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

Some coolness to go with the hot, political tension.

Nature can turn carbon dioxide into rock, but it takes thousands upon thousands of years. Scientists in Iceland may have just figured out how to do it in less than two.

This is incredible.

Apparently, scientists have taken CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions and found a way to turn them into stone. How? Well, they mix CO2 with water, and then inject it into underground basaltic rock, where, after a couple of years, it solidified into the porous rock.

In a radical new approach, described Thursday in the journal Science, scientists mix carbon dioxide with water and then inject the slurry into basaltic rock, where it solidifies into veins
[. . .]
In a 2012-2013 pilot project, christened Carbfix, they 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. Two years later, it had almost entirely turned to stone.“Over two years, 95 percent to 98 percent was mineralized.”

Compared to:

To put this in perspective, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a 2005 report predicted that it would take between 100 to 1,000 years for this mineral carbonation to take place.

Of course, there are downsides, which include:

1) Cost:

“With our method, storage cost is about $17 per ton of carbon dioxide,” says Matter, “which is a little bit higher than traditional carbon dioxide injection – about $5 to $10.”

and

the pricetag for the “capture” phase, which can cost up to $150 per ton of carbon dioxide.

2) The amount of water needed:

Chief among the concerns is the amount of water required: about 25 tons for every ton of carbon dioxide turned to stone. As many fossil fuel-heavy areas also suffer water scarcity, notes Veysey, this could be problematic.

One solution could be the use of seawater, though salt water's efficacy remains untested, says Columbia's Dr. Stute.

3) And available basaltic rock:

Only about 10 percent of continental rock is composed of this porous stone, though it accounts for almost all the seafloor.

The other issue, I think, is what kind of negative impact this might have (fracking, anyone?), since they are injecting this into the ground; however, that doesn't seem to be a huge concern (so far) because

this pioneering method turns the carbon dioxide to stone, storing it in a permanent fashion, it eliminates costs associated with monitoring for leakage.

This is pretty cool. I wanted to share and hope you guys enjoy.

How feasible can this actually be?

The article I sourced is pretty long and has a ton of links within. I have not gone through them all, but I encourage you guys to check it out.

Link: CS Monitor

it might make fracking better. If you believe that some earthquakes are happening because frackers make soft spots. making that area rock, could help with that

a reply to: Liquesence

If they can find a way to lower the cost and successfully substitute seawater then it will be worth celebration.

a reply to: Grimpachi

I agree. Those are certainly some pretty big hurdles.

Of course, many things cost considerably more when first developed, so hopefully if this is a practical method, they will find a way to reduce cost (and use seawater).

Hey maybe this will prove evolution. Oh wait, nvm, it's non-living matter turning into non-living matter. Still pretty cool though!a reply to: Liquesence

a reply to: Liquesence

interesting. if they could turn it into production, they could see about making a building material from it. alternately, they could just start pumping it into ocean floors.

my concern is groundwater. even things that are mineralized can be dissolved.

The finding could help tackle climate change, especially in countries such as India that have lots of basalt rock and little sedimentary rock suitable for CO2 storage.

What’s more, the team found that when CO2 dissolved in water is injected into hot basalt deep underground, it rapidly reacts with the rock to form carbonates. It would remain safely stored even if this reaction didn’t happen, says team member Juerg Matter of the University of Southampton in the UK, but turning it to stone is even better.

CO2 injected deep underground turns to rock – and stays there

The idea of international cooperation and opportunities for economies like India to benefit makes it sound attractive. It could be like a 'cheat' to reduce our carbon footprint and speed up carbon reduction targets.

The current costs are liable to make the process so unattractive to business and governments that it'll be shelved. It still looks like something we'll be doing in the future when a more efficient (cheaper) method is developed.

a reply to: Liquesence

Here is a company already with a plant doing carbon capture in Canada: MIT Technology Review link - Go Inside an Industrial Plant That Sucks Carbon Dioxide Straight Out of the Air (PS - you get 5 or 6 free visits a month, use wisely!)

