Dear all, I have no real expertise on that, but I'd like to add a word of caution: Have you ever added some fine-grained powder to a liquid oversaturated with a gas? You get a lot of bubbles quickly. The result could well be that the grains trigger a spontaneous ebullition of the CO2 before it has time to react with the olivine. That would be catastrophic, so even if the chance is very low I'd rather be cautious.
Best regards, Christoph On 1/3/15 2:22 PM, Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) wrote: > > Dear All, > > Andrew suggested that I should share this discussion with the group > on whether to emit the CO2 from that acid lake in Spain to the > atmosphere, or capture it as bicarbonate by adding fine-grained > olivine to the lake, while at the same time reduce its acidity, Olaf > Schuiling > > > > *From:*Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) > *Sent:* vrijdag 2 januari 2015 12:23 > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* emitting or capturing CO2 > > > > Dear Andrew > > Just a few additional data on olivine use instead of degassing. I have > no money to carry out full-scale field experiments, so I am limited to > the following. > > 1. There is an olivine mine (the PASEK mine) in NW Spain, close > to the sea, with a harbor for small (up to 8.000 tons) freighters. > They have no clients for their finest fraction, which would be > excellent for the acid lake, so they have to store it back in their > own mine (slight negative value!) > > 2. The acid lake is not easy to reach, but the river > Guadalquivir (navigable to Sevilla) makes it possible to bring that > olivine cheaply by ship not too far from the acid lake. > > 3. I have done experiments with a well-known table water (Spa > red), bottled under CO2 pressure. Its starting pH was 3.9. After > passing through a tube filled with medium sized olivine grains (a > passage that took somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes), the pH had > risen to 8.2! > > 4. When the lake is neutralized this way, the reaction will also > release some silica in solution. This will attract siliceous algae > (diatoms), a favorite fish food, so the lake may become a favorite > spot for fishing after treatment, and it will also have become > suitable for irrigation in dry summers. > > 5. I attach a paper describing the experiment of converting a > CO2 rich table water into a healthy magnesium bicarbonate mineral > water. (Schuiling, R.D., Hogesteger, A.W. and Praagman, E.(2011) From > Spa to Corinth, a road to CO2 sequestration) > > > > I think we should use any way to reduce CO2 emissions, so capturing > CO2 instead of freely emitting it should normally be preferred, Olaf > Schuiling > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Christoph Voelker Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research Am Handelshafen 12 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany e: [email protected] t: +49 471 4831 1848 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
