Branson launches $25m climate bid

Millions of pounds are on offer for the person who comes up with the best way of removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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He [Branson] said he believed offering the $25m (£12.5m) Earth Challenge Prize was the best way of finding a solution.

“They are looking for a method that will remove at least one billion tonnes of carbon per year from the atmosphere.”

Anyone got any ideas?

How about if “we” came up with a winning idea and all proceeds go to SETI?

Aircraft exhaust collectors

Here’s my idea, the “crap bag”. Horses have nosebags to eat from and also to crap in; how about aircraft trailing bags to collect all their vapour trails, for storage as below;

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flaming balloons

Branson launches $25m climate bid

Millions of pounds are on offer for the person who comes up with the best way of removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

read more…

He [Branson] said he believed offering the $25m (£12.5m) Earth Challenge Prize was the best way of finding a solution.

“They are looking for a method that will remove at least one billion tonnes of carbon per year from the atmosphere.”

Anyone got any ideas?

How about if “we” came up with a winning idea and all proceeds go to SETI?

Aircraft exhaust collectors

Here’s my idea, the “crap bag”. Horses have nosebags to eat from and also to crap in; how about aircraft trailing bags to collect all their vapour trails, for storage as below;

The added Drag would use up an incredible amount of fuel...Crap...

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The added Drag would use up an incredible amount of fuel...Crap...

Fair comment. How about sending up utility aircraft to clean up the vapor trails?

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flaming balloons

The added Drag would use up an incredible amount of fuel...Crap...

Fair comment. How about sending up utility aircraft to clean up the vapor trails?

So you want to send up a 2nd aircraft to clean up what the 1st aircraft is putting out? Not cost effective.

I think the answer is as simple what the lady in Africa has been doing for years!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3726024.stm

How many buildings in this World have bare rooftops? MILLIONS, BILLIONS, if each were to have some trees on top of them the trees could take in CO2 and expel O2, Oxygen, and the air would be cleaner! Worldwide it would be BILLIONS of tonnes of CO2 removed from the atmosphere!
Not every square inch of every building could be filled with trees, the weight of a tree can be tremendous, but bushes do their part too! So does grass, cacti, etc, etc. It is called "greenscaping".
I will tell Branson where to send my money.

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So you want to send up a 2nd aircraft to clean up what the 1st aircraft is putting out? Not cost effective.

The competition is not about being cost effective. It is about removing one billion tonnes of carbon gases a year for ten years.

In my fist idea I suggested aircraft (and car) exhaust could be collected for processing and storage underground in the usual way. This way we could fly as much as we like, and, with an appropriate car bag, drive as many fuel guzzlers as we want. "Vac and go" if you like, of should it be "Go and vac" - fly/drive as you vac it all up behind you. That would remove more than one billion tonnes of carbon gases a year.

The $25 million is mine!

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flaming balloons

So you want to send up a 2nd aircraft to clean up what the 1st aircraft is putting out? Not cost effective.

The competition is not about being cost effective. It is about removing one billion tonnes of carbon gases a year for ten years.

In my fist idea I suggested aircraft (and car) exhaust could be collected for processing and storage underground in the usual way. This way we could fly as much as we like, and, with an appropriate car bag, drive as many fuel guzzlers as we want. "Vac and go" if you like, of should it be "Go and vac" - fly/drive as you vac it all up behind you. That would remove more than one billion tonnes of carbon gases a year.
The $25 million is mine!

But if you pollute in the process, what's the point? You would have to "go and vac" from the second plane/vehicle/whatever making it much less cost effective to operate, thus using the limited available energy at a much faster rate. What's the point of the exercise then? To save the planet? For what, there is no energy left in it, your plan used it all up cleaning the Planet up. I believe Branson said the whole point of the exercise was so his kids and grandkids would have a nice place to live. With all available energy resources depleted cleaning the Planet who would want to live here? In this case I see the cure being as bad as the disease. We killed the cancer but lost the patient.

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We'd all be better served if Branson put the money into family planning.

