Iceland Power Station Turns CO2 Into Stone

[Serendipity 7,821]

A two-year project undertaken at the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant in Iceland saw CO2 injected into volcanic rock and transformed into carbonate minerals through a sped-up natural process.

“We need to deal with rising carbon emissions and this is the ultimate permanent storage—turn them back to stone,” said the University of Southampton’s Juerg Matter, who led the research published Thursday in the journal Science.

“Our results show that between 95 and 98 percent of the injected CO2 was mineralized over the period of less than two years, which is amazingly fast.”

 

By dissolving the CO2 in water and injecting it into basaltic rock between 400 and 800 meters below the power plant, the researchers were able to permanently mineralize the gas.

“It’s what we hoped for… and in some ways better,” said David Goldberg, a geophysicist at Columbia University who was not part of the study but praised it. “What’s going on here is a natural process being accelerated.”

 

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[Helxig 45,678]

Cool! Very promising for the future!

[Luc 4,776]

Sounds good. Could it work on a larger scale, like at a coal plant?

[Poot 719]

Well what is the downside though? I can imagine if there was suddenly a huge influx of CO2, sure there will be some consequences for the balance. But Iceland is really doing a great job, anyway. 

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

2 hours ago, Poot said:

Well what is the downside though? I can imagine if there was suddenly a huge influx of CO2, sure there will be some consequences for the balance. But Iceland is really doing a great job, anyway. 

Well the balance needs to be preserved, but I doubt a few plants churning out minerals will have any noticeable effect at this time.

[Poot 719]

Just now, LebaneseDude said:

Well the balance needs to be preserved, but I doubt a few plants churning out minerals will have any noticeable effect at this time.

True, but what if they think it's a good method so they stay putting large amounts of carbon di-oxide in it. Idk I just fear them plants are gonna react to it, since it's not natural at all  

But at least they are getting rid of it, instead storing it in dumping places. Ugh, thinking of it, we got so much in front of us to tackle enviromental issues. America (and Europe too, but they are doing a much better job) still having to do a lot to tackle their problems. Africa not having the money to recycle everything so they dump it with all their toxic materials. Let's see what future brings tbh  

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

Just now, Poot said:

True, but what if they think it's a good method so they stay putting large amounts of carbon di-oxide in it. Idk I just fear them plants are gonna react to it, since it's not natural at all  

But at least they are getting rid of it, instead storing it in dumping places. Ugh, thinking of it, we got so much in front of us to tackle enviromental issues. America (and Europe too, but they are doing a much better job) still having to do a lot to tackle their problems. Africa not having the money to recycle everything so they dump it with all their toxic materials. Let's see what future brings tbh  

If you're looking for more information, the wikipedia article looks to be accurate enough

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration