Iceland pioneered carbon capture in basalt rock deep underground. Now we can go them one better, mining basalt and other minerals, grinding them up, and spreading the powders on farm fields to capture carbon and increase crop yields at the same time. That means that we don’t have to capture the CO2 to inject into wells at considerable expense. These minerals react with CO2 in the air over a period of years, forming permanent carbonate minerals that are environmentally safe, or bicarbonate ions that get washed into the oceans.
Scientific American, via e-mail:
Absorbing CO2? Rock On
Last year, researchers in the midwest spread 190 metric tons of a crushed volcanic rock called basalt over fields that were then planted with corn crops. They found that, over four years, fields treated with crushed basalt and planted with alternating crops of corn and soy pulled 10 metric tons more CO2 per hectare out of the air than untreated plots. And crop yields were 12 to 16 percent higher. These stunning results were an early test of
whether the world's farmlands could be used to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and slow global warming.
How it works: Why use basalt? As it naturally weathers—gradually dissolving in soil water—volcanic basalt captures CO2, converting it into bicarbonate ions in the water, which cannot easily reenter the atmosphere. Instead, the water is carried out to the sea and the CO2 is stored in the ocean for up to 1,000 years. If such a technique were to be scaled up globally, it could remove up to two billion metric tons of CO2 from the air every year, according to experts.
The catch: Enhanced rock weather, as it’s called, would require mining and crushing billions of tons of rock every year—enough to build a mountain—and transporting it to farms. The whole process would release CO2. Even so, those emissions would be small compared with the amount of CO2 that the rock stores away for centuries or longer.
It has been known for years that readily available basalts, serpentines, and olivines all work for this purpose, whether in underground deposits (using fracking technology) or as rock dust on the surface. Improving crop yields is a bonus. A teraton of the stuff would be more than enough to remove all of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Of course, we don’t have to go that far, because there are other effective ways to sequester carbon, such as forests and regenerative agriculture, putting carbon into soils and making them much healthier.
Like this biochar, which also greatly increased the soil’s capacity to hold water
Now try telling farmers that they aren’t allowed to use fertilizer because it’s a dreaded Green New Deal plot.
Most of the Earth’s mantle consists of such minerals, but they only occasionally get pushed to the surface.
Basalt columns at Devil’s Postpile NM
Rare Mantle Rocks in Oman Could Sequester Massive Amounts of CO2
Tests are underway to pull carbon from the air and turn it into minerals belowground
In Other News
Marshall Islands protects ‘pristine’ Pacific corals news.mongabay.com/...
The Marshall Islands government has announced it will protect an area of the Pacific Ocean described as one of the most “remote, pristine” marine ecosystems on Earth.
The 48,000-square-kilometer (18,500-square-mile) marine sanctuary
is the first federal marine protected area (MPA) established by the Pacific Island nation
The area is teeming with rare and endangered marine wildlife, including green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) and fish species such as the Napoleon wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) and the bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum).
The region had the highest reef fish biomass in the Pacific Ocean. Giant clams (Tridacna maxima) were found in huge numbers. Deep-sea sharks, many of which are threatened, were abundant.
“Bikar and Bokak’s coral reefs are a time machine, like diving in the ocean of 1,000 years ago,”
Recycling lithium-ion batteries cuts emissions, water & energy use news.stanford.edu/...
Lithium-ion battery recyclers
extracts lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, and aluminum
The study quantified the environmental footprint of this recycling process, and found it emits less than half the greenhouse gases (GHGs) of conventional mining and refinement of these metals and uses about one-fourth of the water and energy of mining new metals.
the U.S. now recycles about 50% of available lithium-ion batteries
Given that used lithium-ion batteries contain materials with up to 10 times higher economic value, the opportunity is significant
"we can design the future of battery recycling to optimize the environmental benefits. We can write the script,"
African nations commit to electricity for 300 million people by 2030
The heads of 30 African nations have endorsed a plan to provide “reliable, affordable and sustainable” electricity to 300 million people across the continent over the next five years.
Twelve countries include specific goals and timelines to expand electricity access, address utility efficiency, increase renewable energy generation, attract private investment, and provide clean cooking solutions.
World Bank has committed to providing $30 billion to $40 billion, while the African Development Bank pledged $10 billion to $15 billion. The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) committed $4.65 billion.
At last, Real MoneyTM for renewables in Africa. Not enough, but definitely a good start.
Bluesky Note
We are working on creating effective feeds on Bluesky for all of our usual Global Warming/Renewable Energy topics. We haven’t gotten there yet, but the debugging continues. In the meantime, ordinary searches for the usual hashtags work pretty well. I will mine them all from time to time in these Renewable Day of the Week posts.
My Curated Global Warming feed still has issues, but the content that does appear there, from a list of contributors that I put together, is good stuff.