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		</div><p>A safe and certain way to rid the atmosphere of excess greenhouse gas could be to turn it into chalk, if this new research is anything to go by.</p>
<p>The technique has been successfully tested by a British-led team at the world’s largest geothermal power plant in Iceland.</p>
<p>Scientists conducting a pilot study injected water containing thousands of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into deep wells sunk into volcanic basalt rock.</p>
<p>In less than two years, the gas reacted with calcium, iron and other minerals in the rock to form a whitish, chalky material.</p>
<p>A different process in nature involving the compressed microscopic fossils of long-dead plants achieves a similar result.</p>
<p>Carbon is locked in a mineral, calcium carbonate, familiar to teachers and schoolchildren and better known as chalk.</p>
<p>Turning CO2 into a chalky mineral is a better option than pumping large volumes of the gas into porous rock underground, the traditional method of geological carbon capture, it is claimed.</p>
<p>Experts have highlighted the risk of CO2 escaping back to the surface through fractures, or underground reservoirs being ruptured by earthquakes or human activity.</p>
<p>Until now it was thought that a major obstacle in the way of mineralising carbon was time, with previous studies suggesting the process could take hundreds or even thousands of years.</p>
<p>But at the Hellisheidi plant, which uses volcanically heated water to provide power for Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, it took less than two years for more than 95% of the injected carbon to solidify.</p>
<p>Lead scientist Dr Juerg Matter, associate professor in geoengineering at the University of Southampton, described this as “amazingly fast”.</p>
<p>He added: “Carbonate minerals do not leak out of the ground, thus our newly developed method results in permanent and environmentally friendly storage of CO2 emissions.</p>
<p>“On the other hand, basalt is one of the most common rock type on Earth, potentially providing one of the largest CO2 storage capacity.</p>
<p>“Storing CO2 as carbonate minerals significantly enhances storage security which should improve public acceptance of carbon capture and storage as a climate change mitigation technology. We need to deal with rising carbon emissions. This is the ultimate permanent storage – turn them back to stone.”</p>
<p>The pilot project, known as Carbfix, was started in 2012 with the aim of removing Hellisheidi’s CO2 emissions along with foul-smelling hydrogen sulphide, another by-product of geothermal power generation. The plant produces 40,000 tons (36,287 tonnes) of CO2 per year.</p>
<p>Results from the Carbfix project are published in the latest edition of the journal Science.</p>
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