Scientists Discover How to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Stone
- Jun 19, 2016
- 1 min read
Turning the catalyst of much of climate change -- carbon dioxide emissions -- into harmless stone sounds like a bizarre fantasy plot, but a team of scientists have figured out how to make it happen.
Beginning in 2012, Iceland's Hellisheidi geothermal power plant began mixing CO2 emissions into hot water pumped from the earth, and re-injecting it into the volcanic basalt rocks that make up a good chunk of the volcanically active country's landscape.
The process of chemical CO2 absorption into basaltic rock was thought to take hundreds or thousands of years. However, the scientists found that the process at Hellisheidi took much less time, with 95 per cent absorption over less than two years.
Atli Harðarson
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