Gov To Fight a Possible DNA Threat

Turn Waste CO² Into Stone. Wait a Fracking Minute.

Energy.gov

BBC reports that scientists think “think they have found a smart way to constrain carbon dioxide emissions – just turn them to stone.”

The process the researchers explain in a Science magazine article is to inject water and CO² ”into basaltic rocks, providing a potentially valuable way to undo some of the damage done by fossil fuel burning.”

Basaltic rock is found on every continent, and under the ocean. The surprise, researchers said, was that the process of turning CO² into limestone only takes a few months.

The study’s co-author Martin Stute, from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said “In the future, we could think of using this for power plants in places where there’s a lot of basalt – and there are many such places.”

Problems

The CarbFix Project process has impediments. There was no mention of the potential of triggering earthquakes, as has happened when wastewater is injected in the earth as part of the fracking process.

Capturing CO² is expensive. There is no infrastructure for the project. Lots of water is needed, and every area with basaltic rock is different.