uninterrupted. whatever they want to whoever they want whenever they want. for as long as we. have been. on al-jazeera. green bacteria in the tree. superheated gas. in iceland. because how council climate change. explores the science of capturing. this is. innovation. we're going to explore the intersection of humanity and we're doing it in a unique way this is science by scientists.

fossil fuels powering the modern industrial economy with global economic growth comes. in levels. since the 1950 s. the u.s. space agency has been monitoring carbon dioxide levels. in 2013 history is made at the moment station in hawaii. the month of may we measured c o 2. to go over $400.00. which is a milestone you can say. we think this is a significant milestone it reminds us. is higher than it has been in the last at least 2000000 years. was also significant is

the rate of increase is rapid. this computer generated image shows the flow of c o 2 across the globe the intense reds indicate increased burning of fossil fuels during the 4 and winter of 2006 which in turn generates see eye to eye with north america europe and asia scientists at nasa and around the world have evidence indicating increased levels of. atmosphere behind rising temperatures extreme droughts and extreme storms associated with global warming and climate change the prime driver scientists say carbon dioxide c o 2 a colorless odorless nature can provide a path for carbon capture through photosynthesis trees and plants to see or to production has outpaced the growth of the forests global temperatures continue

to climb higher. 1000 and 72nd warmest for free ever recorded one way to stop rising sea levels is to reduce dangerous emissions but research is a taking another. look into science to come up with methods to capture through innovation one experimental plan would inject carbon emissions underground could be turned into story and stored indefinitely welcome to techno i got to say the same thing and the theme for and i think the landscape absolutely stunning i think is beauty isn't just on the surface there's a lot more happening down below our. iceland one of the most geologically active areas on. according to iceland's national

energy authority the tiny island nation is packed with more than $200.00 active volcanoes. but even when they aren't erupting in iceland's many volcanic molten magnifies just. this. and that results in a landscape covered with bubbling hot spots and open gas. in the middle of one of these hot spots. fueled entirely by the energy from the ground below the geothermal power generated here provides more than enough energy tonight. capital city of record it. so we're right on the edge of a volcanic area are we how important it is for the fight with the power plant located here if it weren't for the world came across where the world came that's where we have. here is a chemical engineer. and if you give us

a little. she took us to the top of the bowl canaanite to get a close up view of an active drill station. this is the geothermal version of an oil rig. the flow of. more than 200 degrees. so. 300. and so. a crack in the ground. yeah basically with their limbs or crops in the ground rhetoric. war 3rd or you know just regular work that's circulating through that's how we are bringing up the river thing that you can really imagine what a very good life yeah yeah i mean it's much more than that this is just you know a couple guys for. that says incredible but what's happening here

is actually as a result of what's going on thousands of inmates have been a fly thing the locust so porous when engine is related so it is a really safe place he said that he creates a calm and very family gases including the i would say the scientists hear all sorts of things especially here to catch it sort of released into the atmosphere. as it turns out. and is also a giant burra tree home to one of the world's most innovative plans to capture carbon dioxide say good business and is a research professor at the you know best ice and he's part of the team behind cobb thinks the carbon capture program record big energy even though this is a green energy plant point 5 percent of what comes out of the ground is made gases cup and dioxide and hunched in some fight. the idea is to take his home from the

missions and inject them back into the ground a theoretical you could all be sealed through that's going to be released in the future you know from burning all of no fossil fuel on earth you could capture it and you can store it in the ocean a great you know with all of it all of it you know about this 5 tons of coal that's kind of the estimated you know emission of most of if we if we a myth of the current rate increase causing climate change causing acidification of the ocean etc unless we captured with you that's incredible that this carbon capture method could be the solution to. eliminating our carbon footprint well it's not the silver bullet i mean it's not the solution is one of the solutions the can't fix program was conceived in the labs here in 2006 by 2012 it was fully implemented in the field it takes advantage of something else

