Spreading Rock Dust On Fields Could Remove Vast Amounts of CO2 From Air (theguardian.com) 149
Spreading rock dust on farmland could suck billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air every year, according to the first detailed global analysis of the technique. The Guardian reports: The chemical reactions that degrade the rock particles lock the greenhouse gas into carbonates within months, and some scientists say this approach may be the best near-term way of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. The rock dust approach, called enhanced rock weathering (ERW), has several advantages, the researchers say. First, many farmers already add limestone dust to soils to reduce acidification, and adding other rock dust improves fertility and crop yields, meaning application could be routine and desirable.
Basalt is the best rock for capturing CO2, and many mines already produce dust as a byproduct, so stockpiles already exist. The researchers also found that the world's biggest polluters, China, the U.S. and India, have the greatest potential for ERW, as they have large areas of cropland and relatively warm weather, which speeds up the chemical reactions. The analysis, published in the journal Nature, estimates that treating about half of farmland could capture 2 billion tons of CO2 each year, equivalent to the combined emissions of Germany and Japan. The cost depends on local labor rates and varies from $80 per ton in India to $160 in the U.S., and is in line with the $100-150 carbon price forecast by the World Bank for 2050, the date by which emissions must reach net zero to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown.
Basalt is the best rock for capturing CO2, and many mines already produce dust as a byproduct, so stockpiles already exist. The researchers also found that the world's biggest polluters, China, the U.S. and India, have the greatest potential for ERW, as they have large areas of cropland and relatively warm weather, which speeds up the chemical reactions. The analysis, published in the journal Nature, estimates that treating about half of farmland could capture 2 billion tons of CO2 each year, equivalent to the combined emissions of Germany and Japan. The cost depends on local labor rates and varies from $80 per ton in India to $160 in the U.S., and is in line with the $100-150 carbon price forecast by the World Bank for 2050, the date by which emissions must reach net zero to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown.
You know what else... (Score:2, Interesting)
...removes CO2? Trees. Plants. And these organisms can produce tasty fruits, berries, and veggies. Rocks...not so much.
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...removes CO2? Trees. Plants. And these organisms can produce tasty fruits, berries, and veggies. Rocks...not so much.
You know which one costs 1,000 times more to execute and maintain?
Now you know why we're planting rocks.
Re:You know what else... (Score:5, Informative)
...removes CO2? Trees. Plants. And these organisms can produce tasty fruits, berries, and veggies. Rocks...not so much.
You know which one costs 1,000 times more to execute and maintain?
Now you know why we're planting rocks.
Some of the most effective carbon sinks are wild forests and they sort of tend to maintain themselves once re-foresting efforts reach a certain point. Given the choice I'd pick re-planting wild forests any day of the week over abandoning re-foresting efforts and going all out for rock dust all on its own because lobiusmoop on Slashdot says so without citing any proof. However, if pulverised rock does help improve soil quality in some way and the carbon footprint of pulverising rock does not outweigh the benefits as a carbon sink I don't mind people using it. The point here is that showing up in a puff of smoke like you did and yelling at people for suggesting that planting trees might be a good idea is an act that in it self does nothing but make you look stupid, especially because TFA which you obviously didn't read says, and I quote:
“Planting trees is an excellent option for CO2 removal but is not sufficient on its own,” said the scientists. [Because of the sheer quantity of CO2 already in the atmosphere and the time frame in which it needs to be removed, i.e. by 2050]
Basalt is preferred for ERW as it contains the calcium and magnesium needed to capture CO2, as well as silica and nutrients such as potassium and iron, which are often deficient in intensively farmed soils.
Some farmers in south-east Asia already use it to boost depleted silica in rice fields, while trials in the Netherlands are using it [Enhanced Rock Weathering, ERW] to boost tree planting. Most importantly, ERW reduces soil acidity, which already affects about 20% of arable fields around the world.
