New CO2 Sucker Could Help Clear the Air Researchers in
California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing
large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. Down the
road, the new material could enable the development of large-
scale batteries and even form the basis of "artificial trees"
that lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in an effort to
stave off catastrophic climate change. These long-term goals
attracted the researchers, led by George Olah, a chemist at the
University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Olah,
who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has long envisioned
future society relying primarily on fuel made from methanol, a
simple liquid alcohol. As easily recoverable fossil fuels become
scarce in the decades to come, he suggests that society could
harvest atmospheric CO2 and combine it with hydrogen stripped
from water to generate a methanol fuel for myriad uses. Olah and
his colleagues also work on making cheap, iron-based batteries
that can store excess power gener