Purifying the air: Experts in decarbonization technology take a big step forward
Adapted from the story of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory 2021 Annual Report.
Peter Kelemen is in Oman.Photo: Kevin Krajic
Today’s carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are higher than at any time in the past 800,000 years or more.
In a year when terms such as carbon neutrality and net zero are becoming more and more commonly used, the world seems to be aware of the necessity that every high-level climate assessment emphasizes-humans need to make huge changes to prevent the most catastrophic The consequences of climate change.
The impact of climate is happening faster than many scientists predict. Greenhouse gases make the earth hotter. Rising temperatures are disrupting the weather and climate system in far-reaching and chain ways.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded in its 2020 report that although the 2019 pandemic blockade caused a slight decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, “the world will still face catastrophic temperature rises of more than 3°C in this century—” —It goes far beyond the Paris Agreement, which limits global warming to well below 2°C and pursues the goal of 1.5°C.” It went on to say that in order to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, we need to remove from the air by 2050. Remove 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
In other words, in addition to drastically reducing global fossil fuel emissions, society also needs to develop and use technologies to remove carbon dioxide that already exists in the atmosphere. This is a daunting task, but scientists at the Lamont-Dougherty Earth Observatory have been working hard to achieve this goal for more than a decade.
DecarburizationThe process of capturing carbon dioxide from air and industrial processes has been at various stages of development in Lamont-Doherty for several years. One of the many strategies researchers are developing involves using the earth itself to recover carbon dioxide from the air’s natural process.
geologist Peter B. Clement He is a research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Professor Arthur D. Storke Memorial in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. He has been the main architect of the Oman drilling project, which involves more than 200 international scientists from geophysics, geochemistry, geology, biology and physics, and they are committed to the unique geological features of the Oman desert. Research topic. In this area, oceanic crust and its underlying mantle rocks are pushed to the surface, creating the world’s largest oceanic crust and upper mantle land exposure.
The CO2 in the atmosphere spontaneously reacts with the rocks in the earth’s inner (mantle) to form “carbonate” minerals, which not only remove CO2 from the air, but also store it permanently in solid form. This is driven by chemical energy caused by the imbalance between the mantle rocks and the atmosphere.
Kelemen studies the chemical and physical processes of reactions between fluids and rocks. His main focus now is to remove carbon dioxide from the air and store it permanently through engineering methods that simulate natural carbon mineralization. Although his work in this field began in 2006, in fiscal year 2020, his discoveries have begun to drive exciting industry investment and commercialization.
Kelemen and colleagues have developed multiple patents for processes that use this naturally available chemical energy to remove carbon dioxide from air and geological storage at low cost.
“We wanted to find the cheapest way to remove carbon dioxide from the air. We came up with a very simple method: take limestone and boil it. Now you have carbon dioxide, which you can store or use, and calcium oxide. Put CaO in In the weather. It will absorb carbon dioxide from the air and make limestone again. Repeat. This is too simple and almost stupid. But we found that we can convert 75% of CaO into limestone in less than two weeks, It only needs to react with air in the laboratory. Moreover, because the process is very simple, it currently has the lowest peer-reviewed cost estimate of any proposed direct air capture method.”
Two start-up companies are putting Kelemen’s innovations into practice. As mentioned above, California-based Heirloom Carbon Technologies is committed to removing 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the air by 2035 by “recycling” CaO and CaCO3.
at the same time, 44.01Headquartered in Oman, it focuses on storing carbon dioxide removed from the air by forming solid carbonate minerals below the surface.
Both represent a profound progress in the practical application of decarbonization science.
“This is the most promising one I have seen so far. So it is very gratifying to finally see these things move towards field-scale testing,” Kelemen said.