Re:You know what else... (Score:4, Informative)
carbon footprint of pulverising rock
Note that they suggest that adequate quantities of basalt dust are a byproduct of existing mining operations. One could make the argument that the mining operations have a negative footprint in general, but so long as the operations are happening anyway, if any byproduct can help mitigate things that sounds reasonable enough.
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Given the choice I'd pick re-planting wild forests any day of the week over abandoning re-foresting efforts and going all out for rock dust all on its own because lobiusmoop on Slashdot says so without citing any proof.
Nobody's talking about "abandoning re-foresting efforts", as far as I can see. Go ahead and re-plant all the wild forests you want, or encourage others to do it; I bet lobiusmoop wouldn't care, one way or the other. The proposal under discussion here is about spreading rock dust on farmland. My guess is that the farmers would not favor planting forests on their farms, but who knows -- you might be able to talk them into it.
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Some of the most effective carbon sinks are wild forests
Not really. Once they reach maturity, the rate of vegetation dying is balanced by the rate of its growth. And that dying represents CO2 being exhaled by the organisms rotting it. Otherwise our old growth forests would have amassed a carbon rich layer that has been increasing since the end of the last ice age. They don't. I can get through the top soil in a forest with a hand shovel.
The only credit a forest should get for sequestering carbon is the number of tons per year that can be hauled out on logging t
Re:You know what else... (Score:4, Insightful)
...removes CO2? Trees. Plants.
Correct.
And these organisms can produce tasty fruits, berries, and veggies.
Tasty? As soon as you eat those organisms, you free up that CO2 again.
And if these veggies happen to be beans, you might release something far worse for the climate [sciencedaily.com]...
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it seems obvious then, we need to start making more graphite, diamonds, nanotubes, and graphene. Get those nano-assemblers working on diamond and nanotube building materials instead of pine. Thats one way to permanently lock away the carbon.
Not quite (Score:2)
Not quite. You free up the carbon that was in the part of the plant that you ate. The rest of the plant (usually the roots) is still in the soil, made up of carbon. Also, the process of plants growing deposits carbon into the soil. So no, growing crops and harvesting them and eating them is not a net zero gain of sequestered carbon.
Re:You know what else... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, it removes CO2.
If you spread it on the fields it will mostly reduce part the CO2 that is emitted from decomposition of bio matter the soil.
That doesn't mean there won't be enough atmospheric CO2 left for the plants. That's the CO2 that matters most to plants, because photosynthesis, the process that involves splitting CO2 with the energy from sunlight, happens where cells containing chloroplasts are exposed to sunlight. Or maybe more specifically an energy source that emits EM radiation in the wavelengths that chlorophyll absorbs efficiently. And that usually happens to be the case for above the ground parts of the plant that are exposed to sunlight or other light sources that cover that spectrum.
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The problem is not only how to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but also how to keep it away from it. Plants are excellent at removing CO2, but then you must keep the CO2 fixed, either by leaving the plants in place, or by converting the mass to a more stable form. So, plants or algae would work, but you'd have to take your crops and bury them under a clay layer so that maybe in a few million years you'll have a new layer of crude oil. It's a bit of a hard sell.
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Freeman Dyson in 76 made an early calculation for what an emergency project would involve for capturing carbon with plants, and later followed it up with ideas on building up top soil to fix CO2, the point being that you don't just capture carbon in the short run but keep it captured.
I like the ideas very much but they are quite tricky. The CO2 often wants to get out again. You also can't count on them to be a sufficient approach by themselves.
Re:You know what else... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't follow what you're saying. As far as my understanding goes, with food crops we eat the good parts and poop out the remains. Sure, some of the CO2 gets freed up during this process but there's still plenty in our crap which then basically devolves into dirt. The left over bits from the food crops that we don't eat are then disposed of and decompose (assuming they aren't burnt. that would free up all of the carbon) which again would free up a bit of CO2 but the rest would devolve into basically dirt. In both cases CO2 is indeed "trapped".
