A climate solution you might not think of. 

I've done research into this technique for a graduate global biogeochemistry class project and at the time I did not consider using mine tailings as a source. I concluded that quarrying virgin basalt along with thorough crushing and logistics would make it a poor solution. While tailings usage avoids some costs compared to virgin rock, one big issue with all ERW is the possibility of introducing heavy metals to farmland and the biosphere overall. These heavy metals are a big part of the reason that mine tailings are environmentally hazardous in the first place. There are rock formations that contain low heavy metals and higher plant nutrients such as phosphorus, however it is unlikely any given mine tailings will have these desirable chemistries given that mining typically extracts metal rich ores as a matter of course.

I put two tons of rock dust from a local quarry on our garden last year. It's a very inexpensive way to increase minerals in the soil and is recommended by regenerative soil experts. This is something everyone who has a small amount of land can do.

First came across this in the 1980’s in Scotland as a soil improvement for crop growth on small holdings. This was prior to climate change science warnings and seemed like a luxury in comparison to a bit of muck spreading. However , as a Climate change mitigator along with soil improvement, it could be beneficial to bring back exhausted soils or marginal land into productive use. Especially at this moment when we are experiencing food scarcity scares.

Walter Jehne suggested we try a three prong approach to climate warming and it was simply to do global cooling of the most benign sort. He suggested we do rainwater harvesting, through simple earthworks, regreening with appropriate, diverse plantings, and sequestering carbon into the topsoil via those same plantings and reversing damage done to soil biomes by quitting chemical inputs. These three prongs work together to increase the albedo effect, while also enhancing each prong's ability to function optimally. Nice thing about it is it is cheap, low tech, safe and reduces a lot of damage, too, while supporting all life in an ethical manner...

Most mine tailings are low grade equivalents of the ore and therefore are rich in contaminants like heavy metals, arsenic, and acid-generating sulfide minerals like pyrite. Spreading this material on farm fields would be lunacy. A bit like spreading sewage sludge which has turned out to be an environment disaster due to its contained load of contaminants. If we are going to use tailings for carbon capture it will have to be done someplace other than the farms. Yes it’s a good way to mineralize CO2, but farms are the wrong place to do it.

This is a similar concept to the gentleman who put iron dust into the ocean. This fed the plankton all the way up to larger fish. It had an enormous carbon capture and increased the fishing yield from 50 million to 225 million fish. This was a microscopic attempt that showed phenomenal results. His video is on RU-vid. I’d love to see you talk about this process.

1st of all, thanks for the amazing content! One thought I have is: it wasn't mentioned but crushing rocks (like basalt) into fine powders to increase surface area takes energy exponentially at each "step" of fineness

Thank you so much for sharing this research which sounds like a win, win, win for the soil, the farmers and the planet. You cheer me up with all of your fine research. Be well.

This works best for serpentinized rock, specifically rock high in brucite. Ultramafic nickel deposits are the most likely candidate for this type of method being implemented successfully with tailings

I think this is a promising concept that requires a lot of number crunching and review of the risks associated with such an approach. Firstly, silicosis is a real risk today for communities living near to mines and quarries. Start shipping the fines around the countryside and exposure risk rapidly spreads far and wide. Secondly, as the approach incorporates an inherent natural leaching of the carbonates to eventually sequester in oceans, we have to consider the pathway - Rivers. Australian freshwater ecosystems, often naturally acidic are already suffering an excess of carbonates resulting from leaching concrete infrastructure. Answers are are never simple no matter what the proponents may claim.

I've read about spreading crushed rock on farmlands a few years ago, but nothing has been heard about it until now. The trace minerals in the crushed basalt can contain heavy metals that could poison the soil. Here we have runoff from cropland that has high amounts of selenium, and causes birth defects in the waterfowl that nest near the runoff.

As JHAT proves every week, we have left it so long, there is always a catch-22 "wrinkle" at the end of these videos!

As a rock hound, I always knew that like many of life’s puzzles, this one could be easily solved by collecting more rocks

Near 6:55 you mention how farm land would improve through an increase in Magnesium, Copper, etc, but it is to my understanding that it is extremely unlikely for farms to have an deffiecency in these things, but instead to have a defficiency in microbes that can make them accessible to plants or fungi. However, ironically, the type of large scale farms that use sprayers typically have troubles with keeping high microbacteria due to some of the faults of traditional agriculture, so the types of farms it would help perhaps wouldn't see that much of an improvement. Is the type of production soluable to the plants already without the help of a bacteria?

i think you are one of the very best presenters out there. Mellow voice, good accent (and understandable) good speaking speed. Etc etc etc.

