"LONDON - 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." "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?" "The Earth cannot wait 60 years. We need everybody capable of discovering an answer to put their minds to it today," Branson said. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070209/ap_on_...climate_prize_5
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Feb 10 2007, 09:37 AM) [snapback]388021[/snapback]</div> Branson has made his fortune ... a billionaire at least. His loved ones and heirs should surely be taken care of financially. So, why not shut the doors on his airline to really reduce CO2 emissions. One less airline would make a tremendous difference. He could even afford to scrap the planes to remove them from service to ensure they won't pollute any longer. He could dole out hefty severance packages to all employees and offer retraining in other fields (like climatology) if they so choose. He can afford all of this and more.
How about sticking a balloon onto the exhaust pipe of all vehicles. Eventually the balloon gets full enough that the vehicle floats up into the atmosphere, but the CO2 is all trapped in the balloon so it does no harm.
This is a good thing. Prize money like this does attract innovators, so he is to be praised for his efforts. It is not inconceivable that technology could help us. I had never thought of trying to remove or convert the greenhouse gases as a solution. There are initiatives to see if CO2 can be stored underground as its produced rather than released (see Daily Texan . This could lead to entirely clean power plants, to generate electricity for cars.
