Preventing the climate crisis from deepening and spiralling our environment into complete disaster was always going to be a big task.

After all, there’s a lot to tackle.

Finding ways to reduce our carbon emissions, consuming meat and dairy alternatives, clean energy generation, and reducing our use of fossil fuels are all great steps forward, but there is always more that can be done.

And when it comes to actually removing the carbon that is polluting our atmosphere, reforestation and ocean based carbon capture initiatives are among the leading practices when it comes to trying to restore the health of our planet.

Of course, tech startups around the globe are constantly putting forward new initiatives to try to save Earth and it’s precious atmosphere.

And new technology from a company called SpiralWave – pitched at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 – might just have the answer to some of our planet’s carbon capture woes.

First of all, it looks cool. And inside what looks like a pulsating tower of light, some incredible chemical reactions are taking place.

And those chemical reactions are triggered by microwave pulses, as SpiralWave’s CEO Abed Bukhari explained in an interview with TechCrunch:

“With every pulse, it breaks down CO2. The first one breaks down CO2 into CO, the second one breaks down H2O into H and OH, and the third one is to join them into methanol.”

So it’s simple: what goes in is CO2; what comes out is methanol.

Why methanol?

Well, hydrocarbon is useful in a range of different ways. It’s easy to break down, can be used in combustion engines and refined to become jet fuel.

And, most importantly, it is an efficient way of removing some of that excess carbon dioxide that is harming our planet.

It was that factor that motivated Bukhari, also SpiralWave’s co-founder, to work on the project, which is still growing.

While the prototype Nanobeam and Microbeam range from just under one meter to two meters tall, they are planning Megabeam and Gigabeam, which will be up to 100 meters tall.

A Gigabeam, the company claim, could remove one megaton of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere every year, helping our planet on its way to recovery. This is all part of SpiralWave’s bigger plans, as Bukhari continued:

 “I needed to build something that can stall the biggest challenge we have on Earth these days, which is removing a huge quantity of CO2. To fight climate change, we need to remove 10 gigatons of CO2 per year. With ten, 20-foot containers, we would have the largest e-methanol plant to date.”

With these funky light-up columns, that challenge seems much more achievable.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a quantum computer simulation that has “reversed time” and physics may never be the same.