Geoengineering potential of artificially enhanced silicate weathering of olivine

Peter Köhler, Jens Hartmann, and Dieter A. Wolf-Gladrow
PNAS November 23, 2010 107 (47) 20228-20233; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1000545107

  1. Edited by Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany, and approved October 4, 2010 (received for review January 14, 2010)

Abstract

Geoengineering is a proposed action to manipulate Earth’s climate in order to counteract global warming from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. We investigate the potential of a specific geoengineering technique, carbon sequestration by artificially enhanced silicate weathering via the dissolution of olivine. This approach would not only operate against rising temperatures but would also oppose ocean acidification, because it influences the global climate via the carbon cycle. If important details of the marine chemistry are taken into consideration, a new mass ratio of CO2 sequestration per olivine dissolution of about 1 is achieved, 20% smaller than previously assumed. We calculate that this approach has the potential to sequestrate up to 1 Pg of C per year directly, if olivine is distributed as fine powder over land areas of the humid tropics, but this rate is limited by the saturation concentration of silicic acid. In our calculations for the Amazon and Congo river catchments, a maximum annual dissolution of 1.8 and 0.4 Pg of olivine seems possible, corresponding to the sequestration of 0.5 and 0.1 Pg of C per year, but these upper limit sequestration rates come at the environmental cost of pH values in the rivers rising to 8.2. Open water dissolution of fine-grained olivine and an enhancement of the biological pump by the rising riverine input of silicic acid might increase our estimate of the carbon sequestration, but additional research is needed here. We finally calculate with a carbon cycle model the consequences of sequestration rates of 1–5 Pg of C per year for the 21st century by this technique.

Anthropogenic carbon emissions lead not only to the rise of near surface global temperatures, but also to ocean acidification (1). Besides the need of society to reduce future anthropogenic emissions as addressed in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to avoid dangerous climate change (2–6), CO2 sequestration and various geoengineering concepts were proposed to counteract global warming (7, 8). These concepts focus either on the restriction of the proposed temperature rise through an artificial enhancement of the planetary albedo (9, 10) [solar radiation management (SRM)] or on removing CO2 from the atmosphere by various carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques (11–14). The SRM techniques leave the carbon cycle untouched and thus do not address the problem of ocean acidification. The unabated increase of atmospheric CO2 that accompanies SRM techniques would for some of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emission scenarios (15) lead to a drop in pH of the surface water of up to 0.4 and to a drop in the aragonite saturation state by a factor of 2 in the year 2100 (16). It would thus bring various marine calcifying species, which depend in the buildup of their hard shells or skeletons on the oversaturation of CaCO3 in surface waters, into unfavorable environmental conditions, to which their degree of adaption is yet unknown (1). In the worst case their carbonate parts might dissolve (17).

We investigate in more detail a specific CDR technique, carbon sequestration by artificially enhanced silicate weathering via the dissolution of olivine (18) as a geoengineering technique mitigating both global warming and ocean acidification. Our results expand previous studies on the impact of natural weathering in the future (19–21). Olivine (Mg2SiO4) is a well-studied mineral with known dissolution kinetics (22) and has been suggested to be useful for CDR geoengineering (18). Please note that there are a few alternative CDR approaches, which operate via the dissolution of CaCO3 (23–25). According to Schuiling and Krijgsman (18), olivine dissolves in water after Embedded Image[1]This formula suggests that 4 mol of CO2 are sequestered by 1 mol of olivine, equivalent to 1.25 t of CO2 (or 0.34 t of C) per tonne of olivine. However, because of the chemistry of CO2 in seawater (26), the impact of olivine dissolution on the carbon cycle is more complicated because both dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA) are changed, leading to a new CO2 concentration. Thus, the ratio of CO2 sequestration to olivine dissolution will vary with the initial state of the marine carbonate system and the amount of olivine dissolved. The value of 1.25 t of CO2 per tonne of olivine is an upper theoretical limit.

The dissolution of olivine leads to an increase of TA by 4 mol per 1 mol of olivine dissolved ([1]). If the olivine dissolution reduces atmospheric CO2 by x μatm (or x·2.12 Pg of C) and if this C is transferred as riverine input of bicarbonate (Embedded Image) to the surface ocean, the DIC in the surface ocean thus changes from DICi to Embedded Image[2]where DIC is in mmol m-3 and Vs is the considered ocean surface volume (e.g., the upper 100 m of the ocean are about 3 × 1016 m3). The factor 12 refers to the molar weight of C (12 g mol-1). From DIC(x) and pCO2(x) = pCO2i - x, one can calculate TA(x) (26) [SI Text], and finally, the amount of olivine requested, y (in grams), for a planned sequestration is calculated from TA (mmol m-3) by Embedded Image[3]We plot the resulting relationship between the desired amount of CO2 to be sequestrated and the amount of olivine necessary to be dissolved in Fig. 1A.

