dioxide

Annotated seismic cross-section of the Fontanelas volcano. Credit: Pereira and Gamboa, 2023A new study suggests that an extinct offshore volcano in Portugal can potentially store 1.2-8.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide, representing 24-125 years of the country’s industrial emissions. The method involves ‘in situ mineral carbonation,’ where CO2 reacts with specific rock elements to create new, safely stored minerals. This efficient and quick method could pave the way for using other offshore volcanoes globally for carbon…

Annotated seismic cross-section of the Fontanelas volcano. Credit: Pereira and Gamboa, 2023 A new study published in Geology concludes that an extinct volcano off the shore of Portugal could store as much as 1.2–8.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of ~24–125 years of the country's industrial emissions. For context, in…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain Middle-class UK graduates produce more CO2 emissions in their daily activities than non-graduates and their ecological commitment is primarily "symbolic", new research says. Dr. Robert Dorschel, of Tilburg University in The Netherlands, analyzed survey data on 12,763 people in 5,473 households in the UK…

About fifty miles southwest of Midland, Texas, deep in the oil-saturated Permian Basin, more than 100 workers are busy laying out roads and water lines, preparing to build an elaborate complex of fans, each as large as a tennis court. When they start running in 2024, the fans will suck massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air. The carbon will be funneled thousands of feet down deep wells into geological formations, where it should remain for centuries.  The company behind this environmental moonshot…

There’s a scramble in the US to build the first generation of technologies to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And the first American company with this kind of system, Global Thermostat, just set up shop in Colorado to prove that its CO2-sucking technology actually works.There’s been hype around Global Thermostat since it got started in 2010 as one of just three high-profile companies in the world developing this technology, called direct air capture (DAC). The idea is to filter CO2 out of the ambient air and…

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are a major contributor to global warming and climate change. They come from a variety of sources including transportation, energy production, and industrial processes. CO2 emissions trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to rising temperatures and changes in weather patterns.The research will enable the direct capture of CO2 gas from industries that are challenging to decarbonize.According to recent research, it is estimated that approximately 0.5% of global carbon emissions could be captured…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain End-of-dry-season CO2 pulses recur each year in the atmosphere above the Australian continent, a discovery made by an international research team led by environmental physicist Prof. Dr. André Butz of Heidelberg University. To investigate the carbon fluxes over Australia, the researchers studied…

Alkalinity affects the uptake of CO2 and contributes to the long-term buffering capacity of the ocean. Credit: Hereon/ Nele Lehmann If climate change causes more rain, this promotes the weathering of rocks and thus the erosion of the soil. The dissolved substances reach the sea via rivers. A new model from Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon shows that the process has an impact on CO2 storage there.…

Wildfires are a natural phenomenon that occur when dry vegetation, hot temperatures, and strong winds combine to ignite a fire. However, human activities such as careless campfires, arson, and agricultural practices have significantly increased the frequency and intensity of wildfires in many parts of the world. Wildfires have devastating consequences for local ecosystems and communities, including destruction of wildlife habitat, air pollution, and loss of property and lives.A study led by UC Irvine found that forest…

This map shows mean net emissions and removals of carbon dioxide from 2015 to 2020 using estimates informed by NASA’s OCO-2 satellite measurements. Countries where more carbon dioxide was removed than emitted appear as green depressions, while countries with higher emissions are tan or red and appear to pop off the page. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization StudioA pilot project has estimated emissions and removals of carbon dioxide in individual nations using satellite measurements.A <span…