Not claiming any expertise here mind you, that's just how I understand such systems work. Plus, I mean, I would certainly hope the scientists who wrote the paper this is based on and those who peer reviewed it (all of whom quite likely have far more expertise on this subject than either of us) wouldn't miss such a truly glaring error.
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Respiration in humans takes oxygen and combines it with sugars from the plant and produces energy and CO2. We also produce some methane in the digestion process but it's fairly negligible. Humans are pretty inefficient at this so some of the waste will be useful sugars (thereby locking up some of the carbon) but the whole point of digestion is to extract that stuff for use in the body. Once it is eliminated, it is further eaten by bacteria and other creatures in the environment who also emit CO2 and meth
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We need to do more than just trap CO2 in the soil. We've been pumping and mining large amounts of CO2 from deep underground and releasing it into the atmosphere for decades, and simply putting what little of it we can into the soil keeps it in the carbon cycle.
In the long term, we need to find a way to take CO2 back out of the carbon cycle. Make it inert like it was before the industrial revolution. Sequester it. Maybe we dig some really deep holes, fill them with trees, then cap the holes to keep oxygen ou
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Oh, absolutely this can't be the entire solution but it can certainly be part.
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Keep in mind they are saying this as an added part of how active farmland is treated. I presume basalt dust is considered at least a safe thing to add to farmland without reducing crop production.
To give up farmland to plant forest would be a much tougher sale than 'oh, use some basalt dust on your fields'
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It is much harder than that.
Do you want people to knock over your home to plant trees. Or force relocate you to the Desert. Yes this is the most extreame case however where we live and thrive is also in conflict where trees live and thrive.
While our forests should be protected against expansion especially unneeded expansion, and areas that are no longer being utilized should be reforested.
However you are not going to plant too many trees in the Mid West US where it is mostly planes and deserts. Also for y
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... and then your use of those plants (or just their decay) releases the CO2 back into the atmosphere. Capturing carbon this way does *not* sequester it except for a very short time.
Replacing a fossil fuel use with a renewable plant-based process *does* reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (e.g. biomass fuels), but you can't *offset* a ton of carbon you're emitting from fossil fuels by growing more plants, unless you lock away those plants somewhere.
Ocean fertilization works this way. You take a p
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1) Trees take far longer to grow and suck up CO2. This process takes months.
2) This isn't an either/or situation. Both can be done.
Yes, CO2 is a bottleneck (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, plants will grow noticeably faster if you have a source of CO2 in the greenhouse.
This is well known to many people who grow - um ... oregano.
Re: Yes, CO2 is a bottleneck (Score:2)
Re: Yes, CO2 is a bottleneck (Score:4, Informative)
Optimum CO2 level for plant growth is about 3X the atmospheric level. Obviously we wouldn't like that was much as the plants would.
https://bmcplantbiol.biomedcen... [biomedcentral.com].
Rock dust is good fertilizer; remineralize.org ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... has been saying this for decades: https://www.remineralize.org/ [remineralize.org]
"The brilliant, practical, natural, economic solution that is rock dust. REMINERALIZATION utilizes finely ground rock dust and sea-based minerals to restore soils and forests, produce higher yields and more nutritious food, and store carbon in soils to stabilize the climate.
Through our education and outreach, projects, research, and advocacy, Remineralize the Earth facilitates a worldwide movement that brings together gardeners and farmers, scientists and policymakers and the public to create better soils, better food, and a better planet.
"Remineralization is one of the most important missions on the planet at this time. Together, we can remineralize gardens, farms, landscapes, and forests. We can grow nutrient-dense food and improve the nutrition and well-being of all life. And in the larger picture, itâ(TM)s a key strategy to stabilize the climate!"(Joanna Campe, founder and executive director of Remineralize the Earth)"
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AFAIK the benefit of CO2 varies on the plant and the conditions.