This seems like a great idea, I hope it actually works and can be implemented (without some unforseen disaster nobody expected as a side effect...).

This seems like a technique perfect to pair with biochar production as a mitigation strategy. You could capture the flue gasses from the char-maker and use them to weather silicate, then mix the char and silicate together as an agricultural enhancement product. Double the drawdown punch from standard biochar, plus a product which is even more desirable for farmers because it's already "preloaded" with a lot of minerals. Ordinary biochar is normally nutrient deficient, so a product which is preloaded is a selling point

Speaking from a fair degree of ignorance, here: whenever I hear the phrase "mine tailings", my mind immediately goes to "heavy metal contamination". I would like to point out the obvious; that being the source and quantity of the crushed rock being used would bear close monitoring for this scourge. We don't want to find ourselves unwittingly contaminating farmland and groundwater with arsenic, mercury, cadmium, etc.

The most effective thing is still taking responsibility and cleaning up your own waste. Be it people, states or countries.

A superior channel, always thoughtful, well researched and notable.

Good topic and subsequent discussions. As always, simple one off solutions do not exist. We often want to forget about the downsides, plenty of them mentioned here. There is no meddeling without consequence. People who make you believe there are simple solutions, probably live off it, or suffer from myopia.

What I like about this is it can help get minerals needed into the oceans to help with marine life. I just read a terrifying article about how the bottom of the food chain in the ocean is dying off due to ocean acidification. Maybe some of the dust can be spread over the ocean too? What do you think?

The nutrition of the food produced would improve a bunch too. The soil in the USA is so depleted the calories are getting emptier by the day.

Howdy! My first stop here, at this Channel! What an auspicious idea : the best of both worlds! Thank you for your concise and precise presentation!

I hope someone clever can answer this. If CO2 is disolved in rainwater which then converts insoluble rock to Bicarb etc then runs into the sea to deposit insoluble rocks, does that not mean releasing the CO2 we started with? If so where does it go then? A secondary question relating to well rotted farm manure (the alternative). If we all go veggie and kill off the cattle, where will the well rotted farm yard muck come from?

I think it's a great idea! 💡 Since the trains use diesel generators to run electric drive motors, just add batteries and overhead wires, plus PV panels all up and down the RR right of way. The farmland in the US really needs trace minerals, so fine basalt would do wonders to improve soil fertility and essential trace minerals in vegetables. 🍆 🥒 🍅 🌞

It does not have to be croplands. It could be forest, rangeland, wild land, swamps...

This idea is one of the two best strategies for cost-effective climate-change mitigation. Congrats on promoting it.

Fascinating. I find the whole idea more acceptable than many intervention schemes as it is closer to natures own processes but speeded up to match our other processes that degrade the situation. It will need incentivisation as you say in an otherwise profit motive economy.

I think you do great work man.

All that rock dust was already sequestered carbon before it was removed from the ground.

After 20 years of fighting for Windyday Concept, I look at all these technologies with a very jaundiced eye. I recently saw the Swiss Green party trying to debate a far right party about whether to start fracking here again. They tried and stopped in about 2012. The Green was saying we need solar panels, wind turbines and EV. I wrote to them and asked if maybe we shouldn't go to the schools to teach the students, to talk with business and get them to start manufacture of solar panels and batteries locally, as well as talk to the government to get money. They answered that those were good ideas but needed money. I told them that that had been my parcours for the last 20 years and I had been asking for them to support me for at least the last 15. I never had any support, and was rejected by the Greens, by Regreta and by Extinction Roadkill. I told them to Frack Off.

I don't know any of the papers on this, but one potential problem that immediately comes to my mind is that while surface area relative to volume increases as you grind the rocks, the mechanical work needed to grind something can increase with a larger power. might still be more energy efficient than pumped ccs, but i doubt that it's orders of magnitude

What about implementing this on a smaller scale in those instances where a) the cost (carbon & dollar) is lowest and the contamination with toxic heavy metals like lead and arsenic (you didn't mention this threat) is negligible. Sure, the benefits to CO2 capture are lower for this one idea, but maybe we should be taking a more comprehensive approach by implementing many solutions where the exact palette of methods is locally sensible. There is no single solution to this problem. It will take many approaches.

