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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:34PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:34PM (#755388)

    Some territory, yes. All this territory? Naaah.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @11:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @11:04PM (#755403)

    Well, what else is left to explore? Dazzle me with your superior intellect!