iceland's tectonic heritage provides the sun take a look at the landscape has is highly dramatic and it's covered in this dark and jagged edge long right above and below the surface it's called. volcanic lava cools and it's perfect for capturing carbon because it's highly reactive with vi to. this is the key ingredient to this whole innovative process isn't there this is a chunk of cross off you're looking at but it's the black material that's the most off and then you can see white spots sort of in between this actually the calcium carbonate that we are forming that's the c o 2. so these white spots is actually this isn't just a chunk of it this is a very nice calcium carbonate crystal cultured christo. but this is not really representative of what you what we form within the ground during our injection

that's more like the spots you can see the possibly this process is happening here in iceland naturally for example in order to ferment areas where we have what can they go to interacting with are soft turning this into into carbon minerals so then we thought why not test this interesting idea out here in west london when we have our geothermal power plant providing a source of c o 2 that come and become. injected back into the ground and see if we can utilize accelerate this not your process so the process is happening naturally but here it's happening at a much faster speed did you predict that yeah so i actually in the beginning i was involved with the project in my in as a part of my ph d. bush the multiple projects that mineralization to occur within 5 years time but. it proved out that the processes in fast them all to protect the coast the c

o 2 was turned into stone within only 2 years 2 years and once the c o 2 is turned into stone we don't have to worry about that it's not going anywhere it's just but it in the ground as raw the process begins in the production well. and superheated steam is sent down these pipes and into the main power plant below is used to tend the plants giant ted winds which produced electricity. impressive for bonds some of them are the source of. the water they can feel heat exchangers weather what that which is. the pipes on there we use for souring and. once the steam is been used it's usually been leased back into the atmosphere for the cop fix project the geothermal gas is about point 5 percent of steam going to be special cleaning toilets that's where the company capture process. so the

guesses get a shower what does that mean yeah they actually flow through a column where we have what the drop was falling falling down because 3 rows in the opposite direction of the gas meets a liquid and during that sort of direction the c o 21 had some sort of fight they do salt into the water droplets that moisture is sent back down the pipe to. several 100 metres from the main plant so this is really the heart of innovation in this for what happens so here we are actually injecting water component this on c o 2 into the ground into the boss of the cold storage well the chemical reactions the base and turn it into the rock so the gas has been dissolved in water is that what's coming up through the pipe here in the pipe we have or are about 30 meters per 2nd theme actually containing the salt c o 2 and aides to us flowing through here if you look through the window you can see

that there are actually i mean bubbles are visible even though we have a lot of fluid still flowing through it because all the costs are the salt is hard to believe that there's actually thousands of these is per 2nd. of water content of gas flowing through here and just the slightest yeah it looks it looks empty but if you look closely you can see so modest more profit off moving around a little bit so it is actually happening and you can see some of the press are not . when the final step in the process is where the chemical reaction happens the water is pumped down this large pipe to a depth of 1.5 kilometers that's where it hits bedrock and that's where the chemical reaction takes place as they like to say is where gas is turned to rock so what happens after we inject this year 2 was that this year 2 was is the salt and water which is then acidic. the acetic water this solves. the coast through releasing calcium magnesium and iron into the water fluid where it can react with

the c o 2 that's already there and form these carbon of minerals awesome 3 x. fast. formed rocks. where we surprise we have done some experiments we have done transport modeling where we predicted that this would take over the order of 5 to 10 years. no one really believed you know i'm then you really have to do it and then we inject that henri paul got that we could mineralized in 2 years which is a fantastic new plant already green has which is to come and footprint by one more importantly a team of ph d. students at the university bryson is conducting a new round of testing to figure out why topic is what i well whether i have global act a case where this machine here is very much like more on the your family album

but that's where it's mixing together so i'm reenacting that what are you trying to find from the supply mentation so the main aim is to figure out where the kick off is when is the c o 2 reacting with the song or carbonate why is a carbon seat so fast i mean in other carbon for instance and takes tens of thousands of years is a procedure that could be. copied around the world that is the hope i mean right now it has been done in iceland and they are doing studies in the united states in the columbia river area you have to try and link up with other companies and universities and other countries in the world in order to bring this method to them but also alter it what type of industry they have and what type of rocks they have and then in a way whacking at the different industry seeing what what they do on a daily basis and seeing how you can alter it in such