Love it ... Hahahaha, the old Rock Dust scam. Look at the ingredients of Azomite and you can see all kinds of stuff, mostly not used by plants at all. Thanks for your wonderful videos, always interesting.

As I sit here in a very chilly and grey Zimbabwe, which is supposed to be warm and clear blue skies and you sit in devastating heat, I tend to think we may be a little late in our efforts to mitigate climate change.

This video, as well as others on this wonderful channel, should be essential viewing by kids in school! Superb envisioning of the world we live in and what creative and productive work goes on right now and into the future!!!

This technology needs to be integrated into the production and distribution chain of fertilizer, and the farmers should receive compensation for additional costs for the added total weight of fertilizer + basalt granulate.

In the Cambrian Explosion, CO2 was 7,000 ppm and temperatures around 30C. Weathering and photosynthesis has been reducing this significantly so we are down to 415 ppm and are now in an Ice Age. Most of the last 500 million years have been somewhere between 400 ppm/15C and 7000/30C. If CO2 goes below 150 photosynthesis largely shuts down and life as we know it ends.

Some bloke did the same thing with iron rich mine tailings but straight into the ocean off the coast of Brazil (i think) Algae/seaweed and fish populations mushroomed.

Spreading, what is in effect, sand on farmland doesn't sound like a great idea to me. It would change the water retention of the soil significantly and I can't imagine the long term effects coarse sand would have on implements like plows etc. Neither of these concerns were addressed in this video.

For this to have any measurable effect globally, how much rock would have to be quarried, crushed and shipped? Restoring wetlands and marine environments are surely the answer. Everyone thinks about trees, but peat bogs and kelp forests sequester about 40 times as much co2 by area as trees do.

Very good proposal. I use palagonite a naturally crushed basalt and and its a brilliant fertiliser to my poor quality phyllite based soil. Makes everything grow like crazy when there's enough water. Note: All quarry rock dusts aren't the same and can easily be from granite which has very low carbon capturing calcium and magnesium.

Rock dust, also called cracker, or crusher dust is super beneficial for any land that is not granite or basalt base. ABSOLUTELY The best bet we have is to increase organic matter in soils back to pre-industriel levels. But it won't pay big profits to industry, so it's literally hushed up! AGRICULTURE HAS PUT MORE CARBON INTO THE ATMOSPHERE THAN ANY OTHER SINGLE INDUSTRY!

I really doubt the improving soil point. I genuinely believe it would be detrimental over time. Minerals accumulation on the top layer of the soil generally accelerate desertification of the crops.

Thanks Dave. This process I heard first discussed about 3 years ago in scientist's warning youtube video from memory. Yes, it's a nice idea. Could it help? Yes, it could but not sufficiently in the time frame required, and definitely not in an industrial agriculture scenario' That would be insanity. Starting in 1990 would have helped a lot. All one has to do is to follow the science as the saying goes. We have a window ending as late as 2028/9 to have a reasonable crack at societal survival, if we're lucky enough to have serious programmes in place throughout the economy. That's every economy world wide not just England. The most important thing humanity can do today, which means today immediately, is to stop burning fossil fuels and stop industrial agriculture, not something Bill Gates is big on. It's that simple and that difficult. The other important thing to do simultaneously is to completely change the economic system around the planet. Why? Well if we still have to ask that question at this stage of proceedings, there's little chance to zero of achieving what humanity has to in order to stabilise the co2 e (now at 508 ppm) concentration thereby minimising the loss of life to say a couple of billion or so. And the 6th mass extinction? Likely even more important. Suggest considering the frailty of the IPCC calculations, it's reliance on NETS and holding the temperature to +2.5 above preindustrial, which will be a seriously tough ask on its own. The AR6 is hardly a paragon of un-politicized science fact, as I'm sure you're aware. Anyway youtube comments isn't the place for serious review of where humanity's at. Realism is absolutely a requirement in these times. At this stage I admit I wouldn't want to still be around in 2050 even in England. I seriously fear for the lives of my kids and granddaughter. and all young people.

This seems like a good one to start to see how it performs. It is obvious that a variety of projects need to be started so we can select the best for a long term project.

