- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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Bacteria grow on ants and fix atmospheric carbon to make a tough armor.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.21.700952v1.full
That’s really cool
I agree, but does that really inform proper carbon sequestration to combat climate change? It feels a bit like a stretch to make such a connection so early in a discovery/analysis.
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So they take CO2 from the atmosphere and chemically transform it into solid materials that reduce greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere?
Congratulations you have invented plants.
The plants then die and release that CO2
Turning it into a mineral means it won’t just be released
I think microbes are probably a lot easier, faster, and more cost effective to produce compared to plants. It can survive in harsh conditions and create rock from the C02 at a fast rate according to the article.
Not only that, but they believe the active enzymes in the microbe can be optimized and engineered, then mixed into a liquid substrate. Becomes an enzyme-based CO2 filter with the byproduct of Calcium Carbonate, which can be used in concrete. The article talks about filling trucks with these and passing the emissions of coal-fired power plants through them.
That would be an incredible innovation. You don’t have to stop at coal either, it’s just the dirtiest. Nat gas, trash, oil, wood and anything else burned on a huge scale could be curbed.
Yep, you could even pepper the interstate highways of America with them and just let them passively eat the CO2 particles that cars are putting out.
What about all the farting that cows do?
The trouble with cow farts is the methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas that eventually turns back into CO2 in the atmosphere anyway. Concentrated methane sources tend to either be captured for use as fuel, or flared with a burning flame to reduce the greenhouse effect (at which point carbon sequestering might work). Less concentrated sources, like livestock farts, can’t really be dealr with in the same way.
That’s methane. And it’s mostly from their poop, not farting.
It’s a disaster. And that industru is also a major cause of deforestation.
We have to stop buying meat.
IIRC, most of its from their mouth actually. They’re ruminants, meaning they’re fermenting their food in their multiple stomachs. This is where most of the Methane is produced, and the pressure is released through their mouths.
No, it’s mostly their poop.
The “cow farts” and “cow burps” phrasing is used to downplay the seriousness of the issue.
Global animal agriculture produces enormous quantities of cow poop, which produces enormous quantities of methane, which is one of the biggest causes of the climate catastrophe.
Well that would be a disaster
Based on what
IPCC reports
Where
A bigger disaster than dumping it into the atmosphere?
A bigger disaster than shutting down all fossil fuel based power plants yesterday
Yeah, one of the issues with plants is that they don’t remove the CO2 from the cycle. It’s only a temporary storage, unless you bury them in airtight containers, or do something else to process them. Coal was effectively permanently sequestered. A tree, when it decomposes or burns (also decomposition), the carbon is right back into the environment. Turning it into rock is effectively permanent, unless we decide to release it.
Read the article. They’re hoping to mass manufacture the enzymes involved, which have the following advantages over carbon capture through plant life:
- Can work in much harsher environments, with higher operating temperatures, pressures, and acidity.
- Captures the carbon in calcium carbonate, which is more stable in retaining the carbon compared to decomposing plant matter.
- Works much faster than plants do
Sounds like you want a peat bog
It takes approximately a thousand years to form a meter of a peat bog. We don’t have this much time unfortunately.
Right. Destroy all the coal plants yesterday and ban burning carbon
Weeks instead of years. Could be big for assisting in the fight against climate change.
I had figured space flight. Either way, I guess.
Being able to teraform is huge on earth and abroad. Cool stuff either way.
I actually don’t think this would be that useful for space flight or terraforming really. CO2 is still two parts oxygen. Assuming the atmosphere isn’t already full of O2 and we want it to be, we want to convert it from CO2 into O2 (like plants do), not into this form. I guess it could be useful if we want to decrease atmospheric pressure too maybe?
It could be useful for a short-term solution, where we don’t need to recover CO2 for breathing, and just want to remove it and store it. I don’t think it’d likely ever be more efficient than existing technology for this though.
The downside of that kind of stuff is that you need a balance. Scrub too much CO2 and it’s trouble again.
Great, in 50 years we’ll be desperately switching back to fossil fuels to prevent an ice age.
That’s one part the movie for Project Hail Mary missed from the book, that’s disappointing. Sunlight is decreasing, so they bring in a climate scientist to figure out how to produce as much greenhouse gasses as possible. He’s really disturbed by it obviously, but sees it needs to be done. They end up melting the ice caps to release Methane, because it’s more potent and decay into less potent CO2 in a reasonable time frame, so they can stop when things are solved.
I forgot that from the book
If we can get atmospheric CO2 back down to where it was 100 years ago that would be an amazing problem to have.
Look up the Oxygen Catastropy, also called Oxygen Holocaust.
That’s what happens if too much carbon is removed from the atmosphere and thus there’s too much oxygen in it.
It sounds like you have no idea the magnitudes involved, or the timelines. You’re talking about something that took place over a period of 400 million years and whose effects (the presence of oxygen in our atmosphere and our oceans) remain. There’s no chance that geoengineering would change the oxygen levels to anything we can’t handle, and if it starts to head down that direction we can easily handle it (just stop the processes that would sequester carbon).
