Could wind turbines help capture carbon dioxide while providing power?

In addition to harnessing the wind to generate clean energy, turbines can help channel carbon dioxide into systems that remove greenhouse gases from the air. The researchers say their simulations show that wind turbines can pull dirty air from the top of a city or a chimney into the turbines’ contrails, increasing the amount of CO2 reaching machines that can remove it from the atmosphere.

Addressing climate change will require dramatic reductions in the amount of carbon dioxide humans release into the air, but that alone won’t be enough, part of the solution could be direct air capture systems that remove some CO2 from the atmosphere, but the vast amounts of CO2 produced by factories, power plants, and cities are often concentrated at heights that put them out of reach of machinery on the ground that can remove them. As large power-generating wind turbines spin, they cause turbulence that draws air into the wakes behind them, an effect that can concentrate carbon dioxide enough to make capture feasible, particularly near large cities.

Running capture systems from the energy produced by wind turbines can also address the financial burden often associated with removing CO2 from the air. There are likely many factors that will affect the transport of CO2 by real-world turbines, including the interactions turbine wakes have with water, plants, and soil.