Increasing CO2 helps plants to deal with water shortage better because they lose less water when capturing CO2.
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The drawback is that a lot of plants produce less nutritional value when growing in this mode. So for food crops, it's not such a great thing. For industrial feedstocks the benefits will be greater.
As long as the rock dust isn't full of contaminants and the energy economics of grinding and distributing it are sound, TFA sounds reasonable. With one of the proposed sources being mining, monitoring contamination to prevent some company from offloading a Hg laden batch or whatnot on unsuspecting farmers is a
Re:You know what else... (Score:5, Funny)
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But why does it have electrolytes?
No, it isn't. (Score:3)
Sunlight is generally the limiting factor, or water.
But one thing that plants do more of with excess CO2 is generate extra toxins to protect themselves from things that might eat them. Like, for instance, us.
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But one thing that plants do more of with excess CO2 is generate extra toxins to protect themselves from things that might eat them. Like, for instance, us.
I, for one, welcome our new plant overlords.
Re:You know what else... (Score:5, Informative)
The answer is complicated, but if you had to settle on a yes/no answer it would have be "no".
Increased carbon helps plants build carbohydrates and wood, which is a polymer of carbon-hydrogen-oxygen building blocks. However it won't help plants build more protein, which is limited by organic nitrogen. Additional carbon may increase crop mass, but the proportion of protein will drop. In natural systems additional carbon will tilt the ecological balance away from nitrogen-limited plants to carbon limited plants (e.g., poison ivy).
Adding carbon to soil again does help some plants, but not most because the main route of capturing carbon for plants is respiration. Adding nitrogen is more generally helpful because while atmospheric nitrogen is plentiful, plants naturally obtain their nitrogen as organic nitrogen molecules produced by soil bacteria.
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Water is not always that plentiful. Certainly not in California.
Plants need CO2, but not just CO2. If that were the case, Venus would probably be a lush rain forest.
Plants need a certain temperature range not too hot, not too cold. Plants need a certain amount of water, not too little, not too much, and at certain times. And all of this needs to be reasonably predictable. An unexpected one day freeze in Florida could wipe out billions of dollars worth of citrus crops.
The theory is: too much CO2 in the atmos
Re: You know what else... (Score:5, Informative)
That seems a bit of an oversimplification. Plants need the nutrients in specific forms and can't use other forms, even if they occur abundantly around them (e.g. nitrogen). Bacteria, fungi and other micro-organisms are the main converters of nutrients into forms which plants can absorb, while also obtaining some benefit from the plants back, e.g. sugars. Think "food web" rather than "food chain" or even "food cycle".
Take for instance mulching. We tend to think all it does is conserve moisture for longer and suppress weed germination. But in fact properly rotting plant material used as mulch (e.g. leaf mold) provides carbon-rich food and thus supports a diverse and numerous ecosystem of soil micro-organisms, which not only convert nutrients for the plants, but also build a rich, crumbly and aerated soil structure that is much better suited to plant growth.
Another awe-inspiring example is Terra Preta [wikipedia.org], where biochar (not to be confused with charcoal, although both are forms of nearly pure carbon) plays a large role. Biochar on its own is quite inert (as would charcoal be) and can survive unaltered for centuries in the ground. It however has a very "spongy" microstructure that has an extremely large surface area, thus providing lots of space for (a) organic molecules to be stored and slowly released, and (b) a substrate for bacteria to grow and multiply. You will read in the linked article that the carbon content of the soil actually increases over time, due to the bacteria multiplying then dying, thus leaving the carbon (etc.) in their bodies behind.
The rock dust would however provide additional mineral nutrients to the micro-organisms, and for the same reason many avid gardeners add it to their compost or beds.
Some of the problems with commercial agriculture is that it disturbs/destroys the "food web" by tilling, chemicals, and monoculture.
