are.

So, what needs to be done is not spending $25 million on a prize. What needs to be done is spending a few trillion on building the actual machinery.

[The2ndWheel]

3. That's nice

"Man created the problem, therefore man should solve the problem,"

THE problem? THE problem is a way of life that actively molds every inch of life into an object to be exploited, as efficiently as possible. Not only are we not solving that problem, we're not talking about that problem. The only problem we want to solve is how can we keep doing that, and make ourselves feel better doing it. I'm pretty sure man can solve that problem, since solving that problem has been done over and over again, and here we are.

As long as we attempt to control the environment for only our demands(and that is exactly what we do), we will alter it, and we will cause problems.

But hey, at least someone will get rich quick.

[JohnWxy]

4. Bill Gates should take a hint here. All his aid to help people's health won't matter much if

they have to tread water to live.

[bananas]

5. A couple of great photos of Branson and Gore

in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x171991