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.

The dependency of olivine dissolution on initial conditions (pCO2 = 385 or 750 ppmv). (A) The amount of olivine necessary for CO2 sequestration. (B) The sequestration ratio (amount of CO2 sequestered per amount of olivine dissolved).

The ratio of CO2 sequestration to the amount of olivine requested is on the order of 1 g g-1 (ratio C:olivine between 0.25 and 0.3 g g-1) (Fig. 1B). Thus, considering these details on the marine chemistry alone reduces the efficiency of the approach by about 20%. However, in these calculations we assumed that the surface ocean is well mixed. If olivine enters the ocean via rivers, the oceanic volume initially involved in sequestration would be much smaller. Accordingly, the changes in TA and pH in this smaller volume would be much larger and thus might have major impacts on aquatic (riverine and coastal) ecosystems.

Results and Discussion

Chemical Consequences for the River Catchments.

We provide an upper estimate of CO2 sequestration with the help of olivine on land, if the pH of major rivers in the humid tropics, such as the Amazon or Congo, should not rise above a certain threshold. We use information of riverine partial pressure of CO2, alkalinity, and runoff of both rivers (Table 1) and calculate for freshwater (27) and a temperature of 25 °C the potential to transport dissolved olivine to the ocean if the maximum tolerable annual average pH threshold of 8.0 or 9.0 should not be reached. After Eq. 3, the annual input of 1.37 and 15.81 Pg of dissolved olivine in the Amazon or of 0.21 and 2.33 Pg of olivine in the Congo catchment area would then be possible. This sequestration rate requires the distribution of 57–2,712 g m-2 y-1 of olivine powder throughout the whole area. The enhanced silicate weathering flux would according to Fig. 1 sequestrate approximately as many grams of CO2 (or 27.5% as much in grams of C) as olivine was dissolved. This procedure would give the Amazon and Congo river basins the artificial silicate weathering potentials to sequester annually up to 4.35 and 0.64 Pg of carbon, respectively.

View this table:
Table 1.

Chemical consequences of olivine input into the Amazon and Congo river catchment areas (30–32, 54)

However, these estimates so far do not address the difficulties in distributing olivine powder in remote land areas covered with dense tropical rain forests and neglect a crucial limitation of the chemistry of olivine dissolution, which is the saturation of waters with silicic acid (H4SiO4), which would restrict further dissolution of olivine. The saturation concentration of H4SiO4 at 25 °C and pH of 8 is ∼2,000 mmol m-3 (28), about a factor of 400 higher than the recent concentration of dissolved Si of 5 mmol m-3 in the surface ocean (29). If taken at face value, silicic acid saturation would apply a much stronger constraint on the possible olivine dissolution than our pH threshold of 9, allowing only an annual input of 1.77 and 0.37 Pg of olivine into the Amazon and Congo, respectively, leading to a pH of 8.2 and restricting C sequestration in these catchments to 0.49 and 0.10 Pg of C per y-1. For a more detailed analysis, the rise in solubility of silicic acid with pH above 8 needs to be taken into consideration (28).

The river runoff of the Amazon and Congo contributes to more than 50% of the runoff of the 39 largest river basins globally (30). Consequently, the olivine sequestration technique has only limited potential to reduce atmospheric CO2 in orders of magnitude being of interest in geoengineering (a maximum C sequestration of 1 Pg of C per year), if applied over major catchment areas, either in the tropics or elsewhere. The tropical areas are of special interest because of the pH and temperature dependency of olivine dissolution (22). The calculations above are rough estimates, because of the strong seasonality of pCO2 in tropical rivers (31) and the large spatial gradient downstream. Organic matter degradation leads to supersaturation of rivers and lakes with respect to the atmospheric CO2 concentrations (32, 33). In the Amazon the CO2 supersaturation is reduced to zero and reversed to an undersaturation in the river plume that is caused by CO2 outgassing and a plankton bloom, the latter generated by the riverine input of nutrients (34). The natural fluctuations in riverine pCO2 lead already to fluctuations in pH between 6.4 and 7.8 in the Amazon and 5.7 and 7.6 in the Congo, which also varies the potential allowable anthropogenic input of alkalinity to stay below given pH thresholds (Table 1).

