Can anyone shed any light on whether there are already large opencast mining operations in the world with significant amounts of olivine-rich overburden?
If that's the case, they'll already have all the necessary mining and transport equipment in place. Furthermore, dumping the overburden is a massive headache for miners. CDR could solve this. Getting rid of overburden olivine by marine dumping for CDR could be like the EOR of the oil industry. Combining it with erosion reduction would make this a win-win operation. Any coal mine with a 3:1 ratio of overburden to coal becomes carbon neutral, and metal ore mines become massively carbon negative. A On 27 Jan 2015 16:42, "Mike MacCracken" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Greg—The flaw in both of our arguments seems to be our assumption > that the world is rational. Right now there are tremendous opportunities > for cost-effective (i.e., few-year payback) efficiency steps and yet, as > noted in a CEO survey in the news yesterday, despite the clear risk and the > opportunities to do something about it, the surveyed CEOs don’t seem to > think this is a significant issue. There are also tremendous opportunities > to slow the warming by cutting short-lived species—all quite > straightforward and with many co-benefits to health, air quality, biomass > preservation and more—maybe the world is moving slowly to eventually do > that. Fortunately, the cost of renewables/alternative energy sources is > coming down so that change is starting, but lots more could be done that is > cost effective (witness solar panels on my roof giving me a 9+% guaranteed > after tax return on investment) and there is just not a real sense of > urgency even though the Social Cost of Carbon studies (not just the new one > in Nature) show an external cost of order $200/ton of CO2. Where is > rationality in all of this? In a rational world, lots would be going on in > mitigation and then there would still be value in pulling CO2 lower, and > augmented weatherization would be then a really key step (certainly worth > researching, but given all the cost effective opportunities right now not > being taken advantage of, diverting money to go forward with mineral > weathering seems to me a diversion of money form the most cost effective > approaches). So, my problem is not with air CO2 management in concept, just > that it would be so much more cost effective not to put the CO2 into the > air in the first place. > > Mike > > On 1/26/15, 11:27 PM, "Greg Rau" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Mike et al., > I don't think anyone is asking mineral weathering to singlehandedly solve > the problem, though the fact that it can and will naturally solve the > problem given enough time means it does have the proven capacity to do so, > unlike any other CDR scheme I am aware of. How much accelerated weathering > we do does largely come down to extraction, processing, and movement of > mineral mass. Yes, Gt's of CO2 mitigation does require Gt's of mineral, > but why is this necessarily a showstopper if we fail to stabilize CO2 by > other means? We currently extract about 2.5 Gt of minerals/yr. Is it > unthinkable that we wouldn't/couldn't double or triple this in the interest > of helping to stabilize air CO2, climate and ocean acidity? Or would you > prefer to impact vastly larger land areas and potentially disrupt food and > fiber production by employing IPCC-endorsed BECCS or afforestation? All > methods of air CO2 management have benefits, costs, impacts, and > tradeoffs. Let's hope that we invest in the research to well understand > these for all of the CO2 management options available, and that we then > make rational decisions on their deployment (in time) based on this info. > Given the decisions and endorsements made so far, I'm not holding my > breath. Hence, looking forward to that private resilience session in Paris. > Greg > > > > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Mike MacCracken <[email protected]> > *To:* Geoengineering <[email protected]> > *Cc:* Andrew Lockley <[email protected]>; Bill Stahl < > [email protected]> > *Sent:* Monday, January 26, 2015 5:09 PM > *Subject:* Re: [geo] Re: Energy Planning and Decarbonization Technology > | The Energy Collective > > > > Re: [geo] Re: Energy Planning and Decarbonization Technology | The Energy > Collective > Here is another way to think of the amount of mass being talked about. The > global average per capita use of carbon today is of order 9. GtC/yr/7B > people, so about 1.3 ton per person of carbon. Multiply by 3.67 to get to > CO2, and it is about 5 t CO2 per person. Would olivine be an equal mass (or > a bit more to match mole to mole)? That is a lot of olivine—and for every > person on Earth to deal with present emissions—even if this is off by a > factor of a few!!! Every person on Earth—not just everyone on coastlines in > NJ or the US or the world. > > This is why we have to get global emissions down down, down and then also > be doing something like this. > > Mike > > > On 1/26/15, 5:36 PM, "Andrew Lockley" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Yes, placing olivine accurately is almost the exact equivalent of vacuum > dredging, but in reverse. > > You could dump it with a huge Panamax class vessel, but it you'd end up > with the drop too far from the shore, and probably too bunched up, too. > > With a smaller ship, like a dredger, you'd get the distribution you need. > Added to which, the materials handling costs are going to be almost exactly > right, because with dredging you're pulling material out of the sea in an > arbitrary but nearshore location, and moving it to the nearest port with a > rail head where you can get rid of it. > > It's olivine backwards. > > A > > On 26 Jan 2015 22:24, "Bill Stahl" <[email protected]> wrote: > > I hesitate to add to what is already a leviathan of a thread... but here > goes. > Assuming a carbon price were in effect, could coastal governments and > landowners offset the cost of beach enhancement & sand replacement with > CO2-sequestering sand? It would not have to optimally efficient to be > substantial. > On the face of it, getting permitted to use olivine on beaches seems a > huge hurdle, but there is a already a tremendous amount of stirring-up of > shallow coastal waters, budgeted and permitted. Transportation has already > been arranged. Based on my familiarity of the Jersey Shore, coastal towns > throw enough money at replacing sand that will quickly erode away, so why > not put it to some long-term use? (Perhaps Atlantic City's unemployed > croupiers can be sent out stirring the beaches). I have no idea how to > calculate the potential scale, but perhaps this has already been done. > > Convince homeowners' associations to link CDR to property values and > you've harnessed an unstoppable force... > > And is dredging relevant here? Talk about mass-handling. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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