It’s no small secret that since the Industrial Revolution, factories have been pumping carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere. Add vehicles into the mix, and before you know it, we’re all walking around wearing gas masks outside and installing necessary air filters in our homes to modify our indoor air quality. Exaggeration, probably… but that’s the science fiction lover in me predicting the future, and obviously I’ve read far too many Philip K. Dick stories for my own good.

Since we discovered the havoc industry wreaks on our atmosphere, scientists have been searching for a cleaner air solution, while doomsayers all across the planet shuffle the streets in their cardboard sandwich suits shouting, “The end is nigh! The end is nigh.”

Well, doomsayers, science may just have a solution, and if they fix this problem using a new solar-powered process, we could see a dramatic decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the next ten years.

Then you’ll have to find something else to doom us with.

A science team from George Washington University and Howard University recently suggested a new process called Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo (STEP) carbon capturing will use the power of the sun to remove carbon dioxide compounds. The process, which draws power from the sun to split and divide carbon dioxide, uses low-energy and high heat to create carbon and carbon monoxide.

The beauty of this process is that it actually uses heat generated from radiation and solar rays which are usually discarded from solar cell panels. More efficient use of sunlight, less carbon dioxide… the team believes this new process has the power to reduce levels to pre-industrial times within the next ten years.

Even better than reducing carbon dioxide levels is that they believe the captured results could be stored for later use. For example, stored carbon monoxide could be used to create carbon-based fuels like jet fuel, kerosene, and diesel when combined with hydrogen generated by STEP water splitting.

Their theoretical findings and experimentation were published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

Once again though, the sci-fi lover in me starts wondering how this will impact Earth. We’ve seen evidence time and again of Mother Nature adapting to the damages she’s suffered at the hand of mankind, so who’s to say she hasn’t found some way to adapt to industrial carbon dioxide? Just because her adaptation doesn’t benefit mankind, it doesn’t mean she hasn’t adapted.