Scientist Sylvie Fradette tackles global warming with a cool new invention
Occasionally there is a tiny glimmer of hope that our planet might not turn to trash. During next week’s Kyoto Protocol conference, which runs parallel to the UN Climate Change Conference, a Quebec City researcher’s project on the isolation and transformation of industrial CO2 emissions is being presented as one of the few applicable technological solutions to the world’s looming global-warming crisis. After 10 years of applied research, 11 patents and millions of dollars’ worth of technological innovation, Dr. Sylvie Fradette’s research has finally placed Quebec on the cutting edge of the planet’s eco-savvy frontier.
"I couldn’t see myself working in a normal industrial environment," she said. "Research is always about what’s new… and that’s a hard habit to break."
Fradette’s research was cultivated at Laval University, where she started to consider the simple biochemistry of life itself.
"Anhydrous carbonic enzymes keep everyone and everything alive," she said. "Everybody has them… because without them, you’re dead."
Once the CO2 from our bloodstream is exposed to the enzymes in our lungs, it becomes a gas that’s expelled once we breathe it out. The whole system starts up once you take your first breath, and it only shuts down once you take your last.
Using that idea, Fradette reasoned that if CO2 could be isolated and expelled from our own bloodstream, someone could just as easily isolate and transform CO2 emissions from other sources. Initial experiments, while expensive, were a success. Quebec engineer Réjean Blais was so impressed with Fradette’s research that he personally financed it for another two years, and when money problems threatened to put a stop to Fradette’s research, Blais wasn’t discouraged. Along with some friends, he formed CO2 Solutions Inc. and began to set up the company that would put Fradette’s research to the test.
Their first priority was to develop a synthetic enzyme that would reduce the astronomic costs of the anhydrous carbonic enzyme. Within 18 months they had their enzyme, and the company was on its way.
"A single gram of anhydrous carbonic made out of bull’s blood used to cost us almost $100,000 [U.S.]," said Fradette. "Now it only costs us $20 per gram."
Technically speaking, Fradette’s biochemical reactor system can be an applicable solution to any industrial situation. Initial experiments at a Quebec City incinerator were successful, and now the company is looking for more industrial partners in the nation’s energy and heavy industry sectors.
A contract with the Canadian Navy proved a huge success after one of Fradette’s bioreactors was placed in one of the navy’s new submarines. Under usual circumstances, a diesel-powered submarine must surface for air every 48 hours or the crew will suffocate. Using Fradette’s bioreactor, the subs remained submerged for a week, and further tests demonstrated that they could have remained underwater for almost a month. Over the past two years, CO2 Solutions has won many scientific prizes in both Canada and Europe. As of last month, the Wall Street Journal described the company as being one of the world’s best in the field of environmental research.
While pleased with her results, Fradette is unaffected by all the fuss being made over her success.
"It’s nice because it gives me the opportunity to continue my work," she said. "There’s always a lot that’s left to be done."
CO2 Solutions stack emission and reduction technology will be among the technological developments discussed and presented to delegates at next week’s Kyoto Protocol conference being held in Montreal.
6 comments
Pay especial attention to the terms “Younger Dryas” and “Holocene:”
Recent scientific evidence shows that major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed.
This new paradigm of an abruptly changing climatic system has been well established by scientific research, but this new thinking is little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community.
Asked about the discovery of abrupt climate change, many climate experts today would put their finger on one moment: the day they read the 1993 report of the analysis of Greenland ice cores.
The most recent abrupt climate change, known as the “Younger Dryas,” took place on earth roughly 11,400 years ago. At that point the earth was warming rapidly, but was abruptly plunged into cold, dry, and windy glacial conditions. It remained frigid for twelve centuries before abruptly warming again.
Warm interglacial periods are generally subject to big swings of temperature lasting for centuries. The last 10,000 years, known as the “Holocene,” has been by far the longest stable warm period during the past half million years.
The entire rise of human civilization since the end of the Younger Dryas has taken place during a period of warm and stable climate that is unique in the long record. Temperatures as high as those of the Holocene have only occurred about 10% of the time during the past half million years.
Why do large and rapid changes in climate periodically overtake the planet?
Technically, an abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to cross some threshold, triggering a transition to a new state. Whenever pushed, it didn’t lead to smooth changes in earth’s climate, but rather to jumps from one state to another.