a way that they can also store their gas emissions in the ground. so it's working very well as a general family plant but what are the other applications of this technology well they're all because of course we want to get the coal fired power plants you know where the much out of their mission is then also we want to get this to 1st motors you know we need in the future even if we abandon fossil fuel we need i don't. we removed a female scientists here so we have a long way to go but they would begin testing the complex process of power plants and smelters situated in coastal regions. so far tests at the energy plant chainmail negative impact on water supplies downstream from the injection site other methods of carbon storage rely on bearing the gas in geological formations or injecting c o 2 into depleted or wells the car fixed process is the only warming into mice the

process actually turns the gas into rock so how can this be expanded globally. well it must. be most of the. surface of. when we have it we have big planes of rocks and in the states in siberia but also the whole ocean explorer well that's a lot of surface and one of the downsides of this method that is that we need a lot of work that because we want to solve the c o 2 completely before we inject if we used to see what that but then to the ocean explorer somehow we have endless supply of what you know us what we could imagine so but the question remains how much of this would be practical to use basant with not really the only way to capture and store you know we this is the

1st experiments we do you know one on that is nowhere close to an interest you're scared good conventional way of capturing c o 2 and compressing it and injecting himself in a place that they've been doing since 96 so there's a lot of know. what this. is that we need to put a price on the carpet it has to be an incentive for him to do it and it should be included in the price of fossil fuels the price of capturing and storing the car we have done then i'm very optimistic we know of course we always have to work on ways to actually lower the price but it is doable with the present knowledge we have but it's costly in 2015 the u.s. national academy of science issued a report on geo engineering the science of using technology to counter the impact of climate change the panel's completions the benefits of carbon dioxide high risk costs a challenge they called for more studies to determine if storage of c

o 2 could be safe and effective scientists at the university of rice and harder and they studied. capturing fi 18 is just one possible solution but scientists. they're not burying carbon dioxide but they are finding a way to use it the technique has. scientists in amsterdam are studying another solution to help reduce global c o 2 levels they're innovating green manufacturing techniques of some common products like plastics that actually remove instead of add carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during production currently the plastic manufacturing process emits huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the environment adding to the problem of climate change. but what if the new technology could produce a type of biodegradable plastic that could actually help reverse the greenhouse

effect the possibility of this lies inside bacteria an ancient organism the 1st 3500000000 years ago which turns carbon dioxide into valuable organic compounds from which plastics can be made as a whole variety of organisms that's. right blong but there is a wrong particular. microorganisms that recall the cyan over. this is an example of the blue green algae. here in amsterdam science park a young startup has grand plans harnessing the photosynthetic power of cyanobacteria not only to reduce c o 2 in the atmosphere but also to produce earth friendly consumer products the science behind this begins with an understanding of photosynthesis plants and some bacteria use energy from the sun along with carbon dioxide and water from the atmosphere to produce oxygen and organic compounds the oxygen is put back into earth's atmosphere and the cycle continues. scientists have found that

cyanobacteria one of the oldest organisms known to man can be engineered in the lab to excrete commercially valuable molecules. although there are differences in climate between various places on earth we also find many different fan of victoria and in principle you could find for any sport where you would want to apply you your technique you could find a certain fan of aquarium that is optimally adept of to carry out the process that you have to find. in this lab living cyanobacteria conduct photosynthesis under artificial conditions and or engineered to excrete a number of specific compounds used in products ranging from plastics to fragrances to pharmaceuticals. the cyanobacteria excluded compound used in the manufacturing of bioplastics is lactic acid. dr class is a microbiologist spearheading the cyanobacteria research and here you see an

