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Pilot Test Of Storing Carbon Dioxide In Rocks Shows Impressive Outcome (theaustralian.com.au)
For years we have been trying to find different ways to limit carbon dioxide produced from fossil fuels. Some researchers believe that things would be very convenient if we could just deposit carbon dioxide in rocks. A pilot project around this idea has shown an impressive result. John Ross, reporting for the Australian: Scientists say they have demonstrated a foolproof way of sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide -- turning it into rock. An international team of researchers says it has demonstrated for the first time that CO2 can be permanently locked away from the atmosphere by injecting it into volcanic bedrock. The study, reported this morning in the journal Science, could overcome the leakage problems that have plagued attempts to bury CO2 gas underground. Lead author Juerg Matter said between 95 per cent and 98 per cent of the injected CO2 had been mineralised in less than two years, "which is amazingly fast.""Until now it was thought this process would take hundreds to thousands of years," University of Southampton, which led the new study, said in a statement. "The current study has demonstrated that it can take as little as two years."
This is a pilot--first of its kind. It might herald a whole new era for the human race! Or it might not. We'll need many decades of work and repetitions of this study, and studies that grow forth from what we learn here, to know if this is truly a viable technology, or if this study is merely a fluke.
Who did what now?
Atmospheric CO2 is about half a percent (400 PPM), though it's rising. Most of these "sequestration" ideas only work if you have high concentrations of CO2 to begin with, so you take the high CO2 concentration from some kind of industrial process and instead of dumping it in the atmosphere, you pump it underground, or in this case into volcanic bedrock. It's not a good way to get existing CO2 levels down. Still, it's a much needed improvement if it works.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Stop clear-cutting all the trees for lumber and to put up crappy strip malls and subdivisions!
That is backwards. A mature forest does not remove net CO2. You need to cut it down, sequester the wood in housing or whatever, and then let the forest regrow. If forests are going to be used to remove carbon, we need to cut down more of them.
It is even so convenient that said coal is already stored safely in the ground, so the only thing humanity has to do is, tada, not dig it up.
Alas, something so sensible seems to be entirely beyond us.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Then you did it wrong, and missed something.
This process is expensive and there are better ways to do it. CO2 can be used for enhanced oil recovery which can sequester carbon while also helping improve yield. Since it has positive economic value, it is much more likely to actually happen.
Technologies and solutions are not mutually exclusive. And operating costs tend to decrease with scale or better technology. If the only reason to deter use of a technology is the up-front operational cost of a pilot program, we wouldn't have a lot of the shit we take for granted nowadays.
A lot of it won't, it becomes soil.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Why does nobody know this? Biochar
Because Public Education is better at teaching people to drink the kool-aid, than it is at teaching them to find out what's in the kool-aid first.
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