Scientists Turn CO2 into...Stone, in two years.

a reply to: Liquesence

Nice thread. Its a shame that we continue to look at technocentric ways of dealing with greenhouse gases. The solutions are under our feet and do not require consumer technology.
Biochar for example if implemented in farming would take carbon levels back to preindustrial levels in a decade or so and it enriches the soil.

The solutions are often simple

Yet another update on this effort (turning CO2 into stone. In this case, in the US (Washington State and Montana) and using basalt).

As one of the world’s first carbon storage projects into basalt formations, the Wallula Basalt pilot test is providing crucial knowledge regarding the long-term potential to safely and securely store CO2 within deep underground basalt environments. The project has achieved several notable accomplishments:
• The project completed successful injection of nearly 1,000 tons of CO2 into the Grande Ronde basalt formation. Injection was followed by extensive monitoring in order to assess how the injected CO2 responded, moved, and behaved within the surrounding basalt setting.
•The results from the Basalt pilot seismic survey represent the first known success of surface-based imaging of basalt geology as well as the first detailed reconnaissance-level characterization of the Columbia River Basalt Province within the state of Washington.
...

Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership (.org) - Post-Injection Findings and Next Steps
-and-

•The project has successfully injected CO2 into underground lava flows, with the gas then solidifying into a mineral called ankerite in just a couple of years.

UtilityDrive.com, Nov 22, 2016 - Washington carbon capture project says it has permanently sequestered CO2.

Pretty cool that they went down to lava flows and injected the CO2 there. It is down around 2,700 feet. The Big Sky site says they will continue to monitor CO2 levels around the injection site to see if any leak out. Neither site/story mention how much water they used. Neither mention the off-shore site. The UtilityDrive story says that a group of oil companies have teamed up to study and fund this line of research over the next 10 years.

The cynical side of me wants to say, "Meh" about the oil company news butI am just glad that somebody is trying to do something with the tech we have now instead "paying carbon taxes" so they do not have to clean up their own mess.

The world will have to start actively removing C02 within 10 years. Watch your wallet!

a reply to: Xeven

The oil companies have nothing to do with this. They are trying to cheat the tax laws by making it look like they are contributing to a better world.

They already made their money and cannot double dip.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

David Goldberg, a geophysicist at Lamont, has been leading off-shore studies to map basalt reservoirs with the potential to store carbon that would mineralize over time. He has proposed burying CO2 in several sites off the U.S. East Coast about a mile below the seafloor, and he is now working on one of five Department of Energy projects using seismic data to determine how much CO2 could be stored in those and other off-shore reservoirs.

Goldberg's team is also proposing the first test of off-shore basalt storage, a project that would pump 1 million tons of CO2 into basalt off the Pacific Northwest.

"Iceland was a key demonstration. The holy grail is off-shore," Goldberg said. The storage potential in the oceans is immense, and it moves the process away from communities. It also avoids the need for water resources. Where the Iceland project added fresh water to the captured CO2, off-shore projects could mix seawater with purified CO2 to speed up the reaction time.

[ETA]
Kelemen estimates that by speeding up the process, peridotite could be used to store 1 billion tons of CO2 per cubic kilometer of rock per year.

Phys.org, Oct 25, 2016 - Turning CO2 to stone.

The US just got involved. Cleaning the CO2 and sea water is probably the way to go. The demo plant in Canada sucking CO2 out of the air points the low cost way of doing this. Repurpose an oil rig (hey, rig workers still needed!), and start the process... massive amounts of CO2 to the sea floor about to be turned to stone. Keeps the oceans from becoming acidic as well.

Oh do i have a problem with doing it off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. the major one is the Cascadia earthquake fault zone lies underwater between 40 and 80 miles offshore of the Pacific Northwest coastline.
Water injection of fracking waste is a known cause of earthquakes CO2 and water would be just as bad.
discovermagazine.com...

This is so dumb!

Do you realize that for every molecule of CO2 you remove and lock up in stone for ever, you are also locking up two atoms of oxygen for ever. The very same oxygen we need to breath!

a reply to: ANNED

USGS.gov (map included with study on Wallula in pdf format) Map of Continental US for basalt deposits.

Yeah,I hear you. Messing with Juan de Fuca and the Cascadia subduction zone would be truly stupid. In one quoted report it says offshore while the map from the original study (link above) shows the Continental US so I do not know where the offshore site is. They only go down 2,700 – 2,800 feet into basalt rock and not shale. The Cascadia fault is 80 miles off shore while most oil rigs are not that far out (around 10 miles I think or closer). So this would be on top of any formation (plate) and not boring into the fault. In the end it just becomes sandstone and chalk so they are not adding any more real weight than what is already there.

What none of the reports note is that there are mines for a mineral that can also be used and that was mined for asbestos before they realized it causes cancer. They can pump those mines full of water and CO2 (and hydrogen sulfide or other reactant) and encase it back into a mineralized form. Clean up the mine, encase any stray asbestos, and scrub CO2 from the atmosphere.



a reply to: graysquirrel

[T]hey disposed of 250 tons of carbon dioxide, mixed with water and the other pollutant emitted by Hellisheidi, hydrogen sulfide. They sunk the cocktail 400 to 800 meters (a quarter mile to half a mile) below ground, where it began reacting with the minerals in the basalt and solidifying.

That is from the OP. Where is O2 in the equation? Now they are doing two things different than OP:

1) Using slat water
2) Purifying the CO2 so the reaction happens quickly

What would be “so dumb” is to continue pumping CO2 from burning oil, gas, and coal into the earth’s atmosphere and just leaving it there to wreak havoc on a worldwide scale.