In 2001, an Austrian academic named Michael Obersteiner published a paper describing a brilliant new technology: an energy system that would not only be carbon-neutral, but would actively pull carbon out of the atmosphere.1 The proposal was stunning in its elegance. First you establish massive tree plantations around the world. The trees suck CO2 out of the atmosphere as they grow. Then you harvest the trees, churn them into pellets, burn them in power plants to generate energy, capture the carbon emissions at the chimneys and store it all underground where it can never escape. Voila: a global
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