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.

Comments

Re:Again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the /. mods are a little too 'stoned'.

Seawater or any salt water?

[slashcross]

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.

Re:Seawater or any salt water?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually a VERY good question.

If you could dump all kinds of waste water (eg oilsands ponds, fracking water, non-toxic mining waste) along with carbon into the volcano, does it produce a usable material, or is the material produced just another kind of toxic sludge?

Iceland isn't the only place this can be done, anywhere along the pacific coast would be viable since those are all volcanic areas.

What would be very cool is if it creates a kind of limestone that could be then re-mined and used for cement.

Re:Ancient process (sort of)

[ishmaelflood]

You are creating a non existent puzzle. The 'secret ' of Pozzolan concrete is well described in Wiki. Most Mediterranean cultures had it. Sorry to burst your pathetically small bubble.

Re:New Math Needed??

[arcade]

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.

Re: Scientists in Iceland

[whopis]

So are you saying that Iceland is effectively a Beowulf cluster of people?

Because that's oddly appropriate in a number of ways.