The 1000th suboptimal solution, yay (Score:4)
Re:The 1000th suboptimal solution, yay (Score:5, Funny)
Any solution which does not take the big picture into consideration is just a fancy way to shoot ourselves in the foot, again and again.
We need a way for complete recycling, otherwise we just generate another issue for later generations.
I guess it all depends on how many people you recycle.
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Any solution which does not take the big picture into consideration is just a fancy way to shoot ourselves in the foot, again and again. We need a way for complete recycling, otherwise we just generate another issue for later generations.
I guess it all depends on how many people you recycle.
Let's just make Soylent Green.
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Those would seem to be orthogonal problems to solve. Carbon sequestration versus consuming non-renewable resources. I'm sure there are people working toward your cited problem as well, but there are enough of us to work on more than one problem at a time.
Ouroboros (Score:5, Insightful)
So farmers add carbonates to fields in order that they react with acids, liberating CO2, and the proposal is that in addition they should add rocks which react with CO2 to form carbonates. Something about this idea seems off: it seems that it should be either counterproductive or energetically unfavourable. Am I missing something?
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You are missing that it's all a question of cost. Spreading limestone improves yields, i.e. reduces cost. But if we just pay them more than the limestone yields to spread something else they will.
Industries that produce CO2 will be willing to pay to offset their emissions with capture. Eventually they will have to if we are to reach net zero.
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So, a significant increase in food costs is what this comes down to? Yeah, that'll help everyone. Nothing like a famine to get people to focus on climate change, right?
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No, because if you're paying farmers it offsets their costs. It will increase gasoline and other fossil fuel prices because presumably that's where we'll get the money.
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Food costs and food prices are not the same thing. The government could make food free but that wouldn't mean there aren't costs.
Interestingly, you said "Spreading limestone improves yields, i.e. reduces cost." so you've used cost correctly before. Now you're just moving the goalposts.
Re:Ouroboros (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting, do we have some farming trolls here who don't like people pointing out that there are subsidies? I thought it was common knowledge that the cost of farm produce has little to do with the cost of production.
Re:Ouroboros (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the anti-global warming movement is comprised of several different factions. Some just want to stop global warming. Others (including many in the media) have an anti-oil agenda. So you may not have heard as much about this phenomenon as you should have, since it provides a potential solution without having to give up fossil fuels.
Facilitating the process above ground is something I hadn't heard of. I had thought the high pressures underground were a necessary component in the process. Without having read TFA, I'd hazard a guess that the pressure requirement is being obviated by greatly increasing the basalt's surface area by grinding it into powder. I'd be curious what the energy requirement of that is. And as you mention, the other problem with doing it above ground is that the resulting limestone can be converted back into CO2 [bgs.ac.uk] in the presence of acid rain. If you do it miles underground, it's stuck down there permanently.
The limestone acts more like a buffer, not as a base, preventing the acid from changing the pH until the limestone has all been used up. Not by turning the land basic so acid rain can't lower its pH below 7. So I doubt all the limestone would be converted back into CO2. If that were the case, there would be no more limestone left near the surface. It just means we would have to be more careful about preventing SO2 emissions (which cause acid rain).
Re:Ouroboros (Score:5, Informative)
It's nothing new as an idea. A decade, if not two, since I first saw people working out how much would be needed globally to offset current CO2 production and start reducing atmospheric levels and having an effect on the climate. Plus accounting for the transport of the basalt (lump or powder).
Where do you think this is? Slashdot?
Increased surface area increases the actual rate of the reaction, if not the rate at the molecular level. The reaction happening is the same as happens in weathering the surface of a cliff, but you make more surface area for the reaction to occur.
Fair question. It has been part of the discussion about this geoengineering technique for several decades. Which you wouldn't know, not having RTFA. Have you counted how much time you saved by not RingTFA compared to these exchanges? Might be worth doing that calculation. (See also my repeated assertions that reading journalist's write ups is a waste of time compared to reading the actual published papers - same argument.)
