Carbon Dioxide Removal: Mineralization | Climate Now Ep. 2.7

There are several methods of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - both natural and technological - and each method has its tradeoffs.

Carbon mineralization is the most secure option for #carbondioxideremoval (CDR) as it permanently sequesters CO2 in the crystal structure of minerals.

But the natural mineralization process is too slow to keep pace with the rate of manmade #CO2emissions. So scientists are finding ways to speed up the process.

In Climate Now's latest episode of our series on carbon dioxide removal strategies, we explore how the #mineralization process works and how it can be enhanced to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale to help mitigate climate change.

Chapters:
00:00 - Mineralization for Carbon Dioxide Removal
01:54 - How Mineralization Works
04:20 - How to Enhance Mineralization
06:45 - Mineralization Strategies: Ex Situ
08:30 - Pol Knops and Green Minerals
09:50 - Enhanced Weathering
11:15 - Mineralization Strategies: In Situ (Carbfix example)

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Transcript:
10 billion tonnes a year. That is how much carbon dioxide we will likely need to remove from the atmosphere every year by 2050 to avoid catastrophic changes to our climate. By 2100, we will need to remove 20 billion tons per year. And we have some choices in how we remove this CO2, as we describe in our introductory video on Carbon Dioxide Removal. But the technique we choose will invariably require a trade-off:

We can choose the most cost-efficient options, or we can choose those methods that will come with the strongest guarantee of long-term CO2 storage. In this video, we focus on the most secure of CDR options: Mineralization.

Mineralization is like the holy grail of CDR technologies because it traps CO2 into the crystal structure of minerals, thereby permanently sequestering it from the atmosphere. Every other proposed reservoir for CO2 storage comes with some risk of impermanence:

Forests can burn or be destroyed by pests. Soils that are cultivated to hold more CO2 will lose it again if land users revert to earlier, more destructive practices.

Even storage of CO2 in the pore spaces of underground geologic formations could escape through abandoned wells or along fractures in the rocks.

But with mineralization, CO2 becomes a part of a rock. There is nearly zero risk of it being re-released to the atmosphere. So let’s dig deeper into the technology – how does it work? And how feasible is it to develop this method as a major pillar of carbon dioxide removal?

Removing CO2 from the atmosphere through mineralization is NOT a novel technique. In fact, it is as old as the Earth itself. Mineralization is the primary mechanism by which the planet regulates atmospheric CO2 over timescales of millions of years.

Whenever it rains, CO2 in the atmosphere reacts with water in raindrops, forming a compound called carbonic acid.

As the rain lands on Earth’s surface, the carbonic acid reacts with exposed rocks, slowly dissolving the minerals by breaking them down into their metal components. Those dissolved components then get carried by runoff and river water, and are ultimately released into the ocean. And because seawater has a slightly basic pH, when these dissolved metals enter the ocean, they react with carbon dioxide in the ocean to form a carbonate mineral, trapping the CO2 into the mineral structure...

Full Transcript: https://bit.ly/3yU0JsA