image via popsci

I’m not entirely sure what to think about this article from Popular Science. I could argue both sides. I mean, it’s good news in one sense but one of those things where if it were to take the place of the real version it terms of people “placing” trees around the city versus planting real ones, I would certainly have an issue with it. Especially the idea of a synthetic forest, yikes!

A little on the functionality from the Popular Science article “The ‘tree’ uses plastic leaves that capture the carbon dioxide in a chamber. The carbon dioxide is then compressed into liquid form. The tree captures the carbon without the need for direct sunlight, which means that, unlike traditional trees, the synthetic trees can be stored in enclosed places such as barns, used anywhere, and transported from one site to another regardless of conditions.”

And also this interesting little bit, “the captured CO2 could be used to create fuel for jet engines and cars, the two most common carbon emitters. In other cases, the CO2 could be used to enhance current production of vegetable produce.”

Synthetic trees could be interesting for the indoor environments where there is no sun or no windows. Perhaps instead of taking place of real trees, they could instead take the place of those horrific fake plastic trees…in fake plastic earth… (cue Radiohead).