Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study suggests spreading crushed volcanic rock across the world’s farmland would absorb enough CO2 to curb global warming, so long as a cost effective means to crush all that rock can be discovered.
How Crushed Volcanic Rock in Farm Soil Could Help Slow Global Warming — and Boost Crops
A new study explores how planet-warming carbon dioxide could be absorbed using ‘enhanced rock weathering,’ a natural process sped up to fight climate change.
BY GEORGINA GUSTIN
Pulverizing volcanic rock and spreading the dust like fertilizer on farm soils could suck billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere and boost crop yields on a warming planet with a growing population.
In a paper published this week in the scientific journal Nature Plants, an international team of researchers lays out the prospects for “enhanced rock weathering”—a process that uses pulverized silicate rocks, like basalt, to speed the ability of minerals to store carbon in soil.
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This could happen fairly quickly. “Conceivably, roll-out could take place within a decade or two,” said David Beerling, director of the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation at the University of Sheffield and the lead author of the study.
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The abstract of the study;
Farming with crops and rocks to address global climate, food and soil security
David J. Beerling, Jonathan R. Leake, Stephen P. Long, Julie D. Scholes, Jurriaan Ton, Paul N. Nelson, Michael Bird, Euripides Kantzas, Lyla L. Taylor, Binoy Sarkar, Mike Kelland, Evan DeLucia, Ilsa Kantola, Christoph Müller, Greg Rau & James Hansen
The magnitude of future climate change could be moderated by immediately reducing the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere as a result of energy generation and by adopting strategies that actively remove CO2 from it. Biogeochemical improvement of soils by adding crushed, fast-reacting silicate rocks to croplands is one such CO2-removal strategy. This approach has the potential to improve crop production, increase protection from pests and diseases, and restore soil fertility and structure. Managed croplands worldwide are already equipped for frequent rock dust additions to soils, making rapid adoption at scale feasible, and the potential benefits could generate financial incentives for widespread adoption in the agricultural sector. However, there are still obstacles to be surmounted. Audited field-scale assessments of the efficacy of CO2 capture are urgently required together with detailed environmental monitoring. A cost-effective way to meet the rock requirements for CO2 removal must be found, possibly involving the recycling of silicate waste materials. Finally, issues of public perception, trust and acceptance must also be addressed.
Read more (paywalled): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0108-y
In my opinion this is one of the most terrifying geo-engineering schemes I’ve ever seen.
Leaving aside the hopefully insurmountable issue of finding affordable means to crush and distribute all that volcanic rock, imagine the consequences if the scheme went too far, if CO2 levels undershot the desired target range.
In the last ice age, CO2 may have dropped as low as 180ppm. Life on Earth was almost extinguished by lack of CO2.
Assuming the scheme worked, it wouldn’t take much of an undershoot to bring life on Earth back to the brink of CO2 starvation. Even if the undershoot didn’t kill everything, it would almost certainly trigger widespread famine as global agriculture collapsed for lack of CO2 to fertilise the crops.
Higher CO2 levels are nowhere near as hazardous as lower CO2 levels. If CO2 climbs by 200ppm, or even 1000ppm, so what? Life would still flourish across most of the Earth, just as life flourished in past epochs when CO2 levels were high. But if CO2 levels dropped for whatever reason, by 200ppm or more, the world might end.
In The Netherlands geochemistry prof. Olav Schuiling introduced the idea of spreading crushed olivine rock on cropland as CO2 absorber in 2009. See http://www.innovationconcepts.eu/Science.htm
Volcanoes burp out all the CO2 in the rocks , then emit rocks which, when crushed, absorb thee CO2 right back
Human burning of fossil organics burp out CO2 which, when the plants find themselves in a CO2 rich environment, absorb the CO2 right back
Plant Watercress! Save the Planet!
etc.
Okay, so 40% of the land surface is under agriculture ~60million sq km. so lets say we need 1mm of volcdirt (solid basis) on the surface: That is 60cubic km of dirt! That’s 180Gt of material to be mined, crushed and ground, to what, 100microns? Capex for a 1million t/y project would be ~$75M and opex ~$15/t.