Sticking it into the ocean directly doesn't really have issues with heaby metals as it just gets diluted out. The choice of pulverising technology is can also make significant differences to the cost enough to make using virgin rock feasible.

It would be very helpful if you had the standard of exactly how much emissions we produce each year at the beginning of every video so we can compare the scale of these proposed solutions to the scale of the problem.

Glad to see you getting into greenhouse gas removal with crushed rock dust. However, basalt is far from the most commonly mined rock, so some of your points don't quite add up. I suggest instead that you read "Climate Restoration" by Peter Fiekowsky, published in April 2022, and with a variety of scaleable, financiable, permanent storage methods of removing GHGs from the atmosphere, perhaps making mankind's efforts "Net Zero" (emissions vs removal) by 2030, and CO2 down to below 300 ppm by 2050.

Immediately accessible options: bamboo replacing conventional lumber and paper pulp (more efficient, better sequestration), 'hobbit' houses (passive cooling and heating), inspections for insect farms (so they can be marketed for human consumption rather than artificially protecting the beef and poultry industry from competition), electrified mass transit (too many cars of any kind), sane urban planning (too many roads and skycrapers), wetland restoration (barely attempted as opposed to reforestation)

Hi Dave, one of the things I’m passionate about is using electrolysis to accrete minerals onto a steel structure for the purpose of repairing or creating new coral reefs. I believe this method has a great potential to store huge quantities of carbon in the form of calcium carbonate. Furthermore, it creates an ideal habitat for soft corals and macro algae to grow, thus pulling even more carbon from the world’s oceans. These repaired or newly created reefs provide much needed nurseries for marine ecosystems and will help revive dwindling fish populations caused through over fishing. In turn helping to feed an ever growing world population. Hoping to see you do a video on this topic. Would be amazing to see what data you can find.

The fact that water reacts so well with CO2 has been increasing its acidity to a point where it is killing off ocean life. Perhaps this idea might be easier, cheaper, and more productive to spread over our oceans?

I think one of the biggest problems inhibiting progress on taking effective measues to reduce greenhouse gases can be explained in one word - money. As long as oliticins think in terms of monetry cost over what happens if we don;t get the job done, they're likely to continue umming and ahhing about it until arge chunks of the world become uninhabitable. In short, I believe that it is the econmic system that has not only been a large part of the cause f the problem, it's also a large part of why effective measures weren't put into action as soon as it became clear what the situation is. Global warming is down to physics, something that we cannot change. Our economic system is a human invention, though, and that CAN be changed. Historically, it has tended to favour the greedy and the sociopathic, and to concentrate the bulk of wealth in a minority of the populace. But jst as money replaced barter, and capitalism replaced mercantilism, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of mankind to devise a new economic system that doesn't drive over-consumption, and that doesn't concentrate wealth so extremely. As a species, we have had the knwledge and resources to ensure that no-one need starve or lack a roof over their heads for decades. But ou economic system is what prevented us from tackling global poverty in any meaningful way. And, in case you think I am advocating cmmunism, I most definitely am NOT! That was a failed political experiment that did no more than tinker with the current economic system in a rather ham-fisted way. Never mind the politics, it's a NEW economic system that insists upon effective recycling throughout the economy, that dissudes over-production and over-consumption, and that also Distributes wealth more evenly (nt perfectlyevenly; just without the extremes of povery and wealth that we currently have). What that system would be, or how to transition to such I have no idea - economics is not my forte, neither is psychology. But the way we are going, we are letting a deeply flawed human mental construct - capitalism - prevent us from doing what is absolutely necessary for our survival. Perhaps our species should be renamed - the "sapiens" part might not be justified!

There is a technology that makes a thin reactive Silicate film on local soils and aggregates. You do not need to mine, grind and haul these silicates. Just coat local soils and aggregates with a thin reactive film to Direct Air Capture of CO2. Good to add Carbon to soil, improve aggregates for roads and act like a scuba diving rebreather to scrub CO2 out of air. All these applications convert CO2 from a waste to a useful product and lower the costs of CO2 capture by creating products that provide value to an application.

The application should be in combination with compost-tea; delivery as a slurry would minimise any dust problem and be more effectively incorporated into the soil, the boost to microbes in the soil* would also help to sequester carbon from the atmosphere on a continuously accumulating trend. A multiplied benefit. * I believe that (some) microbes play a very significant role in mediating chemical weathering of mineral material.