You also need to account for the energetic cost of moving the basalt (lump or powder) from the quarry to the plains where you're going to be spreading it, dispersing it over the land, etc. In Britain, where the Grauniad is based, basalt is mostly in the far NW islands, while the agricultural land (where the minerals certainly wouldn't hurt the soil fertility) is concentrated to the SE. That's about the worst distribution, and you'd need to make the redistribution efficient - trains, not trucks - to maximise the effect. But it's probably beneficial, even in this worst case.
Stop producing acid rain. Simples. Much of European industry has done this already - as far as point-source sulphuric acid goes. Dispersed sulphuric acid - from vehicle exhausts - is precisely why the production of diesel oil involves removal of sulphur compounds at the refinery. (If it's in a train wagon on the way to landfill or another chemical plant, then it's not acid rain.) Because sulphur-containing diesel is labelled at the station pump, and has the social cachet of wearing a fresh, bleeding seal cub stole on the Oscars red carpet, most refineries have been desulphuring their product as the equipment comes down for maintenance.
The remaining problems from acid rain are largely nitric acid (see - lean burn engines) and the irrelevant carbon dioxide. (It is irrelevant in an "acid rain releases CO2 from carbonates" discussion because one molecule goes in for each molecule that comes out.)
We have completely adequate reasons for not producing acid rain which are orthogonal to the climate effects of CO2.
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why wouldnt you want the ph below 7? most plants thrive where the ph is between 5.5 and 6.5 resulting in the highest nutrient absorption. Below 5 and above 7.5 and the plant finds itself in nutrient lockout.
Re:Ouroboros (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as the energy required to grind rock to powder, look up the Bond Work Index. Also be aware that size reduction is about 2% efficient. It's a big part of the cost of mineral processing.
Overall, natural weathering of the Rocky Mountains and the Himalayas are what brought the CO2 levels down from the mid-Pliocene levels to low enough to let the ice age start, so be careful what you wish for.
You know there are good reasons to be anti-oil (Score:2)
2. We're venting Helium off into the atmosphere to get at cheap natural gas. HE is used in all modern electronics and when we run out we're well and truly fucked.
3. We're heavily dependent on Mid East nations for oil supply, yes even though we produce enough for ourselves remember that if they stop producing the price skyrockets and the oil we produce will be sold overseas for higher profits, driving up th
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Natural rock weathering is one of the main carbon sinks on the planet, along with sequestration of organic matter on the ocean floor. It's why our volcanoes didn't turn us into Venus long before people came along.
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Looking at the moderation on this thread there are definitely some shills with mod points. Oil shills or farming shills? Hard to say.
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Why not both? Most of the farmers I know love their big trucks and are pretty sure climate change is a conspiracy of some kind.
Which is ironic when most conversations include something along the lines of "it just doesn't get cold like it used to" or "the rain/runoff just isn't reliable like it used to be."
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Chemistry?
Rain (H2O) absorbs CO2 on it's way down, forming some carbonic acid (H2CO3). This reacts with the limestone (CaCO3) to form calcium bicarbonate [Ca(HCO3)2]. The CO2 goes into the *bi*carbonate, not back into the atmosphere.
Basalt appears to chemically weather through a process where it releasts Ca, which then binds with CO2 (and oxygen) to form CaCO3, and then you're at the start of part 1.
Limestone? (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure if the author was implying limestone spread by farmers would do the job but it most certainly won't. In fact quite the opposite - its slowly dissolved by the mild acid in rainwater and is converted back to calcium oxide and CO2.
As for other rock types , as usual it will only work if the CO2 generated in producing and transporting the dust is less than the amount of CO2 is absords. I'm not convinced the difference will be significant or even +ve.
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The Nature article references this, in terms of reduced efficacy. It also mentions that the reason why limestone is used is that intensive farming leads to the acidification of the soil. As to the cost of the techniques- they are also discussed in the environmental economics model. If you don't have access to Nature, I suspect you can get to the article via sci-hub.
