Environmental News Network - Spreading Rock Dust on Farmland Has Potential to Draw Down Huge Sums of Carbon Dioxide

Details: By Yale Environment 360; 17.Aug

Adding volcanic rock dust to cropland could help the world reach a key carbon removal goal, a new study finds.

Adding volcanic rock dust to cropland could help the world reach a key carbon removal goal, a new study finds.

Rain absorbs carbon dioxide from the air as it falls, and it reacts with rocks on the ground to lock away that carbon. To speed this process, scientists have proposed spreading crushed volcanic rock on farmland. The new study is among the first to model the effect of this strategy, called enhanced rock weathering, at scale.

A simulation of more than 900 croplands spanning an area nearly the size of Australia suggests that enhanced rock weathering could scrub some 64 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by the end of this century.

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Spreading Rock Dust on Farmland Has Potential to Draw Down Huge Sums of Carbon Dioxide