In addition, the dissolution rate of olivine depends on the reactive surface and thus decreases with grain size. Small grain sizes (10 μm) are necessary to allow fast dissolution of olivine within 1 or 2 y considering the typical pH conditions of tropical soils (pH 4–6) (22) and the high application rates that are required to obtain a significant CO2 sequestration. Our ratio of CO2 sequestration to olivine dissolution is therefore an upper limit for favorable conditions and under the assumption of a complete dissolution. The net CO2 sequestration efficiency will be reduced by 5–10% because of CO2 emissions by mining and grinding of olivine (22). The less energy-demanding grinding to a 37-μm size would cause only a decrease of the net efficiency by 0.7–1.5% because of differences in grinding techniques (22) but may not be sufficient for the attempted fast dissolution rates. In addition, transport decreases the net efficiency by 2.4%, 1.6%, and 11% per 1,000 km of transport for inland and coastal ships, freight trains, and trucks, respectively (22, 35). Fortunately, suitable dunite complexes for mining of olivine are located in the humid tropical regions, to allow relatively short ways for the transport of olivine powder to application sites (Fig. 2). Thus, the CO2 net efficiency of olivine dissolution for applications within 1,000 km of mines can be 93%. Costs for mining and grinding are estimated (22) to be €10 per tonne of sequestered CO2 (€37 per tonne of C). Taking into account costs for applications (36), total costs might be in the range of €20–40 per tonne of CO2 sequestered (or €70–150 per tonne of C). These costs may be compensated by CO2-emission–certificate trade (37).

Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.

Location of some active dunite mines in the humid tropics plotted together with coastal segment (53). There exist, however, more locations that could be mined for dunite.

Considering a sequestration of 0.5 Pg of C per year requires an olivine distribution rate of about 300 g m-2 y-1, if applied over the whole Amazon catchment area (Table 1). This procedure would lead to enhanced weathering rates of 85 t of C per km-2 y-1, respectively, which is at the upper range of reported natural basalt weathering rates in humid tropical regions (38). Thus, from field and laboratory evidence as well as from models (22, 38), it is reasonable to assume that the geoengineering potential of enhanced silicate weathering by the dissolution of olivine in the humid tropics is on the order of 1 Pg of C per year. This estimate considers the limitation by the saturation of silicic acid and assumes a complete dissolution of all distributed olivine. Furthermore, it is necessary that applicable areas are identified and the demanded infrastructure is being built up. It seems, however, unrealistic that the required distribution rates might be applied over remote regions of these catchment areas because of practical reasons.

The C sequestration rates might be increased above this potential by two additional effects.

First, olivine powder might also be dissolved in open ocean surface waters. It is known that 50–60% of biogenic-produced silica (opal) is redissolved in the upper 100 m of the water column (39); thus, anthropogenic-distributed fine grain olivine powder also has the potential to be partially dissolved in the surface of the open ocean. As the net effect of olivine dissolution, TA increases by 4 mol per 1 mol of olivine dissolved whereas DIC stays constant ([1]). This change in TA reduces the partial pressure of CO2 in the surface ocean, leading to an additional oceanic uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere via gas exchange (26). This way of dissolving olivine is, however, much less efficient than on land, because of the higher oceanic pH reducing the dissolution rate (22) and the considerable large fraction that will sink undissolved to the ocean floor.

Second, the rise in riverine input of silicic acid into the world oceans accompanying olivine dissolution on land might enhance the marine biological pump. Silicate is known to be a limiting factor for diatoms in various parts of the world ocean (40). With diatoms being responsible for about 50% of marine export production (41), an enhanced riverine input of dissolved silicate (42) has the potential to largely alter the biological pump, although the overall net effect is, because of the high dissolution rates in the euphotic zone (39), difficult to estimate.

Both effects need future investigations to finally quantify their contribution to the C sequestration potential introduced by olivine dissolution.

Global Carbon Cycle Dynamics.

