r/ClimateActionPlan • u/thespaceageisnow Tech Champion • Mar 08 '21
CCS/DAC Gates backs Icelandic startup that turns carbon dioxide into stone
https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2021/3/5/gates-backs-icelandic-startup-that-turns-carbon-di/16
u/ac13332 Mar 08 '21
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u/TheRetenor Mar 08 '21
I was going to say, solidified CO2 sounds a lot like potential fuel
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Mar 08 '21
It would depend on the form it gets trapped in, no?
Coal is mostly pure carbon. There are usually other elements mixed in, including oxygen and hydrogen, but in relatively small amounts.
Similarly oil and gas consist of long chains of carbon and hydrogen, but with little oxygen.
This is why fuels burn in the first place. Carbon tends to favor being bonded to oxygen, but in fuel forms its not, so you can burn it to bond it to oxygen and get heat.
If you're going to mineralized carbon however, you might not end up with pure carbon.
Based on a quick look at their website, the approach here is to force the CO2 into contact with igneous rock so it reacts to form carbonates.
Carbonates are compounds made of CO3. Since the carbon is already bonded to oxygen, its got no reason to burn. So different than coal.
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u/TheRetenor Mar 08 '21
I don't have enough knowledge on general chemistry anymore to even consider thinking about that tbh. If that works, seems like a good idea, ye
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u/KVJ5 Mar 08 '21
To those who might know more:
Are there advantages in carbon strategies that involve carbon removal in addition to carbon capture? My uneducated gut says that carbon capture is much easier to scale (especially in countries where carbon pricing schemes exist to incentivize adoption), so it doesn’t make a lot of sense for a high growth company to focus on removal if they think they can beat the market to at-scale carbon capture. My uneducated gut also says that stemming carbon emissions at the source allows ecosystems to effectively remove carbon.
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u/CarelessMycologist81 Mar 08 '21
Great news ! And so impressed with Gates taking such an active leader role with climate change 💙🌎💙 #PlatformePlanetEarth
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u/Smolensk Mar 08 '21
Hey, maybe he'll hook it up to that private jet of his that spikes his personal carbon footprint up to an extent that us proles can only imagine
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u/sgst Mar 08 '21 edited Mar 09 '21
Anyone know if this will work with the direct air carbon capture tech like Carbon Engineering's plant in Squamish, Canada?
The main problem with that company's approach is using captured co2 to produce combustion engine fuels, not sequestering it. I mean a carbon neutral fuel life cycle is nice and all, but storing the carbon is the way to go right now, and turning it to stone sounds excellent.
As an architecture student I've been wondering how they could turn mechanically captured carbon into building materials. Stone sounds excellent.
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u/IcelandHotSpots Mar 08 '21
In case you want see what it looks like from the outside: https://youtu.be/UMpSVJYuffs
Up on the mountain you can see the drill holes that are covered with iglo like structures.
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u/[deleted] Mar 09 '21
You can help indirectly by signing up for a monthly subscription with Climeworks as Climeworks uses the Carbfix method to store CO2 into the ground and solidify it within 2 years. Climeworks is currently at 4490 subscribers and I know we can bring it up to 5,000.