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