For the first time, scientists have successfully injected carbon dioxide into volcanic basalt soil and changed it to a solid, offering a promising way to store underground the greenhouse gas linked to climate change.
Scientists were able to pump carbon emissions into the earth and change the gas to a solid for storage within months — radically faster than previous predictions that suggested the process could take hundreds or even thousands of years.
The study, published on Thursday in the journal Science, was part of pilot project Carbfix, launched in 2012 at Iceland’s Hellisheidi geothermal power plant.
Scientists and engineers experimented with combining carbon dioxide and other gases with water and then piping the mixture underground.
GLOBAL WARMING
They aimed to develop a method to safely store carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
The Hellisheidi plant, the world’s largest geothermal facility, energizes Reykjavik by pumping volcanically heated water to power turbines. The process produces 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year — just 5 percent of the emissions of a similarly sized coal plant, but significant nonetheless.
For years, researchers have suggested limiting global warming by using carbon capture and sequestration methods like this one, but developing the technology proved challenging. In nature, basalt in contact with carbon dioxide and water produces a chemical reaction resulting in a chalky, white mineral.
REACTION TIME
However, scientists were unsure how long the reaction would take: Previous studies estimated the solidification could take upward of millennia. The basalt under Hellisheidi proved optimal, with 95 percent of the injected carbon dioxide solidifying in less than two years.
“This means that we can pump down large amounts of carbon dioxide and store it in a very safe way over a very short period of time,” said study co-author Martin Stute, a hydrologist at Columbia University’s Earth Observatory. “In the future, we could think of using this for power plants in places where there is a lot of basalt — and there are many such places.”
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