| NEWS | This Tree Sucks World’s first mechanical tree ‘planted’ in Tempe. BY ELIAS WEISS T he east side of Arizona State University’s main campus in Tempe is dotted with lofty date palms. Nestled in that iconic desert canopy is a new type of tree that could be the first step in solving the climate crisis. The MechanicalTree near Tyler Street and McAllister Avenue in Tempe won’t help landscape your front lawn nor will one be found growing in any forest. The 33-foot-tall tree has a stainless steel drum in lieu of a trunk and its leaves are 5-foot metallic discs. Just like real biological trees, the MechanicalTree consumes carbon dioxide, the colorless and non-flammable gas that is a leading cause of climate change. This tree, however, consumes 1,000 times more carbon dioxide than its organic counter- parts, inventors say. Scientists unveiled the tree last week. It’s the first of its kind in the world, they claim. “Artificial trees are pretty wild,” said Gary Dirks, senior director of the ASU Global Futures Laboratory. “But they could be our only hope to fight the danger that we as a species face in the climate crisis due to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” The goal isn’t to cut back on carbon emissions anymore. It’s to clean up the mess the human race has already made. “Carbon removal is now unavoidable,” said Klaus Lackner, an engineering professor at Arizona State and director of the ASU Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. “We cannot stop the problem anymore by pulling back. We need to clean up after ourselves.” In early 2019, the university announced it would erect the first commercial-scale MechanicalTree that is about to start sucking carbon dioxide from the air. Lackner has been developing this tech- nology since the 1990s. The German researcher felt like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a Switzerland- based United Nations agency, was “strongly hinting” that the need for carbon-capturing technology was immi- nent, he said. He took matters into his own hands. “There was a desperate need for inno- vation and I had to figure out how to make it work,” Lackner said. Dublin-based Carbon Collect Inc. part- nered with Lackner on the $2.5 million project in Tempe, bankrolled by a $12 million U.S. Department of Energy program that targets carbon capture and sequestration technologies. A gentle breeze rustling the tree’s metal It’s a passive process that doesn’t rely on blowers or fans like its predecessors, meaning it requires almost no energy to be effective. “Our goal is to accelerate the global climate effort, as set out in U.N. Climate Change conferences to contribute to reversing global carbon emissions,” Pól Ó Móráin, CEO of Carbon Collect, said recently. “Our passive process is the evolu- tion of carbon-capture technology, which has the ability to be both economically and technologically viable at scale in a reason- ably short time frame.” The trees, each with a lifespan of at least 15 years, are expected to generate enough carbon dioxide to sell at a price of less than $100 per ton. That’s compared to today’s market price of $1,000 per ton. Lackner said the sheer volume of carbon dioxide harvested by the nascent technology could drop the price as low as $30 per ton. Carbon dioxide is a needed resource for agricultural workers, the food and beverage industry, automotive manufac- turers, and purveyors of synthetic fuels from renewable energy that close the carbon cycle. “This is the organization that will commercialize this technology,” said Brno’d from p 8 cycle. Masters netted $3.8 million, while Brnovich took in $2.5 million. In the first three months of this year, Brnovich posted $737,000, compared to Masters’ $1.2 million, and $5.3 million for Lamon, though most of the latter candidate’s total campaign funds last year came from his bank account. All are overshadowed, though, by Kelly’s fundraising: $38.9 million so far, including $11 million in just the first three months of 2022. Still, the race is expected to be highly competitive — and for the GOP candidates, an endorsement from Trump is desirable. “It’s significant,” said Chuck Coughlin, a political analyst and president of HighGround Inc., a largely Republican political consulting company. “The former president’s approval rating among Republican primary voters is still well north of 50 percent. And that’s, of course, all you need to win a Republican primary.” Still, Coughlin said the focus on “election integrity” might carry a candidate through a leaves is all that’s needed to generate 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide per tree per day — significantly more than the initial prog- nosis of just 200 pounds, project scientists say. Elias Weiss Reyad Fezzani, vice chairman and execu- tive director of Carbon Collect. “It’s frankly a daunting challenge. It’s still a new concept and we’re trying to figure out how to make it work.” Fezzani was born in Libya and earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering at Imperial College London before his career as an energy executive included a long stint at BP. He said Carbon Collect eventually plans to build a farm of more than 100,000 trees that would collectively harvest 4 million tons of carbon dioxide every day. Such a farm would mark “a trillion- dollar opportunity,” Lackner has said. Humans expel more than 36 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the primary — and come back to haunt them in the general election. “If it becomes the currency of a primary, our argument is it always debilitates that candidate in the general election,” he said. Brnovich has played to the pro-Trump, “Stop-the-Steal” crowd in recent weeks. On April 6, his office released an initial report on its investigation into allegations of election fraud in Maricopa County. It said it found “serious vulnerabilities” in some of the county’s election procedures, citing issues with ballot transporta- tion and signature verification. The county says these claims are speculative, and there is no concrete evidence of wrongdoing. But Brnovich stopped short of alleging that any crimes were committed, at least in this initial report. Instead, he emphasized some of his office’s other work on litigation over election issues. Then, he used the report in campaign materials he sent to supporters, asking them to contribute to his Senate campaign. It was a change of tune from 2020, when Brnovich was far more dismissive of Trump’s claims that he won the election. There was “no John Cirucci, a chemical engineer at Arizona State University, unveils the world’s first MechanicalTree. atmosphere every year, a notable distortion of Earth’s natural carbon cycle. The steel sapling has grown to full size since it broke ground in October 2020. It’s on display at Arizona State’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, which opened in December. The MechanicalTree could be the first step in the excruciatingly long process of not just curbing, but outright reversing nearly a century of global warming. “It’s a daunting, daunting task,” Lackner said. “Somebody has to do it.” evidence” of any fraud, he said at the time. The report, though, did not please many of Arizona’s most vocal election deniers, who have been calling for Brnovich to prosecute election officials. “Thank you for nothing, Brno,” Wendy Rogers, a Republican State Senator, wrote on Telegram after the report was issued. Rogers was one of various Arizona Republicans who appeared at Trump’s rally in Florence in January. Brnovich was not invited to speak, and that night, Trump spoke favor- ably of Masters’ candidacy. It seems like the report didn’t appease Trump, either. That can’t be good news for a candidate who, just earlier this year, was posting photos of himself with the former president and saying his campaign was part of “Team Trump.” “Are you really going to IGNORE President Trump?” Brnovich wrote in a Facebook adver- tisement in January. “We thought he could count on you.” Apparently not. 13 phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES APRIL 28TH– MAY 4TH, 2022
