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by ozaark 2521 days ago
For CO2 removal the article says they "can remove carbon dioxide and produce breathable oxygen at a rate equivalent to a hundred trees from the surface area of just a single tree".

Trees sequester ~48 lbs of CO2 per year.[1][2] So 48*100 = ~4800lbs CO2 removed per year for this project. As others have said I'm interested to see if they can do it cost effectively.

[1] https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/treesofstrength/treefact.h... [2] http://urbanforestrynetwork.org/benefits/air%20quality.htm

1 comments

Humans exhale something around 2.3 pounds of CO2 per day [0], 2.3 * 365 = 839.5 pounds per year, 4800 / 839.5 = 5.7 people per "surface area of a tree". That might be small enough that this can keep the CO2 level constant in a office...

The average american carbon footprint is 19.8 tonnes per year [1], 19.8 tonnes / 4800 (pounds / "sa tree") = 9.082 surfaces areas of a tree per person to eliminate their carbon footprint. That's a lot better than I expected really... somewhat doubt my numbers.

(All number here have huge standard deviations, decimal points on the approximation should not be read as indicators of variance).

[0] https://www.reference.com/science/much-co2-human-exhale-3f8c...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02...