example of a product that can be made by the sound of bacteria in very large amounts and this case this is one of the. early if you were forms of lactic acid and then if you have a culture a liquid culture that has been modified to produce the lactic acid and you let it produce for a for a while this electric. can then be used to make consumer products of plastics and there's also a very important product that will become much more important in the years to come and this is the electric. used in 3 d. printing and my expectation is that the amount of products that we that we will be using that have been produced in the 3 d. printer will enormously trees in the end of coming years. growing cyanobacteria to make lactic acid for use in plastic manufacturing requires a detailed scientific recipe. researcher dr sabrina explains how the cyanobacteria

is grown in the lab. here we grow the 3 cultures that when the news is to not too late. large bottles that will be again used to inoculate our pilot facility which is from 3400 liters of 2000 liters so you're growing a small amount in here and then you'll dump it and went to looks like an empty clear yet liquid and then it has to be the screen yes exactly yeah what's in here right now what are these. electric i said producing bacteria but we do is the monitor as close as possible all different part of this from ph to temperature to a new trend concentration in order to find the best recipe for the medium. to the lactic acid producing cyanobacteria is engineered here it will be moved to other labs with low. larger by a reactor is just scaled up production increasing the amount is by a plastic that can be manufactured later normally you don't think about plastic is

necessarily being good for the environment but these are generally there is a problem with plastics that they are very recalcitrant that means that once they are deposited in the environment they will stay in the environment and they will not degrade or degrade only very very slowly and the nice thing of this plastic is that it is based on molecules from living cells and that means that there are also enzymes in living cells that can break the connection and then can degrade the plastic the nice thing of this type of polymer is that you can make blends of these polymers that have a rate of degradation that you can set when you make the polymer is tunable it is june of the human one this this be good to be degraded much trust than the new material in this big printing so you're proposing an almost entirely closed loop you start with the o 2 in the atmosphere you use a modified cyanobacteria to create a plastic polymer that humans use goes through and cells broken down and turned

back into the garbage that is very important and we call call it the carbon cycle on earth and now the last 200 years mankind has learned that it is very cheap and effective to burn all that fossil reserves however if we continue to do that that will create this problem of increased c o 2 and global warming and that's why it is very important to change the carbon cycle into a cycle where all the carbon that is fixed by photosynthesis the plants for food of the scientific period to make materials all this fixed carbon is used and after use ideally it is really new and wanted a c o 2 is going to enter the cycle a new and with energy of sunlight new products can be made. using nature and science to combat climate change the mind does have potential but technology arms out to share the same are in iceland the next time.

the fact. the smallest place on the planet and one that could soon be lost forever it's an international team of scientists is determined not to let that happen without intervention to give the big i would say year 2 at best now it's a race against time to try and save a species like a chrysler that's in the measure. extinction tag no 0. the latest news as it breaks all the holes in its path what destroyed and this is all that's left with details coverage when mexico elected a new president last year they did so largely with the promises that he would end the plague of violence in the country and feel this journalism from around the

world visibly was approved by play the adult off the track at large enough that the other 3 rallies held in hong kong. the shocking treatment of disabled people in rumanian state run care in these cages you cannot have access to a toilet or water institutions funded by the european union he has his hands and his fate tied to the bed 5 years after highlighting these abuses people in power returns to romania and a 2 part series and discovers the scandal runs further afield europe's recurring shame on al-jazeera. when the news breaks. when people need to be heard. and the story needs to be told $145000.00 prisoners under its care with exclusive interviews. and in-depth reports are you getting my mountain out of things to protect themselves al-jazeera has teams on the ground and

that's a story the thing right here to bring you more award winning documentaries and life seems. it does look as though this one nation conservative government has been given a powerful new mandate. to get rich he's got. an emphatic victory for boris johnson's conservative party in the u.k. stock election giving him the. to push 3 bricks and. this is obviously a very disappointing night for the labor party. a crushing defeat for jeremy coleman who says he won't fight another election as labor's leader.

welcome to al-jazeera has extended coverage of the u.k. election.