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Title: The proposed climate fix tech companies just spent millions on: Rocks
Google has recently announced a significant investment in TerraDot, a startup that aims to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by crushing up rocks and spreading them out over vast areas of land. This unconventional approach may seem surprising, but it’s not entirely new – Google has been exploring the concept for years.
The company has signed a deal with TerraDot to develop this technology on a large scale, committing millions to the project. But what exactly does this entail? And will it actually make a difference in the fight against climate change?
Here’s how it works: Terradot takes basalt rocks from Brazilian quarries and grinds them into tiny particles that are then spread over vast areas of land – typically farmland or other agricultural spaces. The goal is to accelerate a natural process called “weathering,” where the rocks react with water to form carbonic acid, which in turn reacts with CO2 to trap it in bicarbonate.
This might sound like science fiction, but Google and TerraDot believe that by speeding up this reaction, they can permanently remove significant amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. The company claims that its approach could sequester around 200,000 tons of CO2 per year, which is a small fraction of the massive amount of pollution it produces annually.
But here’s the catch: right now, we don’t have precise measurements to confirm how effective this method really is. While Google and TerraDot plan to take soil samples and assess the degradation over time, there’s still too much uncertainty around the actual carbon capture rates.
The partnership between these tech giants highlights a crucial point: that there are no silver bullets in the fight against climate change. Both Google and TerraDot emphasize that this approach should not replace efforts to reduce emissions, but rather serve as an additional tool to help mitigate the damage done by existing pollution.
Critics have argued that this method is too slow or impractical on a large scale, while others point out that it may not be suitable for certain regions due to local soil conditions. However, TerraDot CEO Alex Jagoutz disagrees: “I don’t think we have the luxury to overthink it right now.”
Google’s investment in this technology reflects its commitment to using clean energy and reducing its carbon footprint. The company has made significant efforts to power its data centers with renewable energy sources and has vowed to become completely carbon neutral within the next few years.
It remains to be seen if this unconventional approach will prove viable, but it’s clear that any attempt to reverse climate change requires a multifaceted strategy. By investing in innovative technologies like this one, Google is acknowledging the complexity of the issue and the need for multiple approaches to achieve meaningful results.
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(Original article title: “The proposed climate fix tech companies just spent millions on: Rocks”)
Source: www.theverge.com
