Interesting answers about geoengineering, the anthropocene and climate change; at the end of this recent interview on truthout.
He also, I presume, would be ok with afforestation; a form of geoengineering.
Extracts from:
The Legacy of the Obama Administration: An Interview With Noam Chomsky
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36260-a-mixed-story-ranging-from-criminal-to-moderate-improvement-noam-chomsky-on-obama-s-legacy
What do you think of certain geoengineering undertakings to clean up the environment, such as the use of carbon negative technologies to suck carbon from the air?
These undertakings have to be evaluated with great care, paying attention to issues ranging from narrowly technical ones to large-scale societal and environmental impacts that could be quite complex and poorly understood. Sucking carbon from the air is done all the time -- planting forests -- and can presumably be carried considerably further to good effect, but I don't have the special knowledge required to provide definite answers. Other more exotic proposals have to be considered on their own merits -- and with due caution.
I thought very interesting also, the answer to the previous question:
You have argued that nuclear weapons and climate change represent the two biggest threats facing humankind. In your view, is climate change a direct effect of capitalism, the view taken by someone like Naomi Klein, or related to humanity and progress in general, a view embraced by the British philosopher John Gray?
Geologists divide planetary history into eras. The Pleistocene lasted millions of years, followed by the Holocene, which began at about the time of the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago and recently the Anthropocene, corresponding to the era of industrialization. What we call "capitalism," in practice various varieties of state-capitalism, tends in part to keep to market principles that ignore non-market factors in transactions: so-called externalities, the cost to Tom if Bill and Harry make a transaction. That is always a serious problem, like systemic risk in the financial system, in which case the taxpayer is called upon to patch up the "market failures." Another externality is destruction of the environment -- but in this case the taxpayer cannot step in to restore the system. It's not a matter of "humanity and progress," but rather of a particular form of social and economic development, which need not be specifically capitalist; the authoritarian Russian statist (not socialist) system was even worse. There are important steps that can be taken within existing systems (carbon tax, alternative energy, conservation, etc.), and they should be pursued as much as possible, along with efforts to reconstruct society and culture to serve human needs rather than power and profit.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Friday, June 10, 2016
Stonewalling Climate Change?
By Oscar A. Escobar
Florida, EE.UU. - Gt.
“Rapid carbon
mineralization for permanent disposal of anthropogenic carbon dioxide
emissions”
Juerg M. Matter et al.Science 10 Jun 2016: Vol. 352, Issue 6291, pp. 1312-1314 DOI: 10.1126/science.aad8132
Abstract
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) provides a solution toward decarbonization of the global economy. The success of this solution depends on the ability to safely and permanently store CO2. This study demonstrates for the first time the permanent disposal of CO2 as environmentally benign carbonate minerals in basaltic rocks. We find that over 95% of the CO2 injected into the CarbFix site in Iceland was mineralized to carbonate minerals in less than 2 years. This result contrasts with the common view that the immobilization of CO2 as carbonate minerals within geologic reservoirs takes several hundreds to thousands of years. Our results, therefore, demonstrate that the safe long-term storage of anthropogenic CO2 emissions through mineralization can be far faster than previously postulated.
I don’t usually
write about carbon capture geoengineering, but this report on a
carbon capture and storage technology seems to have been received with measured
enthusiasm (by media standards) in the science and media communities.
Enthusiasm because…
“The results of this study demonstrate that nearly complete in situ CO2 mineralization in basaltic rocks can occur in less than 2 years. Once stored within carbonate minerals, the leakage risk is eliminated and any monitoring program of the storage site can be significantly reduced, thus enhancing storage security and potentially public acceptance.” 1
“The Hellisheidi operation has an advantage in that it largely uses the plant's existing infrastructure to reinject the solution, and doesn't bother purifying the CO2. Its cost is only $30 a ton, said Aradottir.” 2
“Measured”
enthusiasm because…
“The main stumbling block beyond the needed basalt, he said, is the water required—about 25 tons for every ton of CO2.” 2
“Another possible hitch: a separate study out this May identified subterranean microbes that seem capable of feeding off carbonate minerals and using them to release methane, a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon dioxide. That means nature could sneak in and reverse the solidification process. Such microbes were thought to exist only on the deep ocean floor, but researchers found them in a California spring. Microbiologists from the Paris Institute of Earth Physics have already started studying underground microbes at the Carbfix site to investigate how they might interact with the carbon in injection.” 2
An interesting
perspective would be... how will this ‘breakthrough’ play out in
the larger energy issue.
Will this technology, whether it proves
effective or not at ‘stonewalling’ climate change, have the side
effect of stonewalling renewable energy also?
