Power Plant is the First to Produce Negative Emissions Thanks to Geoengineering

Image Credit: Arni Saeber

 The world's first negative emissions power plant has proved to be an international climate change success story. Located in Hellisheidi, Iceland, this geothermal power plant uses naturally occurring heat from a volcanically active region to produce electricity and heat. To produce negative emissions, the power plant incorporates technology that uses direct-air capture to suck up carbon dioxide from the air.
 To eliminate the tiny amounts of carbon dioxide still emitted by the geothermal power plant, Reykjavik Energy along with the help of academics in the US, Europe and Iceland formed a new project called CarbFix. This programs allows the plant to dissolve the gases produced by the geothermal vents into the abundant amounts of Icelandic water in the region. The mixture - 27kg of fresh water for each for each kilogram of CO₂  - is then injected 700 metres underground. This mixture has been found to react with Iceland's basaltic rock to form minerals in less than two years.
 For the past three years, more than 18,000 metric tons of CO₂ have been injected into the ground as part of the project, according to CarbFix geologist Edda Aradóttir.

Read more about this fascinating story at: https://qz.com/1100221/the-worlds-first-negative-emissions-plant-has-opened-in-iceland-turning-carbon-dioxide-into-stone/