400 PPM: Can Artificial Trees Help Pull CO2 from the Air?

Although capture technologies show promise, pulling CO2 out of the air is unlikely to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations soon

By David Biello

AIR CAPTURE: Could this plastic embedded with resin help draw down atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide? Image: ? David Biello

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Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have touched 400 parts per million for the first time in at least 800,000 years. The jagged saw-toothed line of the Keelings' father-and-son measurements climbed above that milestone briefly this month before the budding growth of the Northern Hemisphere's spring began sucking CO2 back out of the sky. But human greenhouse gas pollution looks set to continue to rise?and photosynthetic plants on land or at sea can only do so much. As greenhouse gas levels increase further, could machines help wash the skies of the excess CO2?

On an early spring day touched with the promise of warmth plus the threat of rain, I headed up to Columbia University's Mudd Building and the lab of physicist Klaus Lackner, formerly of Los Alamos National Laboratory. His hearty chuckle belies his formal German diction and physicist's habit of obfuscating with numbers. Girding myself for potentially indecipherable jokes, I'm here to see Lackner?s potentially world-saving technology: a plastic resin that can capture carbon dioxide directly from the air.

The resin rests outside a clear greenhouse bearing basil plants, bamboo, a houseplant and cucumbers that glow an eerie purple-red under ultraviolet light. The plants' leaves rustle in the breeze from a Dyson bladeless fan. Next to the big tank, a computer monitor charts CO2 levels and a tube on one side separates the environment within the greenhouse from the outside world. With the UV light on, the plants are busily sucking in CO2 to make leaves, roots and vegetables. "The cucumber got fat on the CO2," Lackner notes and chuckles.

A pale beige polypropylene plastic embedded with 25-micrometer particles of the resin is inserted into the tube in the form of a long-haired shag carpet sample and, almost immediately, CO2 levels inside the greenhouse begin a steady march downward as the resin binds CO2 to form bicarbonate, a kind of salt produced. This type of salt, more familiar perhaps as baking soda when there's a sodium atom involved, holds the CO2. The resin sucks in CO2 even more powerfully than the plants do, as a function of the relative humidity of the material. That makes the process reversible; just add water to get the CO2 back out again.

This is no joke. A polycarbonate plastic bottle used to store some of the resin ended up scarified. "They broke the plastic," Lacker says of his lab co-conspirators, showing me the streaked, cloudy, hard plastic bottle. The resin pulled CO2 out of the polycarbonate in its vigorous quest for chemical equilibrium.

Lackner calculates that more than 700 kilograms of CO2 passes through an opening the size of the door to this lab over a 24-hour period when the wind is up, courtesy of another Dyson or just a windy building top. That's how much a sheet of this material might pull from the air. Or it could be refashioned into a brushlike or folded checker configuration, exposing more of the resin.

Of course, 700 kilograms of CO2 only equals the breath of 13 people for one day and night. There would need to be a lot of these resin machines to make a significant impact on pulling this trace greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere to lower atmospheric concentrations; Lackner estimates 10 million such artificial ?trees? would be required to drop atmospheric concentrations by 0.5 ppm per year. Each machine would require roughly 1.1 megajoule of electricity for pumping and compressing per kilogram of CO2 captured. That's not to mention all the water required to wet the filters (and evaporate) in order to get the CO2 back out again so the resin can be re-used to capture yet more CO2. The compressed and captured CO2 can then either be used for industrial purposes, like enhanced oil recovery to improve the economics of all this, or buried deep beneath the surface of the planet. In other words, a vast industrial infrastructure of air-capture machines would be required to remedy the effects of our vast, industrial infrastructure for fossil fuels.

Just how the resin operates is the focus of the other experiment in this lab. Hidden inside a Styrofoam cooler?with a dark blue Columbia necktie as de facto latch?the resin is exposed to water and CO2 and precisely weighed while temperature is kept constant. The idea is to keep CO2 steady at 400 ppm with no temperature variation and then change the conditions to determine how well the resin works.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=7296ea383c76f8dd8c96546048b7499a

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'Teaching History in the Digital Age' ? Call for a New Breed of ...

