Earlier this year scientists in Iceland announced the ability to turn CO2 into rock in less than two years. On Friday, a different group of scientists confirmed the possibility. “After drilling a well in the Columbia River Basalt formation and testing its properties, the team injected CO2 into it in 2013. Core samples were extracted from the well two years later, and Pete McGrail and colleagues confirmed that the CO2 had indeed converted into the carbonate mineral ankerite, as the lab experiments had predicted,” according to a press release from the American Chemical Society.
If CO2 can quickly be turned into rock, there is no longer a risk of it leaking back into the atmosphere after it has been stored underground.
The project, conducted by researchers with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Montana-based Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership, received funding from the Department of Energy, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, the Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership, Shell Exploration & Production Co., Portland General Electric, and Schlumberger Inc.