I posted the same (ATS here) because there is not really anything else on this subject matter. Their cost per ton is estimated to be $100.

Turning it into stone! That is pretty cool. The MIT Tech Review also had a story about using superheated CO2 to turn a turbine (ATS link: New Mini-Turbine is Capable of Powering an Entire Town).

Doing all three seems like the best thing we can do for Mother Earth! Thorium reactor eating waste fission material, powering a CO2 sucking plant, being superheated to fuel a turbine providing power to a city. Throw in a grid-level flow battery and we enjoy electricity, clean the air, and use "waste" material for a good use. Something needs to be done. We need to clean up our planet before we head to the stars.

S+F and

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Liquesence

interesting. if they could turn it into production, they could see about making a building material from it. alternately, they could just start pumping it into ocean floors.

my concern is groundwater. even things that are mineralized can be dissolved.

Building material is interesting to be sure; I suppose when we truly start learning to recycle a broad spectrum of our wastes (or the byproducts of our industries) into reusables we will be at a better off. I also imagine the costs to pump it into the ocean floor would be even greater, simple because those platforms don't exist as far as I know.

Your last two statements are why I have some reservations about the prospect: even though it may take two years for it solidify, that's two years where leaching could occur and the effects both during and after the mineralization haven't been studied.

a reply to: Liquesence
That's not only economically impractical, but it makes the CO2 hard to get at in 2000 years when our descendants will need it:

Global warming versus the next Ice Age

Now, carbon levels are approaching 400 ppmv as the burning of fossil fuels pumps more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Even if the rate of growth could be moderated enough to stabilize levels at about 550 ppmv, average temperatures might well rise by about 5°C–with devastating effects for us earthlings, such as rising sea levels and dramatic changes in weather patterns.

But even that warming will not stave off the eventual return of huge glaciers, because ice ages last for millennia and fossil fuels will not.In about 300 years, all available fossil fuels may well have been consumed.Over the following centuries, excess carbon dioxide will naturally dissolve into the oceans or get trapped by the formation of carbonate minerals. Such processes won’t be offset by the industrial emissions we see today, and atmospheric carbon dioxide will slowly decline toward preindustrial levels. In about 2,000 years, when the types of planetary motions that can induce polar cooling start to coincide again, the current warming trend will be a distant memory.

I think the ice age is a far worse threat than the temperature rise, but the ice age threat is a few thousand years off so we tend not to worry about it. I think it may take thousands of years to come up with a solution to the more serious problem of the next ice age, so it's not too soon to start thinking about it in my opinion. It would be better if we can find ways of storing the CO2 where it's more easily retrievable when it's needed.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I don't think we need to worry about storing too much carbon for the future.

If we manage to go green with renewables and one day far off into the future we find we need more C02 to combat an ice age I am sure the technology will still exist for combustion engines and coal plants.

How about we just let the plants use it?

originally posted by: bbarkow
How about we just let the plants use it?

Most plants are just borrowing C02 when they die and decompose they release that C02 back into the atmosphere.

I read that there is now a bacteria that is preventing plants from becoming coal and sequestering the C02 now so most C02 is being sequestered by the Oceans from algae dying and sinking to depths where it is frozen or simply too cold for it to decompose further, but the Oceans are already becoming too acidic from C02 to accommodate the C02.

However, in the distant past long before humans existed the atmosphere had a toxic amount of C02 and the Oceans had an algae bloom that soaked up a lot of it and that algae sank to the bottom wich is probably oil now, but if that happened today it would probably be an extinction level event for the Oceans.

originally posted by: Grimpachi
a reply to: Arbitrageur

I don't think we need to worry about storing too much carbon for the future.

If we manage to go green with renewables and one day far off into the future we find we need more C02 to combat an ice age I am sure the technology will still exist for combustion engines and coal plants.

Why would you make combustion engines and coal plants if there's no more petroleum or coal? Reserves of those resources aren't anticipated to last thousands of years.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Well, I did say if we go green/renewables which I was implying at least the coal would still be in the ground for the future.

However if we wait until those resources have all been used up before making such a switch I don't think there will be many humans around to worry about an ice age a thousand years away.

