In theory, rocks from Oman could store hundreds of years of human CO2 emissions

The best long-term carbon sequestration medium we have is wood.<p>It is the slow and unsexy algorithm of:<p>Plant trees, and then build things with them. Be careful not to burn them. Repeat

How dangerous is it to breathe in particulate matter from peridotite? There&#x27;s another approach to making sequestration within these rocks economical - we could use underground explosives to simultaneously disperse peridotite particles into the air and uncover formations that haven&#x27;t been exposed to CO2 yet. This would drastically increase the surface area and hence absorptive power of the rocks.<p>Even if this could be done in a manner that keeps the air safe to continue breathing, the other problem from doing too much of this is that it could increase the Earth&#x27;s albedo and have a global cooling effect (akin to when volcanic eruptions on earth have caused famines, skipped summers&#x2F;growing seasons). But in some ways, that may make this the perfect worst-case-scenario solution to runaway global warming. We could periodically use &quot;clean&quot; nuclear detonations to put enough particulates in the air to reduce the global temperature <i>and</i> sequester carbon. Once the particulates settle, if there is still too much CO2, we could do another round of detonations, etc.

It seems to me there is much promise in influencing the natural carbon cycle in these kind of ways. Apparently natural processes release and absorb about 800 gigatons of CO2 annually against human emissions of 29 gigatons or so, so there seems a lot of scope to try to tip the natural balance a few percent. Especially if we go carbon neutral and are then looking to reabsorb a bit.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.skepticalscience.com&#x2F;human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.skepticalscience.com&#x2F;human-co2-smaller-than-natu...</a>

I remember reading this article waiting for my haircut this morning.<p>Here was my biggest takeaway:<p>&gt; More realistically, he said, Oman could store at least a billion tons of CO2 annually. (Current yearly worldwide emissions are close to 40 billion tons.)<p>So we&#x27;re looking at 2.5% sequestration of what we&#x27;re <i>currently</i> adding, from the largest deposits in the world. Best case, realistically.<p>The whole thing sounds like a total non-starter.

Or, you know, maybe we could just emit less CO2 to start with.<p>To be clear, I&#x27;m all for research about carbon sequestration, but it should not be an excuse to keep polluting irresponsibly. On the long term, we simply can&#x27;t get away with compensating all our big negative impacts with big positive ones - how about introducing some moderation in our lifestyles instead?

&quot;Fake&quot; or rather misleading news!<p>So:<p>Geologists for a long time assumed the carbonates found with igneous rocks resulted from CO2 reacting with these igneous rocks were formed very very long ago.<p>A scientists uses carbon dating and discovers that the carbon in these carbonates was in fact formed relatively recently.<p>This should prompt 2 questions, but seemingly only prompted the first:<p>1) If unreacted pyroxenes and olivine in these rocks can capture CO2 to form carbonates relatively fast on geological timescales, can we help this natural process speed up?<p>Answer: yes, but unclear at what energetic cost, and unclear what to do with these carbonates afterwards.<p>2) WHERE do the carbonates end up, if the carbonates from older carbon are mysteriously MISSING???<p>Answer: reacting back to CO2 upon rainfall, or by erosion and weather ended up in seas and lakes!<p>One does not need rocks to create cabronates: simply expose water with CO2 and CO2 will both absorb as (CO2)_gas and also react with water to form carbonic acid H2CO3:<p>(H2O)l + (CO2)g &lt;=&gt; (H2CO3)l<p>If we take the resulting say magnesiumcarbonate from the rock that has captured CO2, and put it in water, it will first dissociate like all salts (metal, non-metal compounds) resulting in free mobile Magnesium ions and free mobile carbonate ions. You might as well just let CO2 in the air react with the sea acidifying it...<p>They pretend the carbonate form is a sink where we can dump our CO2, while in fact this very interpretation is inconsistent with the original discovery that the carbon in these carbonates is young. If it was truely stable the carbonates would predominantly contain old carbon.<p>So unless they have a plan to store these carbonates and protect it from rainfall, and prevent it from flowing into bigger bodies of water, I see no solution, only excuses to appear green such that banks can invest &quot;green money&quot; into these mining companies again, or perhaps to get &quot;green subsidies&quot; or perhaps to escape carbon taxes...

Plants are pretty good at capturing carbon, why would anyone want something more expensive and difficult?

It&#x27;s an intriguing idea. But you&#x27;d need to move humongous quantities of sone, air and water. Without releasing so much CO2 to negate advantages.

Could we do this on Venus to start terraforming?

Find a way to extract enough energy from this reaction (it has to be at least slightly exothermic) to pay for it, and we&#x27;re good.

I think Yogi Berra said it best:<p><i>In theory there is no difference between theory and practice - in practice there is</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Carbon_capture_and_storage#Mineral_storage" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Carbon_capture_and_storage#Min...</a>

It could store even more years&#x27; worth if we decrease our emissions.<p>I don&#x27;t mean a general &quot;we.&quot; I mean you, reading these words, and me. You can decrease your emissions, plastic pollution, etc. No technology needed. No loss in quality of life.