{"id":474777,"date":"2010-03-25T10:09:46","date_gmt":"2010-03-25T14:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/climateprogress.org\/?p=21684"},"modified":"2010-03-25T10:09:46","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T14:09:46","slug":"exclusive-science-reporter-eli-kintisch-excerpts-his-book-%e2%80%9chack-the-planet%e2%80%9d-on-carbon-eating-cement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/474777","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Science reporter Eli Kintisch, excerpts his book, \u201cHack the Planet,\u201d on carbon-eating cement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/a>Science<\/em> magazine reporter <\/em>Eli Kintisch<\/a>, <\/em>sent me a blog post based on the research he did on Calera company for his <\/em>new <\/em><\/em>book, “Hack the Planet.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

So startup Calera, who seeks to turn CO2 exhaust into limestone for \u201ccarbon negative\u201d cement, has struck a $15 million deal with coal giant Peabody. And Monday you reported<\/a> on various issues facing the technology.<\/p>\n

I thought I\u2019d offer more:\u00a0 Harvard geochemist Dan Schrag says its CEO is \u201cpulling numbers out of his a##.\u201d And other independent experts have their doubts as to various aspects.<\/p>\n

<\/span>I cover Calera closely in Hack the Planet<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>my new book on geoengineering. <\/em>For a chapter on carbon called \u201cThe One-Ton-Sucking Challenge,\u201d <\/em>I spent a day at Calera\u2019s offices in Los Gatos, California and met its business-saavy and brash CEO, Stanford geologist Brent Constanz.<\/p>\n

Not only did Constanz disparage mainstream climate scientists (\u201cA philosophy major in college,\u201d he scoffed at one point, obliquely but clearly referring to rival Ken Caldeira<\/a>). But he relentlessly attacked the idea of storing carbon underground, what he dismissed as \u201cRussian roulette.\u201d Better, he said, to turn the world\u2019s carbon emissions into bricks and cement and buildings. \u201cThis isn\u2019t just a niche solution,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will be the primary solution.\u201d Calera says it can sequester a ton of CO2 for a mind-bogglingly low $17 per ton.<\/p>\n

That (incredible) price is not for making limestone, the firm says. Rather, using less energy, the company could make a solution of bicarbonate ion and inject that into the ground to sequester the carbon.<\/p>\n

But regardless of what it makes with CO2, the main chemical challenge for Calera is its need for caustic chemicals known as alkaline solutions, I write in Hack the Planet<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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Wrenching the ultrastable carbon dioxide molecule into carbonate takes ultra-strong sour solutions. One of the main reasons why Constantz set up shop at Moss Landing [California] is that a few hundred feet from Calera\u2019s pilot facilities are giant white meadows of alkaline powder, industrial waste known to the locals as Moss Mag.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The problem is, as you wrote on ClimateProgress Monday [see “Does carbon-eating cement (still) deserve the hype?<\/a>“] — not exactly everyone has that kind of (nasty) raw material handy. Caldeira\u2019s right that fly ash represents a tiny portion of the required alkalinity.<\/p>\n

Another problem with fly ash, hydrologist Rob Jackson from Duke tells me: it\u2019s often full of nasty chemicals, so if the bicarbonate slurry were to reach groundwater it could contaminate them. For example, mercury can be found at a level of 1 part per million in it, he says. That\u2019s well above the EPA standard.<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, coal companies (like Peabody, presumably) may well have plenty of alkaline material to use. But elsewhere Calera wants to run electrochemistry facilities next to power plants to make alkalinity, sapping the plants\u2019 energy. Constanz says that electricity can be obtained at night on the cheap. But as you pointed out in your Calera item yesterday, doing electrochemistry means creating huge amounts of hydrochloric acid waste.<\/p>\n

A problem that hasn\u2019t gotten much attention yet is that storing the bicarbonate solution \u2013 a \u00a0giant (and therefore expensive) hassle perhaps even a bigger one than storing CO2, I write in my book:<\/p>\n

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\u2026Harvard geochemist Dan Schrag estimates that injecting a ton of pure CO2 carbon dioxide into the ground delivers more than 25 times more of the gas than injecting a ton of bicarbonate, which is only roughly 4% CO2. (Calera says that pumping bicarbonate solution as a partial solid can make up the difference\u2014but geologists worry that injecting solids into the ground will seal up pores in the subsurface rock layers.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a real concern,\u201d USGS hydrologist Dave Parkhurst told me yesterday. \u201cIf they\u2019re not careful they\u2019ll plug up their wells.\u201d<\/p>\n

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And there\u2019s the real possibility, say geologists, that the bicarbonate will react with briny water underground, and out will bubble the carbon dioxide. \u201cIf something sounds too good to be true, it probably is,\u201d says Howard Herzog. As for the seventeen-dollar sucking-1-ton cost? \u201cMy initial reaction is he\u2019s pulling numbers out of his ass,\u201d says Schrag, who has met with Constanz and actually licensed a patent to him. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The scientists I\u2019ve talked to think Constanz may well make some money with the technique. But they\u2019re skeptical that CO2 into limestone is going to be \u201cthe solution\u201d to the carbon challenge, or replace injecting CO2 into the ground as a way to deal with emissions from coal.<\/p>\n

– Eli Kintisch<\/p>\n

Related Post (which goes through some of the chemistry):<\/p>\n