It’s like being worried that your air conditioning is going to freeze your pipes in the house, in the middle of summer.
I mean, we are currently doing geoengineering on a planetary scale that change CO2 levels to something we can’t handle.
You’re probably right, but bioengineering this to self-propogate quickly in the environment would be exponential. I’m sure that isn’t the plan, but it could be done, and it could make this an issue. We shouldn’t let that stop us because we’re currently in an exponential fuck up in the opposite direction, but it is something to think about.
The article talks about mass producing the enzymes themselves, not the life forms that produce the enzymes. It’s a key distinction.
Plus these organisms already live on this earth. They can’t outcompete other life on the surface, in less harsh conditions.
Plants eventually decompose, releasing the CO2. Rock generally doesn’t have that problem
Plants eventually decompose
On the scale of hundreds of years, thousands for some trees, tens of thousands plus if you sink fast growing trees deep in a cold sea. It is a thoroughly proven technology. If deployed at scale likely good enough to get us over the the hump to a renewables based technology without frying the Earth.
The problem is it’s not actually profitable (pretty cheap though) like the tech in OP’s article with patents and income streams (but only for fossil fuel energy generation). You’d think survival would be adequate motivation, but no.
More power to the people making this tech, everything is welcome, but if they’re going to lock it behind patents for 20 years it’s unlikely to be what is needed now.
Plants solid material is only temporary.
If they could create a plant that fits on a truck and can remove a ton of carbon a day then they’d have another crazy invention on their hands, this just does it and creates rock … damn.
It reminds me of Prototaxites.
So reading through they think it can be used to eventually make huge filters they can use for coal plants and stuff like that.
If true this could be like whatever it was they found in Project Hail Mary that ends up saving the human race.
Ironically, it could be like the astroohage if it somehow spread on its own. The sun is dimming, so it’s getting cooler, and fast. To counter this, they actually release a bunch of greenhouse gasses to keep things warm.
I wish the movie included this, because it makes it more clear it’s all about climate change, and that the world needs to work together to solve the problem. Huge sacrifices need to be made, but we have to do it.
The thing they found in Project Hail Mary also happened to be the thing that was killing the human race.
Wait the stuff at the end?
He had a breach in his ship but fixed it and went back and saved Rocky and sent the samples of whatever it was that was eating the stuff that was destroying humans.
Spoilers:
spoiler
An interstellar microbe feeding on stars (astrophage) was the danger to humanity. They figured out it breeds on planets. But the distant planet they found had different alien microbial life that just happened to be very good at feeding on the interstellar star eaters that had chosen to breed there.
So they took samples, cultured the microbe-eating-microbes, and left to take them home. But the human guy figured out they broke containment and ate some fuel his starship uses, that Rocky’s starship happened to be made of, so he used his remaining fuel to change course and warn Rocky.
So… the CO2 eater analogy actually makes some sense. If we’re lucky this could lead to major geoengineering breakthrough, like the movie microbes did (though I wouldn’t get my hopes up).
In this case, the parasite is humanity. Or emissions-heavy industry. Or oil executives. Something like that.
I sure hope so. I work in electricity generation (not coal) and I see this being potentially massive for all fuel types. Depending on if/how it can be scaled. Combined cycle was huge for emissions reduction. But this could be a completely new level if we can reduce to zero/near zero and have a useful byproduct.
Only if there’s incentive for the added cost, though. I’m skeptical such scrubbers could produce something useful enough to offset the cost by themselves.
I’d imagine if the tech gets there it will be so heavily subsidized (at least in the US) that cost won’t be a huge concern. Plus if its producing a useful biproduct that might be a decent revenue booster.
I’m glad we don’t have to worry or change anything. I was stressing there. So much relief!
Uh, that would kill amost all life on earth, if it was an excuse to keep burning coal
The thing about the burning coal that’s actually threatening the life right now is mostly just the carbon
Nah, it’s all greenhouse gasses.
Not to mention extremely harmful practice of extracting it from the ground.
Fortunately we have plenty of renewable energy to replace it
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas
Yes. One of many
So how exactly do you figure implementing carbon capture tech would kill all life on earth?
It makes an excuse for the fossil fuel extractors to continue burning it with impunity instead of finally switching to something that doesn’t kill us all.
So dense lol
“that essentially eat carbon dioxide gas (CO2) and turn it into rock at an incredibly fast rate.”
ETA to new construction method in 3-2-1…
I have a feeling “incredibly fast” is a relative term, and not a sign of this being used for construction. If they could convert it quickly enough to use for construction, wouldn’t it essentially kill off its own habitat in no time flat?
“Twenty years from now…”
I wonder if it could be feasible to take the CO2 emissions from incinerated landfill.
Empty the landfills, burn the waste, generate electricity and eat all the carbon emissions. No idea if it’s feasible in the future but it sure would be an incredible advancement.
