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Biodiversity implications of land-intensive carbon dioxide removal

Ruben Prütz, Joeri Rogelj, Gaurav Ganti, Jeff Price, Rachel Warren, Nicole Forstenhäusler, Yazhen Wu, Andrey Lessa Derci Augustynczik, Michael Wögerer, Tamás Krisztin, Petr Havlík, Florian Kraxner, Stefan Frank, Tomoko Hasegawa, Jonathan C. Doelman, Vassilis Daioglou, Florian Humpenöder, Alexander Popp, Sabine Fuss ABSTRACT: Pathways consistent with global climate objectives typically deploy billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from land-intensive methods such as forestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. Such large-scale deployment of land-intensive CDR may have negative consequences for biodiversity. Here ...

Is biomass yield increase a potential indicator for CDR performance of enhanced weathering?

Dirk Paessler, Jens Hammes, Ingrid Smet, Anna Stöckel, Melissa Murphy, Ralf Steffens, Jens Hartmann ABSTRACT: Enhanced weathering (EW) of alkaline feedstocks such as natural rocks or industrial by-products is a promising approach to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. Finely ground feedstock, containing silicate and/or carbonate minerals, is spread on fields. When rain and CO₂ form carbonic acid, it dissolves these minerals, which releases base cations and nutrients into the soil and also increases soil pH. The beneficial effects of rock dusts like lime on yields have been appreciated by farmers for centuries. For CDR projects, crop yield ...

Spatiotemporal soil fertility responses to an enhanced rock weathering deployment within a temperate, agricultural watershed

Quinn Zacharias, Robert Rioux, Fengchao Sun, Wyatt Tatge, Evelin Pihlap, Emmanuel Nyavor, David Foster, Joshua L. Warren, Mark A. Bradford, Peter A. Raymond, Noah Planavsky, James E. Saiers ABSTRACT: Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) is a promising strategy for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, yet field-scale observations suitable for evaluating ERW co-benefits related to soil-fertility improvements within temperate agriculture settings remain scarce. We conducted a 2.5-year investigation within a headwater catchment at the Sleepers River Research Watershed in Danville, Vermont, applying ...

Bridging time lags in durable carbon removal on working lands

Noah J. Planavsky, Beck J. Woollen, Ella Milliken, Mojtaba Fakhraee, David J. Beerling, Christopher T. Reinhard ABSTRACT:  Enhanced weathering and biochar application on working lands show promising signs of delivering durable carbon dioxide removal required to meet internationally agreed upon climate change mitigation goals. Although both technologies can scale comparatively quickly, their ability to offset radiative forcing from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is delayed by time lags between deployment and realized carbon removal. Here, we suggest that coupling enhanced weathering and biochar with point-source methane emissions reducti...

Multiple Lines of Evidence Reveal Rapid, Seasonal Watershed Responses to Enhanced Weathering

Fengchao Sun, Robert Rioux, Tim Suhrhoff, Wyatt Tatge, Boriana Kalderon-Asael, Quinn Zacharias, William Miller-Brown, Aaron MacDonald, Esmeralda Garcia, Jamie Shanley, Peter Raymond, Noah Planavsky, James Saiers ABSTRACT: Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) is a natural carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approach that captures CO2 by accelerating silicate weathering using crushed rocks. A major question on the efficacy of ERW is how fast and efficient it is at transporting the products of weathering to drainage networks, and ultimately the ocean. Using a novel whole watershed experiment, we report multiple lines of evidence of rapid and pronounced streamwater ...

Enzymes boost ‘rock weathering’ to trap CO2 in soi

Mark Peplow Introduction: In a quiet field in rural England, enzymes are bringing biotech ingenuity to the battle against climate change. The site in oxfordshire is testing whether spreading an enzyme — carbonic anhydrase — on the field can boost a natural geological process that draws carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and traps it in the ground. That natural process is called weathering. It occurs because Co2 dissolves in water to form carbonic acid. When that water meets certain types of rocks, the acid gradually breaks down minerals such as silicates. Crucially, these reactions also convert Co2 into bicarbonate and carbonate ions ...

Does the release of toxic metals due to subsurface CO2 storage in basalts pose an environmental hazard?

Deirdre E. Clark, Iwona M. Galeczka, Sigurður R. Gíslason, Sandra Ó. Snæbjörnsdóttir, Ingvi Gunnarsson, Eric H. Oelkers ABSTRACT: Carbon dioxide storage through the carbonation of subsurface basaltic rocks is currently being explored to limit carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Basaltic rocks, however, contain trace and toxic metals that could potentially be mobilized by the carbonation process. This study reports the degree to which selected trace and toxic metals were mobilized during CarbFix1 and CarbFix2 projects. CarbFix1 injected 175 tons of CO2-charged water followed by 73 tons of CO2/H2S-charged water into basalts at 35 °C, whereas ...

Calcium-rich parent materials enhance multiple soil functions and bacterial network complexity

Peilei Hu, Wei Zhang, Wolfgang Wanek, Ji Chen, Dan Xiao, Xinyu Hou, Juan Li, Hongsong Chen, Jun Xiao, Xionghui Liao, Xionghui Liao, Xionghui Liao, Tiangang Tang, Hanqing Wu, Hanqing Wu, Kelin Wang   ABSTRACT: Parent material shapes soil properties, yet its effects on soil functions and microbial networks remain unclear. Here we investigate these relationships using a large-scale field survey comparing soils derived from calcium-rich carbonate rocks and calcium-poor clastic rocks, complemented by a microcosm experiment. Soils from calcium-rich parent materials contained 33% higher organic carbon, 58% higher total nitrogen, and 55% higher total ...

Direct In Situ Measurement of Alkalinity Export for Real-Time Enhanced Weathering MRV

Andrew Muth, Jonte Boysen, Pascal Michel ABSTRACT: Accurate quantification of alkalinity export from the near-field zone remains a key bottleneck for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) through Enhanced Weathering (EW). Here we validate the Everest Pulsar, a field-deployable alkalinity sensor that accumulates total alkalinity (TA) using a weak acid ion-exchange resin and transduces resin saturation into a digital, in situ measurement. In a 7-day continuous-flow soil column experiment (10 no-soil, 5 soil units), the sensor quantitatively retained incoming alkalinity, with capture efficiencies of 98.9% ...

LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED: THE IMPORTANCE OF ROCK CHOICE FOR SCALING ENHANCED WEATHERING FOR CARBON DIOXIDE REMOVAL

Maurice Bryson SUMMARY: The devastating effects of breaching climatic tipping points and our current greenhouse gas emissions trajectory mean that society must rapidly decarbonize and durably and safely remove and store carbon dioxide (CO2) at an unprecedented scale. To reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations to pre-industrial levels, the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) industry will have to remove approximately 1,000 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. What options do we have to tackle this seemingly intractable problem and reach climate-relevant scales of CDR? One promising solution uses rocks and rain to durably remove and store atmosphe...