The earth’s climate does not respond to forcing in a smooth and gradual way. Complex systems like the atmosphere and ocean currents are known to move from one steady state to another with only very brief transitions in between.
While most people can argue and bicker about whether climate change is natural or caused by human activities one thing can be certain: 1) CO2 is bad for you, if you breathe it in you die without any oxygen, 2) We are cutting down our trees therefore less CO2 is being converted to Oxygen, 3) In addition to people emitting CO2, we are also emitting CO2 with our industries and cars, so more CO2 producers and less CO2 converters is a BAD thing.
Therefore reducing greenhouse emissions has less to do about climate change, rather than having enough clean air for us to breath, because everyone loves a breath of fresh air. That’s why Dr. Sylvie Fradette’s new invention is going to be a boon for the future. How do we know if a new engine is more environmentally friendly than the old one? We can’t even measure the CO2 correctly now, so how the heck are we supposed to prove new technologies to be more efficient? Well who cares now if we have a system that can capture CO2 and turn it into something else.
This is shows how the environmental research can make big money. That “Bioreactor” is a good solution for Canadian subs and it’s far safer than the nuclear subs of the US and Russia (think of melt down should one of these subs be blown up). It could be a good solution for industry as well which just goes to show you that people are smart and if we want to, we can find alternatives for everything. The will and the money just have to be there.
While global warming is something that is up for debate one thing remains for sure a true fact: breathing the exhaust of a car or industrial smoke stack will certainly kill you (let’s see if George Bush Jr. changes his mind after we stuff his face in one of those). That’s the stuff we are pumping into the air every day. I’d rather die of old age thank you very much than of industrial waste, so let’s support people like Dr. Sylvie Fradette. They show us that if we think about it, we can solve anything.
This is one of the few uplifting stories amidst a sea of “gloom and doom” reports on the accelerating reality of climate change. Hopefully Dr. Fradette’s discovery will swing the pendulum toward new technology as the means to avoid a worldwide environmental catostrophe.
If only someone with the talent of Dr. Fradette could invent a tamperproof voting machine.
From my chemistry classes in high school I learned that if you percolate air through a lime solution it will instantly extract the carbon dioxide from the incoming air producing chalk which is a harmless substance. If you exhale through a straw into a calcium hydroxide solution the same thing occurs. This has been known for hundreds of years. Corporations have applied this method in the past when it made economic sense such as in the production of dry ice. But most of the time it has been far too easy to just let carbon dioxide escape into the atmosphere. We should not forget technology from the past.
Avoiding an industrial castrophe by incorporating a bioreactor experiment into large scale use? Let’s hope its not too late because the general populace does not see this as the reintroduction of methods that could have been done on a large scale in the past, like converting Corbon Dioxide into Calcium Carbonate. Marble is essentially Calcium carbonate. Maybe marble manufacturers, hard up on extracting the real stuff to supply the need of builders around the world, might get into the act of producing marble synthetically using the cabon dioxide that is so wastfully exposed. What people are missing out here is it isn’t just carbon dioxide that is lethal when inhaled but carbon monoxide even more. It is highly unstable and looks for an oxygen atom to become more stable. There is too much of the monoxide still expelled from incinerators and car engines that has to be addressed along with the sulfur and nitrous dioxides that causes acid rain. Interestingly enough the acid rain is the main culprit for the defacing of many of the old historical marble monuments around the world. Many of those monuments attract tourist droves. Protecting the tourist industry should be another incentive for governments to pour out funds to control noxious emissions; after all if they’re not interested in maintaining our health at least keep the tourist trade going!
Nifty science project but is anybody even listening. Sure, the Hour had a report on it but not to be insulting or nothing, this ain’t The New York Times or Scientific America. This is something that should be news in lots of high visibility publications and TV news shows but it isn’t. A free tabloid won’t reach the powers that be the same way a serious and recognized media oulet will.
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By the way, here’s a cold truth in case you aren’t discouraged yet: the media loves to talk about the environment and scientific breakthroughs but not nearly enough to really push them so that people will get excited or governments will be forced to act in a telling way. Sadly, this news item fell under the category of ‘if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it fall, then nothing happened’. The environment and our health are so not represented in the media and in government is it any wonder that the average citizen throws up his hands in defeat?