A small pilot project in Iceland has shown that carbon dioxide can be safely stored in basalt rocks. The finding could be used to help tackle climate change, especially in countries such as India that have lots of basalt rock.
The team found that when CO2, dissolved in water, is injected into hot basalt deep underground, it rapidly reacts with the rock to form carbonates. For permanent storage, this is the ultimate in safety. Carbonates are really stable.
Injecting CO2 into basalt is slightly more expensive than other storage methods, such as pumping it into depleted oil and gas reservoirs. It also requires a lot of water. But on the plus side, once it turns to stone, there will be no need to keep checking it has stayed put.
(New Scientist)(Science, doi.org/bjwq).
Methods like this could increase public support for carbon capture and storage. However, capturing the CO2 costs far more than storing it. If you made the electricity generators do it, electricity prices would have to rise significantly. And at the moment governments have no appetite for imposing carbon taxes on industry for storage or for paying for it themselves. Ordinary citizens should try to change the present attitude in any way they can.
This is the dilemma with climate change, that dealing with it costs money. Some on the Right use this as an excuse for inaction. But the fact is that it is the richest parts of the UK that are producing the most CO2, the exception being high-dense West London. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8393081.stm. Its also true that it is the richest countries in the world that produce CO2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8393081.stm In other words, any attempt to tackle climate change is likely to hit the richest hardest. I believe in personal responsibility: if you are contributing to a problem, you ought to be the one fixing it. The rich are responsible for climate change, now lets make them pay for it. This is particularly important given that it will be poor people living in Africa, Asia and South America that will suffer the most if the planet continues to warm at the current rate. Meanwhile, the relatively affluent countries in the colder parts of the world won’t suffer as much, and are better resourced to deal with any challenges they may face.