Capex for a 10million t/y ~ (10/1)^0.6 x 75=$300M ; opex/t ~$10/t
Let’s say resources around world’s scattered volcanic regions (separate mine for each volcano) could support 10Mt/y for 20 years ~200MT of rock (volcanic areas are lived on so I’m thinking available with minimum disruption and that that CO2 problem would be solved in 20 years. That would take 900 operations at a capital cost of $270 billion + another 270 billion sustaining capital or $0.5 trillion and the fob mines op cost of product total would be $1.8 trillion or with profit $2T. Time cost of money, cost inflation on opex, payback of capital,(?), should conservatively double over the 20years – say a $4 trillion fob. all in cost.
Shipping to agricultural sites (the biggee) say ~$250/t avg, ~$45T.
What is the generally thought cost of doing nothing?
Is there a huge benefit to agriculture, or could be just spread this dirt anywhere? Make it the law in the Elite run world that you have to put volcdirt under all solar panels and wind farm acreage. Spread it on the Sahara. Make asphalt rooves with volcanic dirt coatings … roads, sidewalks, baseball diamonds, racetracks….If you are going to have a nutty idea why limit yourself?
Cost of doing nothing? About 1Trillion per year
RE: Pulverizing volcanic rock and spreading the dust like fertilizer on farm soils could suck billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere…
Why would anyone want to ‘suck billions of tons of carbon (CO2, not C!) from the atmosphere’??!!!
Why, Oh Why would anyone want to starve the worldwide flora… and all of the fauna that feeds on it, including humans? It is a suicidal, even genocidal proposition!
Crushing, shipping, and spreading the rock are all activities that would require energy – generating anthropogenic CO2. These idiots really can’t think past their narcotic pipe dreams, can they?
So, they discovered the Roman cement (not “Portland”), made out of volcanic ashes (Pozzolana) 20 centuries ago. Great.
And they suggest we massively cement the ground. Wonderful.
And they find an audience to spread the word. Without LOLing.
seriously…
I mean, this is DHMO – grade farce.
I think I would nominate them for IgNobel.
Actually two. No, make it three.
One for these “scientist”. Another for those publishing and paying them.
Well a whole bunch of volcanic ash and rock just got injected into the atmosphere near the equator. Mount Singabung in Indonesia blew its top injecting ash over four miles up. Have not found info on the actual estimated volume but wondering about the potential impact for our summer this year.
Now you know the winter was cold this year, according to future generation CAGW “scientists”
A better use of that ground up lava would be in cement.
If the goal is to improve the productivity of farmland, why not let the increased CO2 in the atmosphere increase the growth rate and drought tolerance of crops?
While volcanic soil is usually very fertile for plant growth, it’s very costly (and energy consuming) to move volcanic rocks to farmland far from volcanoes. For CO2 fertilization, it’s free–just let the wind blow the CO2 from where it is produced to farms all over the world!
There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero.
I recently read about a study that claimed that in about 600 million years or so, the weathered rock on Earth would suck all the CO2 up, thus ending nearly all life on Earth beyond organisms living on sulphur and the like. How does this scheme get past the progressives and their precautionary principle?
“Audited field-scale assessments of the efficacy of CO2 capture are urgently required…” That is the big question, because hopefully it wouldn’t be so large as to offset the gains achieved by elevated atmospheric levels of CO2. The product is good fertilizer.
Mining it would probably be cheaper than manufacturing “normal” fertilizers. Here in Northern California, we mine cinders, as we call it, regularly to spread them on icy roads to facilitate vehicle traffic.
“…it’s very costly (and energy consuming) to move volcanic rocks to farmland far from volcanoes.” It is also costly and energy consuming to move produce from farmland to faraway cities. But it is done.
All in all, I am against the idea, because I would hate to see our mountains disappear so quickly.
In your opinion, adding yet another expensive component to the cost of raising crops and getting them to market, will have no impact on the price of said crops?