Thank you OP for the spark.

a reply to: one4all

You're aware of radiometric and radiocarbon dating, yes?

I *think* I know where you're trying to go with this (conspiracy within the scientific/archeological community), but I'm not positive.

ETA:
Thank you for deleting the majority of your reply, to which the above was in response.

originally posted by: bbarkow
How about we just let the plants use it?

Which kind of plants? The green organic growing kind, or the big manufacturing plants?

If the former, they do; however, there's a little bit too much for them.

If the latter, if we can find some way to "harvest" or use (industrial) CO2 byproducts in manufacturing on a larger and more efficient scale, that would be a good thing.

several companies are now attempting to put the wasted [CO2] gas to good use instead of simply burying it underground.

It’s all part of a new wave in the industry known as the circular economy.

US company Novomer, along with Albemarle Corporation, successfully made polypropylene carbonate (PPC) using carbon dioxide waste and is already manufacturing with the help of these polyols. They produce better quality adhesives for industrial use. The research for the project was conducted with funding from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy. And a chemicals company based in Germany has been successful in using CO2 to create polyurethanes. The company, Bayer, believes this can be used to create soft foam used in mattresses.

A handful of companies are also getting creative in the ways that carbon dioxide is used once it is captured from coal plant fumes. Dry CO2 cleaning, for example, is a new and innovative technology that utilizes recycled carbon dioxide in a number of creative industrial applications.

This technology uses the gas for cooling machine tools, cleaning complex medical instruments and electronic devices, selective extraction and even eco-friendly dry cleaning.

How Recycled CO2 is Changing the Manufacturing Landscape

^^ This.

a reply to: Liquesence

I see what happened....so to correct...this was what was posted...a reference to OOPARTS like the hammer in stone and the sparkplug in stone and other artifacts we could not explain.....pointing to the fact that according to the NOW KNOWN scientific processes if we simply introduced the hammer and sparkplug to the "slurry" being pumped underground they would be encased in stone long before they would ever decay.....hence the need to explain HOW AND WHY ARTIFACTS COULD EVER BE INTRODUCED INTO THIS PROCESS AS NATURE DOES IT.My apologies for llowing your comment to be less than fully understood ,hope this helps clarify your direction.

You are correct......this ends the long running facade.The true-knowledge embargo humanity has been under the auspices of is now over.When we look to push our species forward we must do it upon the bones and beliefs of our predecessors....this is nature...this is progress...this "conspiracy: has been a fiscally motivated Stakehoolder Group catalysed ATTACK UPON HUMANITY and can NEVER be viewed as anything different.....amnesty is not an option,honesty is....and yes...humanity wants it all back ASAP.....all of the profits...back in humanities hands.

The Global Group who we call TPTB have been busted,from the sinking of the Titanic as an insurance scam which alerted everyone to the Global Money Laundering processes TPTB use via ALL insurance dynamics to convert fiat dollars into tangible real dollars....to revealing Teslas work was superior and he was suppressed and then gang-stalked until his death which set us onto the trail of those who SUPPORTED EDISON....to the Big Pharma issue being outed by people like Hulda Clark who exposed the global connections between the additives we put in our water and the supports this gives parasitic overabundances which cause all diseases so now we are discovering who owns and operates the companies which "clean" our water ......we now suspect that "baking soda" cures cancer.....and that at a specific time the "people" who own the companies who produce "baking soda"...began ADDING "aromatics" to the baking soda which as is being proven out now prevent the baking soda from having an unadultered benefit to people who might try it....and that you cannot get pharmacutical grade baking soda in many countries like Canada and that if you go to say Germany and try bringing back SIMPLE PURE BAKING SODA you will be charged with criminal issues......we are seeing evidence cancer is a "mould" and Chaga mushroom might be used to kill it///and if cancer is a mould then anti-biotics like pennicillan might be trojan horse cancer causing agents .....possibly the parasites act as a superhighway in the body transporting bacteria like busses which carry viruses in their back-pockets and this is how we get "moulds" in odd places ......these "highways" can be blockaded...we are seeing evidence that the "Sweatlodges" used by some cultures to cure cancers worked because they brought up the mean temperature of the entire body up high enough to kill all parasites and to cook their eggs while water was introuduced via steam to prevent dehydration and death....now in some countries this process is used with an IV providing hydration.......we now know why certain Camels were said to cure cancer with their milk...because their diets in some areas include a lot of anti-parasitic plants and their digestive processes allow this beneficial impact to be carried forward.