By Lynn Zimmerman
Associate Editor
Editor, Teacher Education

As a teacher educator, I am concerned that I am training my students how to teach yesterday?s students rather than tomorrow?s. Therefore, I was interested in seeing what T. Mills Kelly had to say, in Teaching History in the Digital Age (2013), about best practice for today?s and tomorrow?s students. As it happens, I also recently read?The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr, which is going to be my university?s One Book next year. Carr focuses on how the Internet has shaped how we think and view the world. Carr points out that, according to recent brain research, how we access and store information alters the physical properties of the brain. He contends that the practice of getting small amounts of information from a variety of sources may help us be more efficient information gatherers but at the cost of the ability to concentrate and reflect on what we are gathering.

Carr?s argument seems to parallel and support Kelly?s ideas in several ways.?Traditionally, history teaching has relied on imparting knowledge and analysis, usually in the form of lectures, which research has shown is not the most effective approach. Perhaps partly because of this method of teaching, history is often seen by students as the acquisition of facts and not as a process of gathering and analyzing data. Also, Kelly says that the notion of perspective is often ignored, e.g., what is included, what is left out, why it is included or left out.

Kelly contends that the digital age offers historians the opportunity to help their students become historians, analysts, not just fact collectors. Not only do more students go to online sources rather than print, but today?s students are used to creating on the Internet ? not just consuming. Kelly asserts that educators need to take advantage of this tendency in order to create learning opportunities that promote active engagement and not just passive acquisition through lectures and reading. He?does?caution that instructors must teach students that their role is not to remix or remake history. They should not give in to their desire to change primary sources so that they are ?better,? a tendency that Web 2.0 savvy students may have. However, this type of engagement with history gives the instructor and students opportunities to examine the ethics of a variety of issues that can come up in projects, from plagiarism to the manipulation of information to support one?s point.?

Digital literacy is also an issue: What is good info? What are reliable sources? The Internet has made available an abundance of primary source material. However, just because a site is popular or comes up in the first few hits on Google does not mean it is a reliable source. Students must learn to work with a variety of sources and to be critical users of these sources. According to Kelly, historians have to teach students how to use information and Web 2.0 resources to prevent projects from becoming mere collections of facts.?Digital literacy includes learning to use various tools to locate information in time and space, and can provide different perspectives for analyzing the material. Kelly suggests that even sources such as comments on Flickr and Wikipedia can be useful if used appropriately. He?offers some simple exercises that instructors can use with?students to demonstrate how Wikipedia entries evolve, how Google customizes hits for the user, and how to use reference management packages.

Kelly points out that historians not only study history but they also present what they have learned in various formats, especially essays. Instructors of history know that the process of writing, of making the abstract concrete, helps writers examine and analyze in ways they may not otherwise, using critical thinking skills. Kelly states that, according to neuroscience, there is a cognitive gain from the process of preparing information for presentation to others.

Writing in the digital environment requires different expectations from the instructor, but it is still presentation of material. In order to be an effective learning activity, it must require collaboration among students. This means that students must be taught how to work with others online, how to become a community of practice ? not just a social network. Calling on the expertise of others is an important skill that students can and should learn through these projects. By using Web 2.0 to ?make history? that can be seen by a larger audience rather than just writing a paper to be read by the instructor, students have the opportunity to engage with others beyond the classroom walls. Kelly asserts that a more active approach to history learning will result in students who not only know about history but understand it. He refers to Wiggins and McTighe?s ?backwards design? approach, which is actually the creation of higher order learning objectives for what students will learn and be able to do.

One of Kelly?s major concerns is that students can and do use digital media. He contends that it is up to educators to help them use it in a way that enhances their educational experience, in a way that is fun, comfortable, and familiar to them while giving them the critical thinking skills to use it appropriately in historical (or other) contexts so that they become historians themselves and not just consumers of historical facts. For example, he explains that students who create their own blogs, rather than blogs that begin and end with a course, are more engaged with them. It not only gives them the chance to document their work with links, videos, etc. but also the opportunity to interact with others in the creation and maintenance of their projects. He also?points out that a by-product of the use of technology is that it provides students with prompts, links, etc. that can help them develop better analytical reading strategies.

After reading these two books, I am convinced that I need to rethink how I am teaching my students if I want them to be 21st century educators. This type of open-ended teaching will turn off those students who want to be traditional teachers. However, if word gets out that teaching really is cool, up-to-date, and creative, we might attract a new breed of teachers who can and do think outside the box and are able to educate students who do more than score well on standardized tests.

