A way of combining atmospheric CO2 and water to make aircraft fuel
一种将大气中的二氧化碳和水结合起来制造飞机燃料的方法
MOST PEOPLE who think about such things agree that replacing fossil fuels with renewable electricity, either directly or indirectly, is the best way to decarbonise industry, transport and the heating and cooling of buildings.
大多数人都同意这一点——直接或间接地用可再生电力取代化石燃料是工业、交通以及建筑供暖和制冷的脱碳最佳方式。
But there are some holdout areas where this is hard.
Aviation is another, because batteries are too heavy and hydrogen (which could be made using renewable electricity) too bulky to do the job easily.
航空领域是另一个，因为电池太重，氢（可以用可再生电力制造）需要的体积太大，难以实现。
Hydrocarbon aviation fuels are thus likely to be around for a while.
But such fuels need not be fossil.
They might be synthesised from the CO2 exhaust of various industrial processes.
And a study just published in Nature, by Aldo Steinfeld of ETH Zurich, a technological university in Switzerland, and his colleagues, shows how they might literally be plucked from thin air.
瑞士苏黎世理工大学的阿尔多·斯坦菲尔德和他的同事们刚刚在《自然》杂志上发表的一项研究展示，它们是如何从稀薄的空气中提取燃料的。
Dr Steinfeld and his team devised and tested a system that, in essence, reimagines the natural process of photosynthesis.
斯坦菲尔德博士和他的团队设计并测试了一个系统，从本质上说，它可以重新想象光合作用的自然过程。
Plants take in atmospheric CO2 and water and, with sunlight providing the energy, turn those raw materials into organic molecules.
植物吸收大气中的二氧化碳和水，并通过阳光提供能量，将这些原材料转化为有机分子。
And that is exactly what Dr Steinfeld has done.
The process has three stages.
The first absorbs CO2 and water from the atmosphere using a so-called direct-air-capture device made by Climeworks, a spin-off of ETH founded by two of Dr Steinfeld's students that made the news recently by opening a demonstration carbon-capture-and-storage system in Iceland.
第一个阶段是利用Climeworks制造的名为“直接捕获空气装置”从大气中吸收二氧化碳和水，Climeworks是ETH的衍生产品，是由斯坦菲尔德博士的两个学生创立的，因最近在冰岛开启了一个碳捕获和存储系统的演示装置，引起了大家的关注。
There, however, the CO2 is reacted with basalt rock to dispose of it. Dr Steinfeld’s system makes< |