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Odd, I'd have thought that ammonium based fertilizers would have made the soil more alkaline. Shows what I know about farming :)
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The poster above has misread the article.
The article notes that spreading rock dust on fields is already done - they spread limestone to reduce soil acidity. But limestone doesn't capture carbon - as others stated, it releases it.
The suggestion here is that we (also or instead) spread igneous rocket dust - basalt or granite. When these rocks break down, they do absorb carbon from the air, creating carbonates in the soil, as well as lots of other minerals, and more topsoil, too.
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Youre confusing limestone with lime. Limestone isn't used in cement directly , its converted to calcium oxide (lime) first by heating which releases huge amounts of CO2
Re:Limestone? (Score:4)
The energy emissions in mining, grinding and transporting many tonnes of basalt are a significant part of the equation. You need to be as efficient as possible in those steps, but anyone who designs a new industrial process without making it as efficient as possible is an idiot, wasting his (or her - chemical engineering is a profession which doesn't require a penis) employer's money. That's generally an incentive to efficiency.
Putting the basalt (gravel or dust) on trains for the majority of the necessary transport distance, and (electric) trucks from railhead to point-of-use are obvious "low-hanging fruit" for maximising the benefits of such a strategy.
What's the cost? (Score:4, Interesting)
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A lot of that will be energy cost, as it's mining. "energy cost" is measured in $/barrel of oil, so I smell BS.
How much is 0.5 to 2 gigatonnes of CO2 compared to current emission levels? Not a lot, maybe around 5%:
https://www.climate.gov/sites/... [climate.gov]
"Vast amounts", yes, but compares
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TFA doesn't mention the costs- but the Science article does go into the calculations quite extensively. If you don't want to sign up for Science- I suspect you can get the article via sci-hub.
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If it was proper science they'd have done the calculations on the net absorbtion of CO2 based on A, B & C factors. I don't have access to the original article but given its not mentioned in the summary I suspect they haven't and its more a case of might, maybe, possibly, perhaps.
Make no mistake (Score:2)
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Or maybe it's a scheme by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson trying to dust off his wrestling gear and to return to wrestling after he heard that The Undertaker is quitting.
Tread carefully (Score:2)
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Old process, new variation, for new reasons.
Its a Band Aid (Score:2)
The title really says it all but
we cannot combat a problem caused by irresponsible use of our planets resources (fossil fuels) with that of another.
We have about 5yrs left to get to carbon net zero. The carbon in our atmosphere that is causing global heating is from historic emissions. That which we are emitting today ( at an increasing rate ) hasnt even begun to take effect yet.
We are on track for a 4 degree average Global Temperature rise which will result in catastrophic loss of life. Since 1970 over 60
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We are on track for a 4 degree average Global Temperature rise which will result in catastrophic loss of life
Sounds like an effective CO2 mitigation strategy to me.
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Unfortunately not - as i explained in the original post. The Co2 in the atmosphere thats causing Global heating is historical it takes around 30yrs for todays emissions to contribute to this process. If we do nothing and throw caution to the wind as you suggest, it wont mitigate anything at all. 4 degrees is the point of no return - the point at which the carbon that is sequestered in the soil and under the permafrost gets added into the mix.
Re: Its a Band Aid (Score:2)
As expected. Can not explain. Does not compute! Frzzzt! Down mod! Down mod! Frrrzzzzzzzzt! Head explodes. Bye AC. Hardly knew you.
Whats the deal with The Guardian wanting to dump (Score:2)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jul/18/iron-sea-carbon
Lets dump things, in spite of the inherent drawbacks to the plan! In this case it's changing fields PH balance in spite of the crops, in the Iron fertilization it's in spite of the deep sea oxygen levels possibly killing off life there.
