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Scientists In Iceland Turn CO2 Into Stone (theguardian.com)
New submitter Zmobie quotes a report from The Guardian: [Carbon dioxide has been pumped underground and turned rapidly into stone, demonstrating a radical new way to tackle climate change.] The unique project promises a cheaper and more secure way of burying CO2 from fossil fuel burning underground, where it cannot warm the planet. Such carbon capture and storage (CCS) is thought to be essential to halting global warming, but existing projects store the CO2 as a gas and concerns about costs and potential leakage have halted some plans. The new research pumped CO2 into the volcanic rock under Iceland and sped up a natural process where the basalts react with the gas to form carbonate minerals, which make up limestone. The researchers were amazed by how fast all the gas turned into a solid -- just two years, compared to the hundreds or thousands of years that had been predicted. One of the downsides for the project is that it requires 25 tons of water for each ton of CO2 buried. However, seawater can be used. The Iceland Project (also referred to as the CarbFix Project) is already being upscaled to bury 10,000 tons of CO2 each year, in addition to the hydrogen sulphide which also turns into minerals.
Perhaps the /. mods are a little too 'stoned'.
The summary says "One of the downsides for the project is that it requires 25 tons of water for each ton of CO2 buried. However, seawater can be used." Can any old seawater be used? Would you be able to use the water that gets pumped to the surface with crude oil work? It would be helpful if you could put that back into the ground along with the CO2.
Slashdot your i and slashcross your t.
They showed it a picture of Hillary.
This process is not completely new. A process related (or actually this one) was used by the ancient romans to produce a type of concrete that severely outlasts current commercially available concrete. That recipe was thought lost, but recently someone managed to replicate it. It used see water, high quantities of carbon and volcanic rock/ash. It is good that new uses have been found for the process or to similar processes.
Onda Technology Institute
Uhh. When you start something new, you come up with a prediction. You don't necessarily base it on that much information.
Then you observe what happens when you do an experiment. Then you adjust your predictions.
This is how basic science is done. Nothing new here.
HOWEVER; what you're trying to do, is transfer errors in initial prediction into errors in observation and measurements. That is rather disingenuous of you. Please do argue honestly.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
There was an error in a guess at time to happen for something never done before. The geological ages take much longer, but the conditions are different. Their guesses may be way-wrong, but that's in no way a "calculation". To imply it is makes you a liar. Why are you lying?
Learn to love Alaska
From a population of 400,000 people, what they did is a notable achievement.
What is notable, is that 400,000 people live there at all. Iceland is not the most hospitable of environments to live. Yes, beautiful landscapes, nice toasty hot springs baths . . . but humans also need other basic things, like food and shelter in order to survive.
I believe that the Icelanders survived there through a combination of two things: Intelligence and Cooperation. When confronted with problems . . . the best thing humans can do, is to use their minds. We don't have hard shells, or poisonous bites, or anything else that adapts us to a specific environment . . . but we have our brains, which enables us to adapt to all environments.
As to Cooperation . . . 10,000 years ago, there used to be a running joke on Slashdot that said, "Imagine a Beowulf of these!" Humans can survive best, when they cooperate with each other.
So there is your notable achievement right there.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
So are you saying that Iceland is effectively a Beowulf cluster of people?
Because that's oddly appropriate in a number of ways.
If the "upscaled" project sequesters 10,000 tons of CO2 every 2 years, that offsets the emissions of about 300 Americans. But there are lots more of us, and we're not even the biggest polluters. This will only start making a noticeable difference if it could be scaled up further, by a factor of one million.