Yes this is another step in the disenfanchisement process of the Humanitarian gangsters who have been running our show for far to long.....you see every so called "conspiracy theory" and the PEOPLE behind it can be brought together in countless tangible ways.......our present conversations will always revolve around PUBLICATIONS...PROOFS...BOOKS....each one accepted in its timeframe by a managed and artificial Status Quo or a process interefered with and directed for profit of a few.The PUBLISHING INDUSTRY is one of the coolest evidence trails for truthers to follow as they take back their world....its the Motherlode.......its the "brains of the beast"......its how Global Educational Systems from Grade 1 to University level....have had their entire curriculums..... PIRATED AND MANIPULATED AND FILLED WITH MISDIRECTS UNTRUTHS AND PROBLEM INDUCING DYNAMICS .Individual constituancies DID NOT decide their own curriculums they CHOSE FROM THE OPTIONS FORCE-FED TO THEM BY THE "PEER ACCEPTED AND ENDORSED" status quo cemented by the publishing companies who made the books and they minions they paid off to endorse said books .

You see the people who have attacked humanity have done it by building false status quo idealisms and then artificially supporting them on every level as they forcefeed them to everyone.........so the OWNED THE "PEERS" who did the accepting and endorsing so they controlled what was allowed into the STATUS QUO[books]....the people TRUSTED every person who breached this trust and allowed themselves to one by one be bought out by TPTB ...every professor and Professional and head if institution always thinking they were only one among millions so selling out would not really make a difference....never knowing this was an ongoing GLOBAL EFFORT.....

I am already thanking the Baby Boomers who are swiftly[as their massive group tends to do things]....telling the truth as they get old and approach their makers.....they are abandoning the groups who controlled them their entire lives and who lied to them as they are now learning enmasse happened....dummys should have waited 25 more years before bringing out the internet and avoided global change which is now inevitable......1000s of deathbed confessions in video where we can use our emotions and instincts and empathy to believe or disbelieve....1000s of written confessions we can read.........Scientists..Politicians...Doctors...Physicists...Astonomers...Reseachers...butchers...bakers...and...candlestick makers....yes we were all lied to and we are at an exponential speed discovering exactly who and how did it to us all.


The scientific/Acheological/Educational "communities" are made up IN LARGE 98% by regular honest people....only the cream of the crop with tenure and power to define or to validate data thereby creating the seed of the STATUS QUO to follow needed to be bought out via human greed or threats ot be gangstalked sued broken and bested by fiscal machinations.This is a simple control process used over and over.

So I understand the conendrum you point out in terms of ...how does anyone in their right mind question an entire status quo of Professionals and recognised tenured Experts????...how could we believe that the Scientific COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE could ever CONSPIRE TOGETHER TO SUPPRESS TRUTHS FROM US GLOBALLY....and I give you the published word and the men who create and control it....the original sinners....I give you the popcorn trail i was brought to by YT and Social Media produced todays youth....and I give you this....GEOLOGY and archeaology are very different...one can be manipulated much easier than the other and TPTB BARELY HAD CONTROL OF THE GEOLOGY WORLD and THIS EXACT PILLAR OF THEIR SUPPRESSION IS NOW GONE......people now know stone can be made by process in simply a few years or hundreds or thousands NOT MILLIONS AND MILLIONS....the laboratory process is simply mimicing a possible natural process....if we manipulate the paramters of the equations and decipher what it would take to have Moma Nature do this ,we see that if you suddenly globally buried everything under 2-3 miles of mud and debris and water we could see stone made in short timespans.....the implications of this are staggering.

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.