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Ya know....Branson likes to get involved in really wacky things and has been known to drop $ at a whim...

We should try to get him to donate to Seti!

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Ya know....Branson likes to get involved in really wacky things and has been known to drop $ at a whim...

We should try to get him to donate to Seti!

That's an interesting idea Blurf, but Branson likes immediate payoff. It's all about the media exposure with him(how many times can I get my pic in the paper this week). He wouldn't like the idea of "waiting" to find a signal. And Seti just isn't sexy enough for Mr.Virgin. Then again, he is a kook. Who knows.

Ya know....Branson likes to get involved in really wacky things and has been known to drop $ at a whim...

We should try to get him to donate to Seti!

That's an interesting idea Blurf, but Branson likes immediate payoff. It's all about the media exposure with him(how many times can I get my pic in the paper this week). He wouldn't like the idea of "waiting" to find a signal. And Seti just isn't sexy enough for Mr.Virgin. Then again, he is a kook. Who knows.

I'll tell you one thing...his airline really sucks. I've flown Virgin
Atlantic twice round trip to England in the last year, and only because
Virgin was the only one that flew non-stop. Crappy food even by airline
standards and the cabin crew are the rudest in the industry. Even American
Airlines gives you a 33" pitch in economy, whereas Virgin gives you only 31".
They pack you in like sardines, and the planes are dirty. Sir Branson is a
showman for sure, but once his interest wanes, he could care less and lets the
CFO's run the show.

BTW, he made a big thing about having his planes towed to the taxi way to
reduce jet engine emissions, but they never did that the last two flights I
took with them. Ideas are one thing, but if they aren't implimented, then
they are just so much PR and nothing more.

If he wants to toss his money around that is his own business and perogetive.

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The CO2 --> methane from coal thing wouldn't work. It would interfere with the strip mining operation.

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me@rescam.org

Ya know....Branson likes to get involved in really wacky things and has been known to drop $ at a whim...

We should try to get him to donate to Seti!

That's an interesting idea Blurf, but Branson likes immediate payoff. It's all about the media exposure with him(how many times can I get my pic in the paper this week). He wouldn't like the idea of "waiting" to find a signal. And Seti just isn't sexy enough for Mr.Virgin. Then again, he is a kook. Who knows.

I think that somewhere between $10,000,000 and $1,000,000,000 dollars of net worth is the cutoff where "kook" magically turns into "eccentric".

I'll tell you one thing...his airline really sucks. I've flown Virgin
Atlantic twice rount trip to England in the last year, and only because
Virgin was the only one that flew non-stop. Crappy food even by airline
standards and the cabin crew are the rudest in the industry. Even American
Airlines gives you a 33" pitch in economy, whereas Virgin gives you only 31".
They pack you in like sardines, and the planes are dirty. Sir Branson is a
showman for sure, but once his interest wanes, he could care less and lets the
CFO's run the show.

BTW, he made a big thing about having his planes towed to the taxi way to
reduce jet engine emissions, but they never did that the last two flights I
took with them. Ideas are one thing, but if they aren't implimented, then
they are just so much PR and nothing more.

If he want to toss his money around that is his own business and perogetive.

I flew Virgin just once and would rate them as average/OK. I've flown a fair bit in my time and have never come across any rude cabin staff - but then I've been in the airline industry and perhaps see them differently because "I'm one of them".

Your point about towing the planes is interesting. This could save an awful lot of CO2 emissions if all airports did it. But unfortunately that is the point - the airlines do not own the airports or the facilities provided. Tow trucks, baggage handling, where planes dock and their wait for a stand, wait for the cleaners, etc. etc are not theirs to control. If Branson wants a tow truck, and there aren't any, or British Airways have done the dirty on him again and bullied the airport into grabbing them all for their airline, then don't blame Branson - blame Misfit!

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flaming balloons

So you want to send up a 2nd aircraft to clean up what the 1st aircraft is putting out? Not cost effective.

The competition is not about being cost effective. It is about removing one billion tonnes of carbon gases a year for ten years.