I hope it really works! And that at the same time, it does not hinder the transition to renewables as the main source of energy on the global scale.
Sources:
[1]
“Rapid carbon
mineralization for permanent disposal of anthropogenic carbon dioxide
emissions”
[2]
In a first,
Iceland power plant turns carbon emissions to stone
Ps.
Best lines yet on a media article:
"By burying CO2 in the right sort of rock, a team of alchemists led by Juerg Matter, a geologist at Southampton University, in Britain, was able to transmute it into stone."
From the Economist:
Turning air into stone
More Media
Responses:
Quickfire carbon
capture method turns CO2 into solid rock within two years
Gizmag
Carbon capture and
storage, or carbon sequestration, is one approach proposed to offset
mounting C02 emissions, but the possibility of gas seeping out and
escaping into the atmosphere is one of the factors holding the
technology back. Researchers have ...
Iceland Carbon
Capture Project Quickly Converts Carbon Dioxide Into Stone
Smithsonian
Most conventional
carbon capture and storage projects inject liquefied carbon dioxide
into sedimentary rocks, the type of rocks in which oil and natural
gas are found. Because oil and gas companies have so much experience
working with these types of ...
Iceland Carbon
Dioxide Storage Project Locks Away Gas, and Fast
New York Times
For years,
scientists and others concerned about climate change have been
talking about the need for carbon capture and sequestration. That is
the term for removing carbon dioxide from, say, a coal-burning power
plant's smokestack and pumping it deep ...
A Power Plant in
Iceland Has Turned Its CO 2 Into Stone
WIRED
Practical-minded
environmentalists and coal sympathizers alike have long touted carbon
capture and underground storage as a low-emissions way to help the
world's economy wean itself off fossil fuels. But extracting the
troublesome greenhouse gas from ...
Iceland carbon
capture project turns CO2 into stone
The World Weekly
Other experiments
have seen pure carbon dioxide injected into sandstone or deep salty
aquifers, and have relied on layers of impermeable rocks to contain
the stored gas. However, it had always been feared that the carbon
dioxide would eventually find a ...
Turning air into
stone
The Economist
One idea, carbon
capture and storage (CCS), involves collecting the gas from power
stations and factories and burying it underground where it can do no
harm. But CCS is expensive and mostly untried. One worry is whether
the buried gas will stay put.
CO2 turned into
stone in Iceland in climate change breakthrough
The Guardian
Such carbon capture
and storage (CCS) is thought to be essential to halting global
warming, but existing projects store the CO2 as a gas and concerns
about costs and potential leakage have halted some plans. The new
research pumped CO2 into the ...
This Iceland plant
just turned carbon dioxide into solid rock — and they did it super
fast
Washington Post
Other experts
involved in the carbon capture and sequestration hailed the results
reported by the group Thursday. “Carbon storage is a critical piece
of the global initiative to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and
realization of the Mission ...
Scientists turn
carbon dioxide into stone to combat global warming
The Verge
Researchers have
developed a way to capture and store carbon dioxide by turning it
into stone. Their technique, described in a paper published this week
in the journal Science, could provide a safer, faster way to
sequester CO2 and limit global warming.
Iceland Is Turning
Carbon Emissions Into Stone
TakePart
“It's a way of
storing carbon dioxide underground that prior to this research was
thought to be too slow to be useful.” When researchers and policy
makers talk about carbon capture, they're usually referring to
injecting pure carbon dioxide into the ...
Scientists Turn
Carbon Dioxide Emissions into Stone
Scientific American
For the first time,
carbon dioxide emissions from an electric power plant have been
captured, pumped underground and solidified—the first step toward
safe carbon capture and storage, according to a paper published
Thursday in the journal Science.
Scientists turn
chief global warming gas into harmless stone
CBC.ca
"Carbon capture
is not the silver bullet, but it can contribute significantly to
reducing carbon dioxide emissions," Matter said. However, carbon
capture can be expensive — especially the capturing part. Once the
gas is grabbed from the air, storing ...
Climate change
breakthrough as Iceland turns carbon dioxide into stone
The Independent
Even more
surprisingly, after only two years scientists found 95 per cent of
the gas was captured and converted, far quicker than initial
predictions, which suggested the carbon capture and storage (CCS)
process could take thousands or even hundreds of ...
Turning Carbon
Dioxide Into Stone
Undark Magazine
Writing in the
journal Science, an international team of researchers suggested that
this form of what's known as carbon capture and storage (sometimes
called carbon capture and sequestration, or CSS) is not only
effective, but fast. Where previous ...
