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‘Magical' manufacturing processes bringing hope Sometimes, all we need is the air that we breathe — and a bit of hi-tech genius. BV editor HAL WILLIAMS reports. SOMETHING from nothing: it’s an age-old siren song — dreams of perpetual motion or three magic wishes from the genie in the teapot. But, spoilsport science tells us, zero sum transactions can’t be had (for perpetual motion, anyway; no official word on genies). Laws of Thermodynamics pull rank and tell us that no machine can work indefinitely without some sort of energy input. So how about the next-best thing: fuel — or food — from thin air? With concern about climate change, fuel reserves and clearfelled rainforests approaching
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Renewable methanol from invisible realms (justifiable) international neurosis, if alternatives exist to the crudeness of crude and the brutality of beef, the world is surely ready for them. And — it seems — exist they do. But so far, their creation has been without fanfare, and
promising developments seem to be small-scale. Enter — modestly, as the result of chance encounters and a bit of idle internet browsing rather than publicity from the companies concerned — Carbon Recycling International (CRI), of Rejkyavic, and San Francisco’s Air Protein. CRI is a self-proclaimed world leader in the production of renewable methanol from the invisible realms of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and electricity. Air Protein recently announced the creation of “meat” — or at least a protein product — from the air that we breathe, without the usual land, water or weather
Doom, gloom and dying trees. Can solutions to modern problems simply be plucked from the ether...?
