subject: Real Testbeds About Co2 In World [print this page] But beginning in February, Matter and a team of researchers from France and Iceland plan to kick off a larger-scale pilot project at a geothermal power plant owned by Reykjavik Energy. (In this case, the CO2 isn't a by-product of combustion, but comes up from underground as traces of geothermal gas in the huge volumes of steam that provide most of Iceland's heat and electric power.)
Over about nine months, the "CarbFix" project will inject about 2000 tons of CO2 into a 2000 foot hole bored into an island that itself is more than 90 percent basalt. According to Matter, the researchers will use additional holes drilled a few hundred yard away to monitor changes in groundwater, which should show how effectively and quickly chemical reactions are occurring.
Meanwhile, in the United States, environmental engineer B.P. "Pete" McGrail, at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, reports that his team has completed drilling and prep work for another experimental project to inject about 1000 tons of CO2 into a basalt formation under the southeastern corner of the state of Washington. McGrail is waiting for permits to be finalized, but noted in an email, "If our permit is approved, CO2 injection would occur sometime this summer."
McGrail says he concurs with the new report's suggestion that undersea basalt formations could someday become major repositories for carbon, but suggested that "those opportunities would develop later down the road after pilot and commercial studies show feasibility in terrestrial settings."
Basalt isn't the only rock that reacts with carbon dioxide. As PM reported in 2008, Columbia's Peter Kelemen continues to investigate the potential for a type of rock called peridotite, not only to lock-up carbon captured from the likes of power plant emissions, but even to yank volumes of the greenhouse gas directly out of the atmosphere, with some help from water and heat from the earth's interior.
Notably, about half the nation of Oman lies atop formations of this rock. If it turns out to work, what Kelemen calls "air capture" could effectively help neutralize, as he told us, the "substantial portion of CO2 that comes from places where we wouldn't have any hope of capturing itCO2 emitted by cars, for example."
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