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Episode details

Radio 4,08 Nov 2016,30 mins

Putting the Fizz Back into Planet Earth

Costing the Earth

Available for over a year

Can we find a use for all that pesky climate-changing carbon dioxide? If we can turn excess CO2 into something useful we might just be able to slow down the rate of global warming. It's a dream shared by lots of scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs. At the ACI Carbon Utilisation conference in Lyon, Tom meets the Germans turning CO2 into a fuel and the French researchers aiming to mimic nature's photosynthesis process. In Oxford he talks to a company making fertiliser from waste and a chemist creating innovative plastics whilst in Avonmouth he sees CO2 transformed into concrete blocks that are already being used in house building around the country. Producer: Alasdair Cross.

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