If anybody's interested, I heard a scientist state 10 years ago that the reason why Venus has no water ocean, so no plate tectonics, is simply that Venus rotates too slowly. "Venus has no global magnetic field - though its core iron content is similar to that of Earth, Venus rotates too slowly to generate the type of magnetic field that Earth has". Without the magnetic field, due to rotation of its iron core too slow, the solar wind (or perhaps it was CMEs, particles from the Sun) stripped away its H2 which is the lightest molecule so it gets easiest stripped away from Venus's gravity pull by Sun's particles hitting it, so this left carbon to oxidize-burn-rust-combine-get-eaten-by acid (it's all slow burning, acid burning) by the oxygen instead of H2, resulting in CO2 instead of H2O. But CO2 has a far lower boiling point than H2O so ... the rest is history. Without a liquid ocean of CO2 there's no plate tectonics, no subduction of part of crust below another part to take what farts out of volcanoes back inside where it came from, so it builds up on the outside perpetually.

Good to see you are reading Smil. That particular book is great. Energy and civilization is also great. This idea you present is very compelling. Now how to power it? Oh, I know, let’s use Nuclear!

Soil remineralization stimulates every form of .life in the soil,it builds brand new soil,when used with compost and charcoal it will help feed the world when the message about rockdust finally sinks in ,I've been using this technique for years,hence my moniker,it really does work its what nature has been doing from the start.

Depends very much where the mines are vs the fields: lots of transport-induced CO2 could be generated. And it depends as well on what's being mined where because some of the minerals co-located with ores you _really_ do not want anywhere near food, water, or groundwater.

This sounds good but info presented by others in the Comments section suggests that there are non-trivial problems with making this viable or even desirable. But worth investigating further. Likely it will take a bunch of different initiatives. We need a lot more experimentation & research like this.

In other news BHP have announced that they are replacing their diesel locomotives with battery electric ones in the Pilbara. No external power is required as the run from the mine is downhill so loaded trains running downhill charge the batteries and the batteries will then be used to haul the empty cars back to the mine.

It's a good, creative solution assuming one can keep heavy metals out of the equation. Likely various testing regimes could address this. The big question I have revolves around transport. The mass/density issues when it comes to delivery seems like a moderate carbon cost. That said, I'd love to see the research on the costs associated.

Many commenters have already pointed out the serious problem of using mine-tailings that can poison the soil. Of course, for the Gretas of the world, this is a feature, not a bug, as mass starvation will certainly mitigate global warming in a hurry. It's probably more cost-effective and faster to go with the Soylent Green solution.

Fascinating. I've never considered using the mineral overburdens which come out of mines. Though I tend not to consider such industrially scaled approaches. I'm more of a smallholder/homesteader though.

Please please discuss thermal solar cooling, it could be a breakthrough given that cooling is one of the huge emitters of CO2, not cooling powered by PV, but cooling powered by solar, thank you.

This is just madness. Climat is an extremely complex adaptiv system, with the ecosystem downstream being even harder to predict. This sediments coming from above have a potentially devastating effect on foliage, low nutrition ecosystems and open waters in general.... I can't think of a single active intervention that did not go for the worse in biology. Reduce impact and let this self adapting complex system adapt!

Great vid, but when Dave says the natural process of rock weathering takes centuries, it’s a major understatement. Rock weathering takes millions of years to lower atmospheric CO2 significantly under normal conditions. But indeed, we could speed it up, as long as we used renewable energy to move the rock dust around.

Nailed it again Dave. Just checking if it is my denseness (it’s a word,honest) but would that basalt provide nitrogen as well and negate the need for the massive amount of energy needed to make it? Also would it remove our dependency on potash from Russia? If so, the incentives and energy saved must cancel out the logistical costs? Am I expecting too much from crushed rocks? If

It's not possible to reduce CO2 emission while retaining our standard of living and population. If we accept this reality and want to retain a livable planet then a much simpler solution that is guaranteed to reduce CO2 emissions and consumption is to increase the interest rate. One person at a keyboard can implement this.

