Here's an idea whose time has come (or, arguably, is well overdue). British company Seabound has developed a very simple carbon capture technology that connects to the smokestacks of container ships and cleans up the exhaust.
Container ships are a huge carbon problem, using some of the dirtiest fuel there is, and spewing more greenhouse gases into the air than airplane traffic does. Seabound's solution uses a system of calcium oxide pebbles, which binds with the carbon dioxide from the ships' exhaust to produce stable, storable calcium carbonate (basically limestone) which can then be used on land, or at least sequestered. It cuts carbon emissions by as much as 95%.
Other systems have been developed for shopping exhaust, by Dutch and Japanese companies among others, mainly using a solvent-based technology, but the British solution apparently requires much less space. Electrified ships with container-sized batteries are also being marketed now, but uptake has been slow (they are expensive), and we also need a technology that can deal with existing shipping. Seabound might just be it.
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