The Story of the Solar Atmospheric CO2 Cleaner

By Warren Cooley

Inventors are crackpots. I realize that removing CO2 from the atmosphere is an intractable problem and I could be dead wrong. But, global climate change seems to have an exponential nature and is likely accelerating much faster then commonly assumed. Somebody needs to come up with something. I had to give it a shot.

I began with basic design criteria. First, you can't use fossil fuel to power a machine designed to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. It doesn't make any sense. Well no more sense then, shooting yourself in the foot then trying to walk home. Combusting fossil fuel puts CO2 into the atmosphere. Nuclear energy is dirty, centralized, complicated, and scary. That is pretty much it, by default you get to solar energy pretty quick. It is the only source of energy that can be sufficiently concentrated and focused, is benign to the environment and exists everywhere on earth. It makes sense.

CO2 is a tough, nearly inert, molecule focusing energy into a space and heating it up enough to break the molecular bonds requires lots of temperature, much more then is practical to produce with a solar concentrator.

I started thinking about frequency. Everything vibrates. I wondered if you could microwave a CO2 molecule and bust it up. It turns out you can but, you need precisely the right frequency of vibration so the molecule will absorb energy. This frequency is in the terahertz range. Terahertz radiation is hard to make. I got lucky. I found a recently developed technology that turns heat, thermal energy, into terahertz radiation. It uses a photonic crystal. The door of possibility swung open.

Now, if I could use concentrated solar energy, to provide the heat, to drive a photonic crystal producing the frequency and power required, to break CO2 covalent bonds? I reasoned I might have something. Doesn't sound too difficult! Create a field of radiation, confine it in a cavity; pull air through the cavity. The CO2 absorbs the energy and the molecules bust, a high-tech microwave. You get carbon monoxide and oxygen.

Bam! I ran smack into the Second Law of Thermodynamics. You never get as much energy out of a system as you put in. In the case of a thermally power photonic crystal, if you put one hundred units of heat energy in you get one unit of radiation out. I was crushed by the immutable laws of physics. I was beat, finish. Months of work and the only consolation was I had given it everything I had. Maybe, removing CO2 from the atmosphere was an intractable problem without a solution? I hung it up.

But, I could not get forget the possibilities. Everyday the news about climate change just kept getting worse. It was afternoon when it dawned on me. I didn't need all that much energy. If the air and the radiation move through the invention at a constant rate I only need enough energy to break the CO2 molecules in the radiation field at any given time. I did the math and the problem looked solvable after all air only contains .03% CO2. I was back in the hunt.

So, if I can break CO2 molecules up into carbon monoxide and oxygen. What do I do with them? The oxygen is not a problem. Carbon monoxide, on the other hand, is poison, but also highly reactive, particularly with metal, iron for example. Mix the two and you get metal carbonyl. It turns out metal carbonyl is used to make all kinds of stuff, you could even burn it. It is a valuable by-product.

So, what I ended up with is an invention that can sit in anybody's backyard, anywhere, harvest CO2 from the atmosphere to slow global warming and produce a product that you can sell by the gram or liter. It should be worth something?



Let me run through the essentials one more time so, you can really check it out:

It is known that molecules absorb energy at unique frequencies.

It is also known that bodies of matter resonating at the same frequency transfer energy to the exclusion of surrounding matter.

Therefore, CO2 molecules in the atmosphere will absorb energy from a specifically tuned and sufficiently powered field of radiation, as they pass through it, to the exclusion of other molecules comprising air.

The energy absorbed produces molecular excitation sufficient to dissociate covalent bonds resulting in new molecular fragments, carbon monoxide and oxygen.

The invention works on these principles, using photonic crystals driven by solar energy to produce the required power and frequency. It produces a metal carbonyl by-product that could be used as an alternative fuel source.

That is pretty much the story of what we are working on. How we are working is a developing story. It's a global collaboration, grassroots, real people we can do it faster then any government, open design, virtual lab kind of story. We can use all the help we can get. We think climate change is an emergency. We think anyone, who is willing to pick up a bucket and get on the fire line does honor to themselves and the human race.

When was the last time somebody gave you a chance to save the future?

About Author:

Warren Cooley is an inventor leading a global collaboration of scientific and technical experts to complete design specifications and prototyping for a recently filed patent on a Solar Atmospheric CO2 Cleaner. The invention harvests CO2 from the air and produces a valuable commercial by-product or alternative fuel source. More details disclosing the invention are available at http://www.livingry.us Collaborators and investors interested in participating in the development of this technology are invited to visit the Livingry website or inquire by email to: warcooley@gmail.com

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