"this young man who may have managed to solve one of the most intractable environmental dilemmas of our time"

Solved? He demonstrated a proof of concept. But this was not news.

Was the product of decomposition environmentally safe? Is the process economically feasible? Does it scale?

All three questions need to be yes before we can say he solved the problem.

Having said that, I am not knocking the kid or his school project. We need more experimentalists in the world.