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Technological Approaches to Climate Change: Potential for Crisis Resolution
Technological advancements, especially the discovery and use of fossil fuels, have contributed to climate change; however, they have also allowed humanity to become aware of our impact on the planet and develop methods to combat global warming
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Applied Technology Review | Tuesday, October 25, 2022
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Technological innovations, especially the discovery and usage of fossil fuels, have contributed to climate change, but they have also helped humanity become conscious of the influence and develop measures to combat global warming
FREMONT, CA: Technological advancements, especially the discovery and use of fossil fuels, have contributed to climate change; however, they have also allowed humanity to become aware of our impact on the planet and develop methods to combat global warming.
Carbon capture: Scientists primarily attribute the rise in average global temperature to human emissions of greenhouse gases that trap radiation in the atmosphere that would otherwise escape into space.
There has been a 50 percent increase in carbon dioxide concentrations since the industrial revolution, making it one of the most significant greenhouse gases.
Carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies, such as the Net Zero Teesside (NZT) project, are among the innovations used to reduce CO2 emissions.
NZT intends to collect CO2 emissions from industrial processes and power plants and transport them via pipeline to offshore storage sites located several kilometers beneath the North Sea.
Carbon sequestered deep beneath the ocean would no longer contribute to the greenhouse effect, possibly even becoming fuel.
The objective of the NZT project is to eliminate carbon emissions in many carbon-intensive industries in the North East by 2030.
However, the magnitude of Earth's problem is far greater than can be addressed by the selective decarbonization of a small number of businesses.
Feeding cows seaweed: Methane is a significant greenhouse gas whose emissions are reaching record levels due to livestock farming.
Cows produce this methane primarily by burping because their stomachs ferment their food, converting sugars into simpler molecules.
Tropical red seaweed supplemented into cattle feed can reduce methane emissions by 80 percent.
However, with nearly 1.5 billion cattle on the planet, there is not enough of this seaweed available to suppress these burps; however, scientists may be able to replicate the crucial ingredient that will help suppress these gaseous emissions.
Greater use of data centers: A similar logic can be applied to computing individual heating homes versus office buildings.
The introduction of computers has significantly increased electricity consumption, but modern data centers are frequently considerably more energy-efficient than personal computers.
Instead of performing energy-intensive applications on local machines, such as number crunching or playing video games, individuals could begin to offset a significant amount of energy consumption by having these applications executed in the cloud.
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, three of the largest providers of cloud computing services, are significant consumers of renewable energy.
Google and Microsoft have launched cloud gaming platforms that do not require gamers to purchase consoles (the production of which also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions) to play.
However, data centers depend on high-quality internet connections, which can produce emissions, and these connections are unavailable to a large portion of the world's population.