Sunday, November 9, 2008
In the world’s increasing desperation, environmentally friendly practices can get a little weird. Some people have taken reduce, reuse, recycle to the extreme and are happy to proclaim that they use only one sheet of toilet paper, and other environmentalists have given up on toilets that’s use water completely.
But I found something that is potentially weirder.
Now, 10 years after I threw my last dolostone back into the murky neighborhood lake where I rescued it, rock collections are back in vogue.
A study appearing in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences announced last Wednesday that the rock peridotite is capable of absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide naturally.
When exposed to carbon dioxide, peridotite forms calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate rocks. Researchers from Columbia University discovered the rocks in the country of Oman during an expedition.
Don’t look for peridotite plus option at the gas station any time soon, though. How to harness this freebie to fix the environment is a geode still being cracked.
One possibility is to capture carbon emissions, transport them to the rock formations and pump them into the rock.
This wouldn’t be the first time carbon has been stored in the earth’s cellar.
A common practice now is to pump carbon into underground aquifer, and a few years ago the Bush administration proposed capturing and pumping carbon dioxide emission into the deep ocean. Brushing our greenhouse gases under a coral reef carpet seemed like an innovative plan before considering the millions of organisms, some which we eat, that would suffer as a result.
Scientists think they could expedite the reaction process by pumping cool sea water into the hot underground rock. The water acts as a catalyst for the carbon reaction by fracturing the rock, which exposes more of the rock’s surface to the atmosphere.
This would reduce costs of transporting carbon, and the naturally heated underground rock eliminates the need to heat the water beforehand.
Some think that the rocks could potentially absorb up to 4 billion tons of carbon per year, a sizeable portion of the average 30 billion tons produced yearly worldwide.
Enhancing nature may not be the most reliable solution to solving the climate crisis, though. Modifying nature for our own purposes has led to some inopportune consequences — I’m thinking of Velveeta cheese.
Yet, if this method works, it would provide a counterbalance to Oman’s massive oil and gas production.
Peridotite is a mixed blessing. It is not a panacea for climate woes.
Our efforts should be definitely directed toward cutting back the impetus for making a carbon footprint, not wiping up our muddy shoes after the fact.
Peridotite will reduce the amount of carbon in the air. It can’t regenerate the ozone layer or decrease global temperatures immediately, but it will unload a few of the bullets in the industrial gun aimed at our feet.
— — Oberthaler is a Wichita junior in English.
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