Capturing Carbon Dioxide From the Air

Rock with the power to heal the atmosphere…

A democracy — our democracy — heals as its citizens vote for candidates who maintain its (our) values.

A body — your body — heals as its cells regenerate to close a cut, cover an abrasion, join a fractured bone.

A planet — our planet — can also heal. It has the means.

We know that Earth’s atmosphere contains warming levels of carbon dioxide. Levels with the power to change our climate, as they’ve already done. Earth’s land — vast expanses of it — is made up of rock that reacts with carbon dioxide, removes it from the atmosphere, and turns it to stone….naturally. Direct-air capture, it’s called.

The land in question is peridotite, a kind of rock that contains magnesium. When magnesium comes in contact with carbon dioxide, it interacts with the gas and forms magnesium carbonate. You can see magnesium carbonate as thin light-colored stripes in the dark peridotite rock.

Peridotite is typically found below Earth’s crust. But in vast areas of Oman, California, Oregon, and Washington, peridotite exists at the surface. In Oman,  there’s enough peridotite on the surface to soak up about 100,000 tons of CO2 every year. That’s about the amount of carbon dioxide 10 million gallons of gasoline give off….!

The challenge is figuring out how to harness this natural process. Researchers from Columbia University and the University of Southampton in England predict that fracturing the rock or drilling into it to expose more surface area and/or jetting CO2 (captured from power plants) into the rock at high pressure can increase the speed of carbonation. Possibly to the point of sequestering 1 billion tons of CO2 per year in Oman alone, not the mention other places around the globe. While this process alone won’t balance the 30 or so billion tons of CO2 people use each year, it’s surely way better than we’re doing at the moment, and, combined with other approaches gives us a chance at slowing or arresting climate change.

Other approaches include using tailings, or mine waste, to absorb CO2; injecting carbon dioxide into volcanic rock, a project taking place in Iceland; and dispersing a crushed rock along coastlines.

A two to four year research project is needed before scientists determine whether projects like the one involving peridotite bring the needed results in a cost efficient way. The thing is: if we’re talking about survival of the planet as we know it, perhaps cost is not the most important criterion.

Perhaps the most important criterion is having success in healing our home.

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Days children and parents have been separated from each other at the border as of 8/1/18: 104