Adding rock dust to UK agricultural soils could absorb up to 45 per cent of the atmospheric carbon dioxide needed to reach net zero, according to a major new study led by scientists at the University of Sheffield.
The study, led by Dr Euripides Kantzas, a senior research associate in the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation at the University, provides the first detailed analysis of the potential and costs of greenhouse gas removal by enhanced weathering in the UK over the next 50 years.
The authors show this technique could make a major overlooked contribution to the UK’s requirement for greenhouse gas removal in the coming decades with a removal potential of 6–30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually by 2050. This represents up to 45 per cent of the atmospheric carbon removal required nationally to meet net-zero greenhouse gas emissions alongside emissions reductions.
Read more at University of Sheffield
Photo Credit: Pexels via Pixabay