An interesting thing to explore would be its potential as a biofuel: connect carbon exhausts from factories (cement, etc) to pools/tubes containing Azolla, mayb

An interesting thing to explore would be its potential as a biofuel: connect carbon exhausts from factories (cement, etc) to pools/tubes containing Azolla, maybe with solar concentrators to give it even more sunlight. Pipeline enough of these to generate a continuous (hydro-)carbon output, that can be transported elsewhere, or burnt on-site for electricity generation (and the results backfed to the pools). The idea here would be to effectively create a giant organic solar panel, with its output in the form of (hydro?-)carbons. Ideally burnt on-site (thus they would act as a battery storage), but it could also be exported. If we're not going to end our reliance on hydrocarbons today, it better be non-fossils ones, since the only reason CO2 levels climb is that we burn fuel that was sequestrated until recently. Earnings from fuel/electricity sales could be reinvested to fund this at a bigger scale. It wouldn't surprise me if everything could be ran as a completely closed loop, at least for electricity generation. Of course, the idea isn't new, as a cursory search reveals [1]. I wonder if it could be further enhanced using GMOs such as [2]. [1]: https://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/15-algae-biofuels-startups-to-watch.html https://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/15-algae... [2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/re-engineering-photosynthesis-gives-plants-a-40-growth-boost/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/re-engineering-photo...