Scientists have
figured out how to turn CO2 into solid rock within months
ScienceAlert
Two of the biggest
problems with carbon capture have been its cost, and finding ways to
efficiently store or repurpose the CO2 once it's been extracted. But
now a new technique could drastically overhaul this method of
mitigating climate change ...
How to capture
carbon dioxide from a power plant and turn it into stone
Los Angeles Times
Deep in the
solidified lava beneath Iceland, scientists have managed an
unprecedented feat: They've taken carbon dioxide released by a power
plant and turned it into rock at a rate much faster than laboratory
tests predicted. The findings, described in ...
CarbFix turns a
power plant's CO2 emissions into rock
Engadget
Apparently, pumping
carbon dioxide into volcanic basalts is a pretty effective carbon
capture technique. Back in 2012, scientists began an experiment in
Iceland called the CarbFix Project. Since then, they've been
injecting tons of carbon dioxide waste ...
Researchers In
Iceland Are Showing Us How to Fix Carbon Emissions
Outside Magazine
This process—turning
earth-warming carbon dioxide into a solid instead of spewing it into
the atmosphere—is at the heart of what's called carbon capture and
sequestration (CCS) technology. CCS involves pumping CO2 from power
plants underground, ...
Climate change
mitigation: Turning carbon dioxide into rock
Science Daily
One approach is
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), where CO2 is physically removed
from the atmosphere and trapped underground. Geoengineers have long
explored the possibility of sealing CO2 gas in voids underground,
such as in abandoned oil and ...
New process converts
carbon emissions into rock
Science Recorder
This type of carbon
conversion is known as 'carbon capture and storage' (CCS). Many
officials are investigating the method as a way to try and mitigate
ever-climbing carbon dioxide emissions around the world. In past
experiments, researchers injected ...
Iceland turns carbon
dioxide to stone
Geographical
The need is great;
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in 2014 that
effective carbon capture and storage is crucial to the effort to
temper global warming. Out in the steaming hills of western Iceland,
the latest attempt has been to ...
Icelandic Experiment
Reports A Climate Change Breakthrough, Turns Carbon Dioxide To Stone
International
Business Times
The experiment,
carried out as part of the increased emphasis to find efficient
carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) techniques, successfully
converted gaseous carbon dioxide to stable carbonate minerals such as
calcite and magnesite. This was done ...
Scientists Turn CO2
Into Solid Rock
EcoWatch
Carbon capture and
sequestration (CCS) is a divisive issue in the climate and energy
community, but the scientists are confident that solidifying the gas
would prevent it from leaking back into the atmosphere, as is the
danger with many CCS methods.
Scientists turn
carbon dioxide to stone: a solution for global warming? (+video)
Christian Science
Monitor
Nature can turn
carbon dioxide into rock, but it takes thousands upon thousands of
years. Scientists in Iceland may have just figured out how to do it
in less than two. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) holds enormous
potential to slow climate change ...
Researchers Turn CO2
Into Stone in Climate Change Breakthrough
TIME
Other carbon capture
and storage (CCS) methods store CO2 as a gas, but problems include a
high cost and concern about leakage. This new method of burying CO2
and turning it into stone is cheaper and more secure, the Guardian
reports. To turn C02 to ...
Iceland Power Plant
Turns Carbon Dioxide Into Solid Rock
Tech Times
One problem with
capturing and storing carbon dioxide underground, for instance, is
that this may possibly result in the emissions seeping back into the
air or even exploding out. In a paper published in the journal
Science, researchers described the ...
Carbon emissions
turn to stone after two years underground
Cosmos
One way of tackling
carbon emissions from dirty coal-fired power plants is carbon capture
and storage, but amid high costs of capturing the carbon and safety
concerns surrounding sequestration, it has gained little large-scale
traction. And it's not ...
In Iceland,
Researchers Turn Carbon Dioxide To Stone
Wyoming Public Media
In what could prove
to be a major step forward for carbon capture and storage, a group of
researchers in Iceland have discovered how to turn carbon dioxide
emissions from a power plant into stone. Carbon capture and storage
is considered an important ...
A Power Plant in
Iceland Deals with Carbon Dioxide by Turning It into Rock
MIT Technology
Review
Lower costs aren't
necessarily enough to spur energy companies to adopt carbon capture
and storage technologies unless there is an additional economic
incentive in place, like a carbon tax. Matter says that framework is
missing. “Policy makers need to ...
How One Country Is
Making Rocks Out of Air Pollution
National Geographic
The research,
detailed Thursday in the journal Science, is part of a larger quest
to capture carbon at power plants and then store it underground.
Solidifying the carbon could reduce the risk of it leaking out into
the atmosphere, contributing to ...
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