One Artist Plans to Electronically Vacuum Smog Out of China's Skies

Have you seen the smog that covers Beijing? Look at the photo above. And you thought L.A. was bad. Air filtering masks are a part of Chinese fashion in Beijing because of this pollution, but there might be a way to fix it—a little portion of it, at least.

Daan Roosegaarde, a Dutch artist, thinks he has developed a way to suck the smog out of Beijing's skies. By building an "electronic vacuum" made of copper wires buried under the grass of a park in the city, Roosegaarde says that they will create an electrostatic field that will pull the pollution particles from the sky to the ground, where they can then be compressed and removed. The project would reportedly take close to a year and $1.6 million to finish, but if it works, it would open up a roughly 22,500 square-foot opening in the sky that would let sunlight shine through. "I realized that day one I could see the skyscrapers, and day two I couldn't," Roosegaarde said about a trip he had to Beijing, which inspired him to develop the project. Close to 1.2 million people have had their lives ended early because of air pollution China, and while this won't solve China's pollution problems, at least it will shine a light on it, so to speak, which may get people to begin thinking of ways to clean up the air permanently. 

[via Mashable]