The newsletter of calendar week 21 in 2018 is now available here.

"We humans are all too good at putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Can we come up with a way to vacuum it out? Scientists, engineers and governments are focusing on technologies that capture carbon to buy time as the global economy tries to kick the fossil-fuel habit. But as predictions of the climate’s trajectory grow more dire, the most authoritative studies are concluding that large-scale carbon removal -- enough to massively reduce absolute carbon levels, not just lower the rate of increase -- is humanity’s best hope of avoiding calamity. Current technology is a long way from being able to help."

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Majumdar, Arun; Deutch, John (2018): Research Opportunities for CO 2 Utilization and Negative Emissions at the Gigatonne Scale. In Joule 2 (5), pp. 805–809. DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2018.04.018.

"This commentary outlines a framework to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration at the scale of gigatonne per year (GT scale) and identifies research opportunities in CO2utilization and negative emissions to achieve this goal. Given that the largest atmosphere-land carbon flux occurs via photosynthesis (∼120 GtC/year), research focused on increasing the fraction of carbon stored on land via plant engineering and land management in agriculture and forestry deserves increased attention. Lowering the cost of carbon capture from dilute sources requires research on advanced sorbents and reactor systems with much improved performance."

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"Working with nature to address the damage we have inflicted is a smart strategy, and Chory’s “super” carbon-fixing legumes provide a compelling plan of action, but waiting to develop them through cross-breeding is like trying to win a high-speed car race with a horse and buggy. Developing and deploying these plants should be a global priority."

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