Srilanka

Scientists from round the world are meeting in Germany to improve ways of making money from carbon dioxide. They want to transform some of the CO2 thatoverheating the planet into products to benefit humanity.They don&t claim the technology will solve climate change, but they say it will help.

Carbon dioxide is already being used in novel ways to create fuels, polymers, fertilisers, proteins, foams and building blocks.Until recently, it was assumed that energy-intensive firms burning gas to fuel their processes would need eventually to capture the resulting carbon emissions and bury them underground.

This option is inefficient and costly, so the prospect of utilising some of the CO2 as a valuable raw material is exciting for business. Katy Armstrong, manager of the Carbon Utilisation Centre at Sheffield University, put it this way: &We need products for the way we live - and everything we do has an impact.

&We need to manufacture our products without increasing CO2 emissions, and if we can use waste CO2 to help make them, so much the better.&

Many of the young carbon usage firms are actually carbon-negative: that means they take in more CO2 than they put out.

We visited three pioneering businesses in the UK which are already making money out of CO2.

Here are their recipes for success (or at least, the ones they will share with us).

Three success storiesCO2 to fertiliser: CCm Technologies, Swindon

Image captionFertiliser plants like this one using CO2 in Swindon can help solve the problemRecipe: Put cow dung and maize into a bio-digester, where bacteria break them down and produce biogas to heat our homes.

Mix the left-over sludge with nutrient-rich wastes from the fertiliser industry, sewage plants, farms or the food industry.

Pump in CO2, which helps the nutrients bind to the sludge.

Product: High-grade fertiliser pellets that have soaked up more CO2 than they produced. The technology has already won export orders.

CO2 to beer bubbles: Strutt and Parker Farms, Suffolk

Image captionCan this beauty put the fizz in your lemonade?Recipe: Take horse muck and straw from Newmarket races. Put the smelly mess through a bio-digester (as above).

Extract biogas and CO2. Using advanced membranes, separate out food grade CO2.

Product: Clean CO2 thatsold to a local brewery to put the fizz into lemonade and lager.

CO2 to building blocks: Carbon 8 Aggregates, Leeds

Image captionBio-digester processing horse manure in SuffolkRecipe: Take ash from the chimney of a waste incinerator plant.

Mix in water and CO2 - then stand back… this procedure gets very hot.

The CO2 is permanently captured within the waste ash to form artificial limestone for building blocks and other purposes.

The process has the additional benefit of treating the ash that would otherwise be sent to landfill.

Product: blocks that have locked up CO2, whilst also reducing the need for carbon-intensive cement. The technology is winning exports.

These firms are pioneers in whatknown as the Circular Economy, in which wastes are turned into raw materials. The EU is trying to prompt all industry to adopt this principle.

How much CO2 can products absorb?The big question is how much of the approximately 37 gigatonnes of CO2 emitted annually from our homes, cars, planes, offices and industries can be utilised by industry.

One report projected that seven gigatonnes a year of CO2 could be locked up into new products.

Katy Armstrong described this figure as hugely optimistic. But she said: &Every tonne thatcaptured is a tonne that doesn't heat the atmosphere, so lethope the industry thrives.&

Colombo Dockyard PLC (CDPLC) delivered the first ever modern Cable Laying Vessel built for Kokusai Cable Ship Co. Ltd. (KCS)Japan, last Friday. The high-technology ‘KDDI Cable Infinity& is meant for subsea operation and cable installation and repair works of optical cables as well as power cables. This is the biggest ever vessel, price-wise as well as length-wise, built by Colombo Dockyard in its journey of shipbuilding excellence and the first ever ship built ‘in its class& from Sri Lanka to Japan.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has affirmed that all ‘extremists& have been eliminated and calls on the public not to act in manner that would push innocent Muslims towards ‘radicalization&. The Prime Minister was speaking during the opening of a new technical laboratory at the Mallika Navodya School and a Samurdhi distribution in Hiniduma, last Friday.The Prime Minister also participated in the opening of a new, three-storeyed, building at the Thawalama National School under the Langama Pasala, Hondama Pasala project, built with the assistance of the Thawalama Divisional Secretariat Office at a cost of Rs.595 million. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe added that he would provide a new building to the Mallika Navodya school as well.Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said that all the development projects were reaching completion as the ministries have allocated money. The Prime Minister also commended the services rendered to the area by Ministers Vajira Abeywardena and Gayantha Karunatilleka. &The country faced a devastating situation and its civilians encountered a security threat. But I would like to say that now, the country is returning to normalcy. All suspects who had connections with Zahrangroup are now under custody. I believe that I should reveal the measures taken by the Security Forces to the public. Many have questioned us as to what the government had done about the Easter Sunday attacks,& he added.

Dr. Hiroto Izumi, the Japanese Prime MinisterSpecial Advisor, reaffirmed his Governmentcommitment to develop the East Container Terminal of the Colombo South Harbour as a joint venture partnership of Sri Lanka and India, at a meeting he had with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe recently. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe met Dr. Hiroto Izumi, the Japanese Prime MinisterSpecial Advisor, Akira Sugiyama, Ambassador of Japan and his team at Temple Trees. &We made great progress on Japan- Sri Lanka economic cooperation,& the Prime Minister said.