To set these sequestration rates into context with the assumed evolution of fossil fuel emissions and climate change in this century, we implemented them in a carbon cycle box model. We compare nonweathering control runs with artificial enhanced weathering for A2 and B1 IPCC emission scenarios (see Materials and Methods). We imply C sequestration rates of 1 or 5 Pg of C per year. The first is the potential of olivine dissolution on tropical land, and the latter is an upper limit in a scenario with additional dissolution in tropical open ocean surface waters or on suitable areas outside the tropical regions. It might, for example, be obtained if annually 40 g of C per m-2 are sequestrated by the dissolution of 150 g of olivine per m2 over the entire tropical ocean waters (∼100·1012 m2). Olivine distribution rates for that scenario are difficult to estimate, because of the second-order effect of marine productivity and carbonate chemistry as mentioned above, and warrant additional research. In the control runs without artificial silicate weathering (Fig. 3), atmospheric pCO2 in the A2 emission scenario rises to 720–960 μatm in A.D. 2100 depending on the dynamics of the terrestrial C storage. This range in atmospheric pCO2 covers the spread of the coupled carbon cycle-climate simulations of C4MIP (43), although it should be noted that C4MIP neglects feedbacks from the nitrogen cycle, which is nowadays known to have a significant impact on C storage on land (44). The agreement between A.D. 1750 and A.D. 2000 of the simulations with both Law Dome ice core reconstructions (45) and instrumental measurements on Mauna Loa (46) is reasonable. Simulated pCO2 in the more optimistic emission scenario B1 reaches values of 490–640 μatm. The rise in pCO2 would approximately lead to a global warming in A.D. 2100 of 1.5–4.9 K. They are furthermore accompanied by a drop in mean surface ocean pH of 0.36–0.41 (A2) and 0.20–0.31 (B1) in A.D. 2100 if compared with preindustrial times.

Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.

Simulating the consequences of olivine dissolution for the global carbon cycle. (A) The sum of anthropogenic emissions from fossil fuel combustion (A.D. 1750–2000) (51) and land use change (A.D. 1850–2000; before A.D. 1850: linear extrapolation of land use change to zero in A.D. 1750) (50). A.D. 2000–2100: Projected emission for A2 and B1 scenarios (15). (B) Global transient temperature rise (left y axis) inter(extra)polated from a transient climate sensitivity of 2 K for a doubling of preindustrial atmospheric CO2 (52) and atmospheric CO2 (right y axis), data from Law Dome ice core (45), and instrumental measurements on Mount Mauna Loa A.D. 1958–2008 (46). Simulation results of the emission scenarios without (A2 and B1) and with (A2 + TB and B1 + TB) dynamical terrestrial carbon storage. The gray area covers the range of results from coupled carbon cycle-climate simulations for the A2 emission scenario C4MIP (43). (D) Impact of enhanced silicate weathering for A.D. 2010–2100. Global temperature rise (left y axis) and simulated atmospheric pCO2 (right y axis) for the A2 and B1 scenarios with and without dynamical terrestrial carbon storage for three different weathering strengths [W1 (thin line):+1 Pg of C per year; W5 (bold line): +5 Pg of C per year]. (C and E): Mean pH of the global surface ocean for the same scenarios as in B and D, respectively. Dotted horizontal lines in B and D denote the 2-K warming threshold.

The simulated transient behavior of atmospheric pCO2 and mean surface ocean pH for all scenarios with artificial silicate weathering are compiled in Fig. 3 D and E. In the most optimistic case (B1 emission scenario and maximum artificial weathering W5) pCO2 stabilizes around 400–600 μatm, and pH drops only to ∼8.0. If a maximum global mean warming of 2 K until A.D. 2100 is the main target (4), then emissions have to follow B1, and at least the CO2 sequestration of the weak weathering scenario W1 is necessary. If emissions follow the A2 scenario, the geoengineering concept of olivine dissolution is not capable of reaching the 2-K warming target (Fig. 3D).

The weak artificial weathering rate, which sequesters 1 Pg of C per year, reduces pCO2 by less than 30 μatm (equivalent to a global warming that is 0.2 K smaller than in the control runs) in the year 2100 and increases pH by about 0.02, regardless of the emission scenario and our assumption on the dynamics of the terrestrial C storage (Fig. 4). The strong enhanced weathering (5 Pg of C per year) would reduce pCO2 by 80–150 μatm (global warming reduced by 0.6–1.1 K) and increases pH by about 0.1 in year 2100. In all these simulations the emission scenarios are less important for the calculated impact on the C cycle than the assumptions on the terrestrial C storage.

Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.

Differences in global temperature, atmospheric pCO2, and mean surface ocean pH induced by enhanced silicate weathering for A.D. 2010–2100. (A and B) Weak weathering scenario W1: +1 Pg of C per year. (C and D) Strong weathering scenario W5: +5 Pg of C per year. Both y axes in A and C are for both subfigures.