In my fist idea I suggested aircraft (and car) exhaust could be collected for processing and storage underground in the usual way. This way we could fly as much as we like, and, with an appropriate car bag, drive as many fuel guzzlers as we want. "Vac and go" if you like, of should it be "Go and vac" - fly/drive as you vac it all up behind you. That would remove more than one billion tonnes of carbon gases a year.
The $25 million is mine!

But if you pollute in the process, what's the point? You would have to "go and vac" from the second plane/vehicle/whatever making it much less cost effective to operate, thus using the limited available energy at a much faster rate. What's the point of the exercise then? To save the planet? For what, there is no energy left in it, your plan used it all up cleaning the Planet up. I believe Branson said the whole point of the exercise was so his kids and grandkids would have a nice place to live. With all available energy resources depleted cleaning the Planet who would want to live here? In this case I see the cure being as bad as the disease. We killed the cancer but lost the patient.

Yes, I take your point. But forget the second idea of a second aircraft or a second car to chase the first to clean up. My initial (one and only) idea was a way to capture all the exhaust from an aircraft or a car as it was flying/driving along. Imagine a steam train with steam belching from it's chimney - but adding a condenser which would turn the steam to water and collect it back in it's water tank (Hey I should have been there with Stevenson to help him with that one). In the same way the exhaust would be captured, 99.9% of it let go and the 0.1% which is CO2 retained in a small box beside the rear toilet on an aircraft or next the the gas tank in a car, and then emptied for storage under ground. Thus removing billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Hey, at least it's an idea that will work - it just needs the technology applied to make it happen.

As for whether energy resources are being depleted and inefficiently used - that is another argument. That argument was ALWAYS there, global warming or or not. That fact the we all have ALWAYS been disgracefully wasteful with energy has always been the case before we even realized that we were killing the planet. But whether we are or not, we can be a little more respectful of mother natures resources, don't you think?

My ideas says if you must fly and personally put 3 tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere every time you do, or if you must drive gas guzzlers and belch CO2 into the atmosphere, at least my 'invention' can clean up after you. We still (most of us) live in democracies and are free to fly and drive whatever we like (even with increasing 'green' taxes), but we either stop the emissions (they say no more must be put into the atmosphere, and some say that a lot of CO2 already there must be taken out), or we clean up, as we pollute, vacuum it all up as we go along - "Go and vac".

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flaming balloons

Yes, I take your point. But forget the second idea of a second aircraft or a second car to chase the first to clean up. My initial (one and only) idea was a way to capture all the exhaust from an aircraft or a car as it was flying/driving along. Imagine a steam train with steam belching from it's chimney - but adding a condenser which would turn the steam to water and collect it back in it's water tank (Hey I should have been there with Stevenson to help him with that one). In the same way the exhaust would be captured, 99.9% of it let go and the 0.1% which is CO2 retained in a small box beside the rear toilet on an aircraft or next the the gas tank in a car, and then emptied for storage under ground. Thus removing billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Hey, at least it's an idea that will work - it just needs the technology applied
to make it happen.
As for whether energy resources are being depleted and inefficiently used - that is another argument. That argument was ALWAYS there, global warming or or not. That fact the we all have ALWAYS been disgracefully wasteful with energy has always been the case before we even realized that we were killing the planet. But whether we are or not, we can be a little more respectful of mother natures resources, don't you think?
My ideas says if you must fly and personally put 3 tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere every time you do, or if you must drive gas guzzlers and belch CO2 into the atmosphere, at least my 'invention' can clean up after you. We still (most of us) live in democracies and are free to fly and drive whatever we like (even with increasing 'green' taxes), but we either stop the emissions (they say no more must be put into the atmosphere, and some say that a lot of CO2 already there must be taken out), or we clean up, as we pollute, vacuum it all up as we go along - "Go and vac".

Yes capturing your own emissions is an idea, that is probably possible. I am not sure how effective it would be but surely possible, at least on cars. Planes and trains put emissions out at a very fast and large rate and that may take some engineering. Maybe running the emissions thru a tank of some kind of liquid before they discharge into the atmosphere would capture all the bad stuff. CO2 must chemically stick to something!

