On the other hand, if your are going to react CO2 with silicates wouldn't it be more useful/beneficial to do so such that the generated alkalinity could be added to the ocean to help offset ocean acidification? Forming the(bi)carbonates directly in the ground bypasses the ocean, which is typically the recipient and beneficiary of natural silicate weathering. Granted there could be undesirable effects of this, but it would be easy enough to find out via small scale experiments, plus learn from the impacts of previous, natural, global ocean alkalization events in the past. Greg -------------------------------------------- On Tue, 8/11/15, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote:
Subject: [geo] European Commission : CORDIS : Projects & Results Service : Final Report Summary - CARBFIX (Creating the technology for safe, long-term carbon storage in the subsurface) To: "geoengineering" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, August 11, 2015, 12:53 AM http://cordis.europa.eu/result/rcn/161070_en.html CARBFIX Report Summary Project reference: 283148 Funded under: FP7-ENERGY Final Report Summary - CARBFIX (Creating the technology for safe, long-term carbon storage in the subsurface) [Print to PDF] [Print to RTF] Executive Summary: Members of the CarbFix project have over the past three years developed the technology and expertise to capture, transport and geologically store CO2 as carbonate minerals through in-situ carbonation in the subsurface. This knowledge has furthermore been demonstrated at the pilot scale at Hellisheidi power plant, SW-Iceland, where a pilot gas separation station, pipes for transport and injection and monitoring infrastructure was successfully built and operated. CarbFix differs from many current carbon storage projects in several important aspects. First, it aims to provide a complete carbon capture, transport and storage (CCS) solution at a single operating power-plant. Second, in contrast to most projects, CarbFix aims at storing carbon by accelerating the transformation of CO2 into stable carbonate minerals (e.g. calcite) as rapidly as possible. Because calcite is stable over millions of years, once CO2 is transformed into carbonate minerals, there is little need for further monitoring. One can ‘walk away’ from the storage site. To accelerate this transformation, CarbFix developed and adopted a unique approach. Most subsurface carbon storage projects until now have injected supercritical CO2 into large sedimentary basins (Figure 1 a). Recent work has suggested that the transformation of CO2 to carbonate minerals in such systems takes tens of thousands of years or more, if it occurs at all (Figure 2). This is because of the slow reactivity of silicate minerals in sedimentary rocks and the lack of the calcium, magnesium, and iron that are necessary for making carbonate minerals. The alternative method developed by CarbFix is to dissolve the CO2 in water prior to or during injection into a basalt hosted reservoir to make it much more reactive with the basaltic host rock (Figure 1 b). Injection of carbon dioxide into basaltic rocks has several advantages. First, approximately 25 weight percent of basalt is made of calcium, magnesium, and iron oxides. Second, basaltic rocks are far more reactive than sedimentary silicate rocks, meaning that the metals contained in basalts are more readily available to combine with injected CO2 to form carbonate minerals. Third, basaltic rocks are abundant on the Earth´s surface with about 10% of the continents and much of the ocean floor comprised of basalt. These advantages suggest that basalt carbonation could be an important carbon storage solution for the future. In this project, we have demonstrated that: • Solubility trapping of CO2 occurs immediately • Injected carbon is trapped in minerals within a few years using the CarbFix injection method in basalt hosted storage reservoirs (Figure 1 b) These results suggest that the CarbFix method can change the time scale of mineral carbon trapping considerably. -- 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. -- 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.
