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posted by chromas on Monday October 29 2018, @03:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-mean-besides-trees? dept.

Silicon Valley's largest accelerator is looking for carbon-sucking technologies — including one that could become 'the largest infrastructure project ever'

Earlier this week, Y Combinator, which has backed companies like Airbnb and Reddit, put out a request for startups working on technology that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

"It's time to invest and avidly pursue a new wave of technological solutions to this problem — including those that are risky, unproven, even unlikely to work," Y Combinator's website says.

Y Combinator is looking for startups working on four approaches that they acknowledge "straddle the border between very difficult to science fiction" — genetically engineering phytoplankton to turn CO2 into a storage-ready form of carbon, speeding up a natural process in which rocks react with CO2, creating cell-free enzymes that can process carbon, and flooding Earth's deserts to create oases.

Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator, acknowledged that these ideas are "moonshots," but said that he wants to take an expansive approach to the issue.

Related: Negative Emission Strategy: Active Carbon Capture
Storing Carbon Dioxide Underground by Turning It Into Rock
A Startup is Pitching a Mind-Uploading Service That is "100 Percent Fatal"
Carbon Capture From Air Closer to Commercial Viability
Y Combinator Spreads to China
Lab-Made Magnesite could be Used for CO2 Capture
NASA Announces CO2 Conversion Challenge, With Up to $750k Awards


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  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @04:35PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @04:35PM (#755183)

    "Troll"? Repost!

    I suspect the only "profitable" way to run such a "startup" would be to get some government to force taxpayers to fund it.

    The only thing here that is man-made is the hysteria.

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @05:35PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @05:35PM (#755217)

    That is the idea. Create a "perceived" problem and then "solve" it, getting paid both times.

    There was a cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, which sank and the cost of recovery kept increasing. It became more than the cost to build the ship. You have to congratulate them at their genius. Getting paid to solve a problem in the most expensive way possible.

    The carbon problem is only a "perceived problem" which does not exist in reality. Carbon dioxide is taken up by plants and without CO2, there would be no plants and we would all die as a result.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by urza9814 on Monday October 29 2018, @07:10PM (1 child)

      by urza9814 (3954) on Monday October 29 2018, @07:10PM (#755280) Journal

      The carbon problem is only a "perceived problem" which does not exist in reality. Carbon dioxide is taken up by plants and without CO2, there would be no plants and we would all die as a result.

      The drowning problem is only a "perceived problem" which does not exist in reality. Water is taken up by plants and animals and without water we would all die as a result.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @09:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @09:24PM (#755359)

        The 'Murrican exit from climate change treaties (teaties? hah!) also has something to do with solving the problem. A perceived problem is created by 'Murrican industries carbon-dioxiding the air and another sister company begins the cleanup process. Both get paid.

        Create the problem.
        Solve the said problem.
        Get paid.