Carbon Dioxide

AI tools like ChatGPT have changed our personal and professional worlds, with around 52% of American adults regularly using a large language model. But at what cost? A new study details the large environmental price we're paying for our AI assistants.

Canadian decarbonization firm Exterra is tackling a critical environmental issue that's not talked about often: cleaning up the mineral waste left behind in asbestos mines after decades of extraction.

Researchers have found a way to take waste concrete from demolition sites and turn it into fresh new concrete that has a strength not seen before from such a product. The breakthrough could lead to significant emissions reductions in the building sector.

This strange white paste might not look like much, but it could not only solve the sand shortage, but make the cement manufacturing process absorb carbon dioxide instead of emitting it. Scientists grew this stuff out of seawater, electricity and CO2.

MIT spinout Boston Metal has powered up its electricity driven steel production reactor and made over a ton of metal in a crucial step toward commercializing its process. With clean electricity, the process could make steel with zero CO2 emissions.

Stanford researchers have found a way to activate commonly found rocks so they capture CO2 out of the air at room temperature. The team believes it could be relatively inexpensive, and can easily scale to help sort our emissions problem worldwide.

Transporting goods on huge fossil-fueled cargo ships is a dirty business. But one such vessel is about to embark on a pilot that could clean up shipping's act considerably. An onboard system has now been installed on the Clipper Eris that will capture CO2 from its exhaust outlets and store it in tanks.

Using principles from rocket science, researchers have created carbon with a record-breaking surface area. The material can soak up about twice the amount of CO2 as current activated carbon materials and has impressive energy-storage capabilities.

Researchers at UC Berkeley have invented a material in powder form that adsorbs carbon dioxide with astonishing performance. Just 200 g (a little under 0.5 lb) can suck up 44 lb (20 kg) of CO2, the same as a tree does in a year.

Researchers at UCLA have successfully devised a way to produce cement with 98% less CO2 emissions than traditional methods. The team achieved this by decomposing limestone to access calcium oxide (aka lime) without releasing carbon dioxide.

ExxonMobil just signed a lease for 271,068 acres of undersea land off the coast of Galveston, Texas to capture and permanently inject carbon emissions into the underwater rock bed, making it what will be the largest CO2 dump in the United States.

A technique originally developed to combat acid rain has the potential to pull an enormous amount of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere – while helping to deacidify oceans, restore rivers and boost biodiversity and fish populations.