What about pH balance? (Score:2)
Experience tells me that when you reduce a lump of solid matter to a dust, you massively increase the surface area relative to the volume, a condition which accelerates the ability of water to dissolve the substance. (This is why, if you were unable to swallow medicine tablets as a kid, one of your parents would crush a tablet between two tea spoons, stir it in to a g
Carbonic acid is the point (Score:2)
CO2 is absorbed into the rain to create carbonic acid, which reacts with the rock minerals to create carbonates, which are weakly alkaline. So it wouldn't have the instant effect that spreading limestone would, but it would slowly sweeten the soil
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Depending on the medication, your parents (well, the generic parents, not necessarily your parents) could well have killed you.
Many medications are dispensed in quite closely engineered packages (pills) designed to release their component into the bloodstream (via digestive juices) over a period of hours, not ov
and if you breath in that dust ...? (Score:2)
The danger of using fear to preach change is that you get ideas like this that just might be adopted if people are scared enough.
We are humans. We will either change our wasteful ways or adapt to the new normal. We've been doing it for millennia and we will continue to do so.
We should care more for rain forests (Score:2)
I'd already be happy if they left the rain forests standing, but as long as they keep cutting and burning them down are all these new solutions only painful to watch.
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Meanwhile, we have people bitching about grocery shopping with plastic bags.
If you'd seen the trees in Mexico choked to death by being covered with plastic shopping bags, you might bitch about them too.
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why are mexicans such filthy litter bugs?
they just throw shit on the ground wherever they are, there are no trash cans anywhere
Then why is concrete production a problem? (Score:2)
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Great way to kill farmland (Score:4, Insightful)
Any amount of acidity and those carbonates will release the co2 and leave behind SALT. Salt is something hard to remove from land and is toxic to most crops.
This is a foolish plan. Leave the basalt dust where it is - it can soak up co2 at the foot of volcanoes.
Yes lets salt the earth (Score:2)
what could possibly go wrong
Transport - Sounds nice but... (Score:3)
Sounds nice but rock is heavy. Heavy things require more energy to move. So I hope someone is taking into account how much CO2 would be produced gathering up all this mining waste and transporting it to fields all around the country and spreading it.
If it still comes out negative then great!
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Spread out on fields is useful for increasing the absorption surface area. But there are other ways to do this. Perhaps nearer the rock dust sources. As someone else pointed out, a byproduct of this will be salt. So keeping the process confined to locations where this salt may easily be dealt with is also a factor.
Famously fertile vocanic soil (Score:2)
So, basalt is -- quickly cooled magma from ancient volcanic eruptions.
Volcanic soils are well known for fertility, which is why people have historically insisted on farming the slopes of volcanoes in the face of the risk of getting blown up/incinerated/burned alive/asphyxiated/all of the above.
This is probably due to the availability of a whole lot of beneficial trace minerals in the soil.
So, it's fairly probable that this will result in better crop yields in general. Plus, as it's natural rock, and not "c
Why not use this on flu gas? (Score:3)
Why spread it on fields? Why not use it to capture CO2 at the source? Coal power plant or concrete works?
Heavy metal pollution? (Score:2)
China in particular has some hideous heavy metal pollution in their farmland from industrial activity/burning coal. Can some of these "rock dust" techniques pick up heavy metals in the process of decaying into carbonates?
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Can you find the fault in this logic yourself? If yes, congratulations. You are above the average green activist.
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Sounds like the 'green capitalism' approach to me which is dominating the climate activism discourse these days.
Instead of 100,000 old style cars in your city you replace them with 200,000 electric cars , save capitalism, and convince yourself the planet is better off now.
It doesn't work.
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Re: Sounds good. (Score:4, Funny)
You're too late. My Baby Seal Straws are a hugely successful seller and I've already applied for the global patent and trademarks for the upcoming release of Happy Baby Whale straws, too. We're launching those in a deal with Disney's next Free Willy sequel.
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want boys in your yard? because that's how you bring the boys to your yard.
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Damn. I like the cut of your gib, but you are a little violent.