1) I loved your map in which Uruguay is just a part of Brazil. 2) the soil of the most productive farmlands in Br is highly corrected, so this layer of crushed basalt would be just one more part of soil correction

The near-equivalency of energy inputs and outputs for DAC only means that it should not be used to offset ongoing emissions that could be replaced with zero-emissions alternatives. If, however, DAC is powered by renewables following widespread grid electrification, then it does offer net benefits. I wouldn't call it an exercise in futility, more a complementary solution for the hardest-to-mitigate emissions like aviation. We'll need it to continue bringing CO2 concentrations down from their peak, and investing in it now will make that scaling up easier in future.

Another consideration is the mineral deficiencies in the populace of first world agricultural countries. Zinc, magnesium and many more deficiencies are rampant in the US. Initially, American cropland's had these minerals in abundancy. Now though, the fields have given up most of their minerals. The fertilizers that are currently used do not supply many of those minerals we would normally be eating through our foods. There are many physical and mental ailments due to these deficiencies. Somehow this is not common knowledge.

Most excellent as always Dave ! What an eye opening idea !

Fantastic video, and a great solution. Rock weathering is a natural process that should be utilized! It's wonderful to see it's becoming a more well-known solution. - Planet Cents Team

Australia might also be a great setting for this technology but as stated getting the tailings to where the agriculture is might be costly. Queensland especially should look at it due to the threat agricultural run off plays on the health of the great barrier reef. Our soils are in general quite poor and thin so adding material would seem to make sense. Lets hope it is seen to be viable.

Not saying that this shouldn't be pursued, as restoring soil fertility is extremely important in and of itself, but what about also just spreading the rock dust into the ocean?? CO2 dissolves in water to an extent determined by its partial pressure and the chemical reactions of the dissolved carbon dioxide with other solutes. By adding it to the oceans it would react with all that extra CO2 the oceans have already sequestered, reacting with the carbonic acid and precipitating out, which would in turn increase the partial pressure differential, increasing the rate at which the oceans can absorb additional carbon dioxide. In some ways this is similar to the idea of adding iron to trigger algae blooms, but relies on abiotic processes instead (although it would likely have some propensity to stimulate primary and secondary productivity to some degree). Although the idea of iron fertilization may have beneficial knock on effects, it may also lead to some of the problems associated with eutrophication a.k.a. "nutrient-induced increase in phytoplankton productivity", and as such it is a bit of a questionable practice (there is also the issue of the iron being in the correct bioavailable form). However, the method of adding basalt (or even better, limestone, more carbonate for shellfish) rock dust to the oceans would be less likely to have the same drawbacks and could be seen as a safer technique, but it should obviously be tested at small scale first. It may even be possible to use it in tandem with iron fertilization for even greater effect. Now all that said, I'm literally just sharing my thoughts as they occur to me here, It may be possible that this has already been explored, and there may be issues that I am not accounting for, not to mention it may not have enough of an effect to be economically viable.. so take this with a grain of salt... But if iron fertilization, and crop spreading are potentially viable, it certainly seems that this would be both cheaper and possibly even more effective than either of the former methods, especially considering the absolutely massive size of the oceans and the insane volume of CO2 that can be added or taken away while having a statistically insignificant effect on ocean PH (not to mention and this is a self regulating processes in that the ocean will just reabsorb whatever we take away until the partial pressure is in balance with the level of atmospheric CO2).

We've got the dual solutions of carbon capture and neon capture (for semiconductors), so why not solve both at once? Both make up about the same percentage of air. Neon has had a 2-stage process that Russia's invasion into Ukraine has destroyed: - Russian steel mills separate air into oxygen and leftovers. The oxygen is injected into iron to remove carbon, making it more ductile, as part of modern steel making. - Ukranian air plants separate the leftovers into various gases, including neon. So rebuilding this in the USA will require reshoring steel production, as well as setting up an ore supply line. - Oregon or southwest WA might be good options for Australian ore shipments. - Then setup an air processing system nearby. Process the carbon dioxide into something like cabon fibers or graphene, and oxygen gas.

Basalt is closely associated with constructive plate margins and small scale igneous intrusions linked to vulcanicity past and present. It also a resource thats used for road stone and for melting to produce basalt rebar for re inforced concrete in place of corrosion prone more expensive steel. .it can also be turned into a fiber that can be woven into a fabric and used a lighter stronger cheaper natural substitute for Glassfiber and in some cases Carbon fiber.