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Source: http://etcjournal.com/2013/05/16/teaching-history-in-the-digital-age-call-for-a-new-breed-of-teachers/

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Little Big Town, Fleetwood Mac at Jazz Fest

Karen Fairchild, right, and Kimberly Schlapman, members of the band Little Big Town, perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Saturday, May 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Karen Fairchild, right, and Kimberly Schlapman, members of the band Little Big Town, perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Saturday, May 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Little Big Town performs at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Saturday, May 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Michael Doucet performs with the zydeco band BeauSoliel at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Friday, May 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Marc Broussard performs at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Friday, May 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Willie Nelson performs at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Friday, May 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Little Big Town says that some networking they did is paying off with a chance to cross a couple of items off their "bucket list."

After playing Bayou Country SuperFest in Baton Rouge last year, group member Karen Fairchild said they talked to festival producer Quint Davis about other things they hoped to accomplish. They mentioned that they'd one day like to perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Davis was in a position to help since he also produces Jazz Fest.

Known for its trademark four-part harmonies, Little Big Town performed in New Orleans on Saturday.

"Can you believe we're opening for Fleetwood Mac?" said Kimberly Schlapman, another group member. "We've been wanting to play Jazz Fest forever and now we're opening for Fleetwood Mac and can mark off two big things from our list."

Schlapman said early in their career they had the chance to meet Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac, which she described as an "amazing harmony band."

"Being able to share a stage with them is one of our greatest wishes," she said.

Fairchild said they've watched Jazz Fest from afar for years. "The who's who of music shows up year after year at the festival. Who wouldn't want to play there?"

Flags flying amid a cool breeze, music fans packed the festival grounds by the stage where Little Big Town and Fleetwood Mac performed. Some put down tarps over the muddy infield. Others sat in chairs, wore rubber boots or stood barefoot to hear the bands.

"Once you're in it, it kind of feels good," said Mary Kathryn Gatlin, of Greenville, S.C., who danced shoeless in the mud, the muck covering her feet past the ankles. Gatlin was taking in her first Jazz Fest with her sister, Frances Gatlin.

The pair had been at the stage since noon, about an hour after the gates opened.

"We love country, bluegrass, just easy-listening music that's fun to dance to," Gatlin said.

Many danced as Fleetwood Mac performed such hits as "Dreams," ''Rhiannon," ''Gypsy," ''Tusk" and "Landslide," which drew huge roars from the crowd when Stevie Nicks introduced it.

Nicks also delivered her tribute to the host city, singing a portion of her song, "New Orleans," which she said she wrote after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. "I wanna get a room in New Orleans, I wanna sing in the streets of the French Quarter," she sang.

The band also performed a new song, "Sad Angel," testing it out with the crowd. Toward the end of their set, they played an old favorite, "Go Your Own Way" at the end of which Buckingham shouted to the crowd, "New Orleans, we love you!"

They left the stage briefly before returning for an encore performance of "The World Keep On Turning," a song from their self-titled first album released in 1968 and "Don't Stop."

Other Saturday headliners included Phoenix, Frank Ocean, Los Lobos, Terence Blanchard, Davell Crawford and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Sunshine and blue skies were welcomed by fans of the outdoor festival, which had been drenched by rain in previous days. Despite the mud, the field in front of the festival's largest stage was packed hours before Fleetwood Mac's performance.

Little Big Town's Fairchild said she hoped their festival appearance would help boost their fan base.

"This is a great chance for longtime fans to come out and see our set and a chance for us to discover and be introduced to new fans," she said.

Phillip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook make up the rest of Little Big Town, which recently won two Academy of Country Music awards for their latest album "Tornado." They go on tour with Keith Urban in July.

"I like them," said Monique Powell, of Lafayette. "They've got three big hits out right now, 'Tornado,' 'Pontoon,' and 'Little White Church.' We came in to hear Maroon 5 yesterday. This is just a bonus."

Powell and her friend, Matt Chaisson, also of Lafayette, said Saturday's sunny weather made the trip worthwhile.

"Even though it's nasty out here with all the mud, we're making the best of it," she said, adding that she should have packed her rain boots.

"I should know better," she said, laughing. "I'm from here!"

The festival ends Sunday, with closing performances by Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Aaron Neville, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, and Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra with special guest Dee Dee Bridgewater.

___

Associated Press writer Stacey Plaisance contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-05-04-Music-Jazz%20Fest/id-ecb30baac5434669964d1b83f8a35ccb

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