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Yes capturing your own emissions is an idea, that is probably possible. I am not sure how effective it would be but surely possible, at least on cars. Planes and trains put emissions out at a very fast and large rate and that may take some engineering. Maybe running the emissions thru a tank of some kind of liquid before they discharge into the atmosphere would capture all the bad stuff. CO2 must chemically stick to something!

Once we've cracked that little problem we can then go ahead with sky trawling. Two 747s with a CO2 'net' strung between them (a larger version of the car collector) to take away some of the CO2 up there. That should remove another billion tonnes or two.

Do I get another $25 million for this one?

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flaming balloons

Yes capturing your own emissions is an idea, that is probably possible. I am not sure how effective it would be but surely possible, at least on cars. Planes and trains put emissions out at a very fast and large rate and that may take some engineering. Maybe running the emissions thru a tank of some kind of liquid before they discharge into the atmosphere would capture all the bad stuff. CO2 must chemically stick to something!

Once we've cracked that little problem we can then go ahead with sky trawling. Two 747s with a CO2 'net' strung between them (a larger version of the car collector) to take away some of the CO2 up there. That should remove another billion tonnes or two.
Do I get another $25 million for this one?

You are still expelling emissions to capture emissions. I thought you had decided to stick with the "vac-o-bag", not the 2nd plane following the 1st. If you decide to go with the plane, why not go with a car on the freeway following every other car? One for one, we could clean up every cars emissions, of course then we would have to send a car after our "vac-o-car" because it too is expelling emissions, so we could really clog the freeways, or the airways with this idea.
I think you are back to a carry-on tank and capturing your own emissions.

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You are still expelling emissions to capture emissions. I thought you had decided to stick with the "vac-o-bag", not the 2nd plane following the 1st. If you decide to go with the plane, why not go with a car on the freeway following every other car? One for one, we could clean up every cars emissions, of course then we would have to send a car after our "vac-o-car" because it too is expelling emissions, so we could really clog the freeways, or the airways with this idea.
I think you are back to a carry-on tank and capturing your own emissions.

I'm a little ahead of you mikey. I'm doing 2 things;

1 - clean up emissions as they are are expelled (a car collects it's own emissions as it drives along, a plane collects it's own emissions as it flies along, etc, etc).

2 - I am sending up planes to collect all the CO2 that is already up there in the atmosphere. If we don't clean that up, the Earth will still carry on warming up, no matter how much we reduce emissions from today onwards. (Those planes are also collecting their own emissions).

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flaming balloons

You are still expelling emissions to capture emissions. I thought you had decided to stick with the "vac-o-bag", not the 2nd plane following the 1st. If you decide to go with the plane, why not go with a car on the freeway following every other car? One for one, we could clean up every cars emissions, of course then we would have to send a car after our "vac-o-car" because it too is expelling emissions, so we could really clog the freeways, or the airways with this idea.
I think you are back to a carry-on tank and capturing your own emissions.

I'm a little ahead of you mikey. I'm doing 2 things;

1 - clean up emissions as they are are expelled (a car collects it's own emissions as it drives along, a plane collects it's own emissions as it flies along, etc, etc).

2 - I am sending up planes to collect all the CO2 that is already up there in the atmosphere. If we don't clean that up, the Earth will still carry on warming up, no matter how much we reduce emissions from today onwards. (Those planes are also collecting their own emissions).

Hasn't anyone considered the greatest and most efficient CO2 converters, and they run on solar power...they're called plants and trees. But alas, mankind is chopping down the rain forests so fast they may never be able to recover.

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Hasn't anyone considered the greatest and most efficient CO2 converters, and they run on solar power...they're called plants and trees. But alas, mankind is chopping down the rain forests so fast they may never be able to recover.

Scroll down and look at my first post in this thread...I mentioned "greenscaping". That is what I think you are talking about..planting trees, bushes and grasses on rooftops to do the work for us.

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