I'm highly skeptical that this would be a net positive for the planet. As others here have mentioned, the potential poisoning of farmland by this method, combined with the massive scale that this operation would need to be running at would make it very difficult to undo the damage it could do. We have better methods for growing food than industrial ag, no need to go spreading mining waste and making the whole thing worse.

A diversity of tactics. ☮️ ❤️ ^.^

You cannot sustainably at Zn, Mg, and Mn to the fields. While they are important for plants in small quantities, they are toxic if the concentration gets to high. One has to calculate this in advance.

Adding wast concrete to rivers will raise the pH, lower the acidity, of rain water and capturing the CO2 as HCO3 and CaCO3.

This was really fascinating. Thank you

I think I've read somewhere a process similar to this can be used to produce concrete.

I only use rock dust or Sea-90 for new plant starts for transplanting. Dramatically increasing the microbial life in the soil along with continuous cover cropping is the proven method for accruing carbon in the soil.

Excellent reporting and excellent means to enrich the greening of the earth!

Bravo! There is hope for the future! Thanks for sharing your video. A breath of fresh air! 👍✌️🇬🇧

Calcium carbonate accretion through electrolysis will store vast amounts of CO2 in the oceans. Furthermore, it can be used to repair damaged reef habitats. Thus in turn creates more fisheries and increases catch yields. Thus helping to feed a growing planet

Vesta is doing ERW of Olivine on beaches and shallow seas as well, so it's not just agricultural areas that can be utilized for this kind of drawdown. ERW is gonna be huge!

Is anyone looking into mass growing of hemp as a method to remove CO2 and lock it away? Hemp fibres are the toughest in nature, yet can be made into anything from rope to underwear, including bedding, furnishing and anything cotton is used for. Hemp takes no inputs unlike cotton, and products made from hemp fibres last for many decades [I have a tee shirt made from 100% hemp that's fifty years old and no signs of wear] while cotton tees have about 1-3 years depending on quality and wear, and cotton is nutrient and water intensive. If the hemp industry everywhere were expanded to replace plastics and cotton, as was once the case, it would be a good CO2 buffer to give us an instant method of CO2 removal. It's simple, cost free and grows even on marginal land so no need to encroach on food production. Houses can be built from hemp board and hempcrete as well as all qualities of materials humans need. Could you do a similar investigation into this Dave. Are there drawbacks? Is it practicable?

In addition to the problem that others have noted (various noxious metals from the crushed rocks contaminating the soil), I also wonder if an additional cost would be the effect is has on the cutting blades used during tilling. Having abrasives in the soil would result in farmers spending a lot more time and money changing and sharpening blades.

even if this works and eliminates the co2 problem, it does not justify burning oil as we are, as this is a limited resource and it is being wasted.

Great video (as usual) from Dave and very relevant. These could be termed as out of the box solutions, the four major govts must atleast start pilot projects immediately to study the feasibility and innovate to make the system suitable for a given region. Once we have real world data, then we can move ahead full speed.

What about quarries? Basalt is used today for roads and building. With mines, there could be a system of monitoring. Don't just shoot down good ideas, think of how to mitigate downsides!

What about using sustainable farming practices that maintain/enrich the soil via crop rotation, instead of the mono-farming that requires more and more fertilizers because the soil is depleted of what the plants need? Then we’d not need petrochemical-based fertilizers, because the rotated crops would affix the nutrients (using carbon dioxide in the process) in the soil.

There are writings by the Sumarians about the Annunaki an extra-terrestrial race who they say, came to earth to mine gold. Their atmosphere also experienced very severe global warming. They came to mine gold so that they could then dust their atmosphere with gold dust. The idea is that the gold will reflect the sun's rays back into space and cool off the atmosphere.

Earth's atmosphere is composed of approximately 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, 0.93 percent Argon, 0.04 percent carbon dioxide as well as trace amounts of neon, helium, methane, krypton, ozone and hydrogen, as well as water vapor.

Another great video. I like the crushed rock idea just for having better soil for farm products. We used lots of chemical fertilizers, but that doesn't make up for the various bacteria, and important minerals that are needed in the plants that we eat. As we are now learning the importance of bacteria in our lives, this crushed rock might help to have a healthier soil bacteria that is killed with pesticides and herbicides along with the minerals important to a healthy plant from which to feed our bodies. The CO2 part of the equation is the added bonus, in my opinion. We do need better soil as well.

Thanks for mentioning the barriers to implementation.