Altogether, enhanced weathering via the dissolution of fine-grained olivine powder on land in the humid tropics seems to be a CDR technique, which might sequester up to 1 Pg of C per year directly. This technique has certain geoengineering potential, although the applicable ratio of CO2 sequestration per olivine dissolution is 20% smaller than previously assumed. The efficiency of olivine dissolution in the open ocean needs further investigation, and the second-order effect of an enhanced biological pump due to increased riverine input of silicic acid needs to be evaluated with both models and field studies. The technique is not able to compensate alone for rising emissions under business-as-usual scenarios. Once emissions are reduced from present-day values to about half (∼4 Pg of C per year), it might help to quickly extract a large part of the residual fossil fuel inputs to the atmosphere and could thus help to prevent dangerous climate change. However, the amount of olivine necessary for these applications is huge: It lies in the range of present-day global coal production (47). Compared to other techniques (8) olivine dissolution is very effective, rated as relatively safe, and moderately expensive. A huge dissolution peak of olivine in spatially restricted areas, e.g., near major mines, is limited by the saturation concentration of H4SiO4. It might have severe consequences for the alkalinity and pH of rivers (river alkalinization) or affect coastal zones. Thus ecosystem assessments for the expected impacts of the alkalinity rise are necessary before considering its implementation. If olivine is ground to very small grains of 10 μm, a complete dissolution within 1–2 y seems possible. Thus, the environmental impact in the regions of distribution might be minimized to the distribution itself without further side effects. However, a distribution in the densely vegetated interior of the tropical rain forest catchment area seems difficult to obtain. There remains the need to study in detail the impact of the proposed increase in alkalinity and silicic acid in soils and aquatic ecosystems.

Materials and Methods

For our carbon cycle simulations we use the carbon cycle box model BICYCLE, which was so far mainly used for paleo applications (48, 49). The model consists of ten oceanic reservoirs distinguishing surface, intermediate, and deep waters in three ocean basins (Atlantic, Southern Ocean, and Indo-Pacific), a well-mixed atmosphere, and a globally averaged scheme of the terrestrial biosphere containing seven boxes for C3 and C4 photosynthesis and soil carbon of three different turnover times. The carbonate system in the ocean has DIC and TA as state variables, from which all other variables (CO2, partial pressure of CO2, bicarbonate, carbonate, and pH) are calculated as functions of environmental conditions.

The anthropogenic emissions by fossil fuel combustion and land use change between A.D. 1750 and A.D. 2000 are taken from reconstructions (50, 51). From A.D. 2000 until A.D. 2100 we prescribe emissions following either the A2 or B1 emission scenarios of the IPCC (15). B1 emissions rise to a maximum of 12 Pg of C per year in 2050 and decline toward 6 Pg of C per year in 2100, while those in A2 rise steadily to 30 Pg of C per year in the year 2100 (Fig. 3A).

Because of the known model-dependent uncertainty of the climate-carbon cycle feedback (43), we do not propose a realistic temporal evolution of atmospheric CO2 with or without geoengineering through enhanced silicate weathering under both emission scenarios. Our goal is merely to obtain a rough estimate for the magnitude and potential of the olivine dissolution geoengineering concept. We therefore restrict simulations to setups with (i) constant terrestrial carbon pools and (ii) a crude realization of the CO2 fertilization to estimate the C sink potential of the terrestrial biosphere. The direct temperature effect of rising CO2 is in our model affecting only sea surface temperature and thus the chemistry of the marine carbon cycle (mainly via CO2 solubility) but not ocean circulation and mixing or C storage on land. Runs with these two scenarios should bracket the projected variation of the C cycle for the near future. We estimate the rising temperature of the atmosphere and the surface ocean as a function of atmospheric CO2 by using a linear interpolation and extrapolation of the transient climate sensitivity of 2 K for the doubling of CO2 from its preindustrial values (52).

Geoengineering is restricted to two scenarios, in which for the years 2010–2100 either 1 or 5 Pg of C per year (W1 and W5, respectively) are sequestrated by enhanced silicate weathering via olivine. Weathered bicarbonate enters the world ocean in the two equatorial basins by 50% each. These scenarios are applied to both emission scenarios A2 and B1 with and without dynamical terrestrial C storage leading to eight weathering simulations plus four nonweathering control runs.

Acknowledgments

Locations of some major dunite mines have been provided by R.D. Schuiling. We furthermore thank P. Friedlingstein for providing C4MIP results, N. Moosdorf for preparing Fig. 2, and J. Bijma for discussions. P.K. and D.A.W.-G. were funded by PACES, the research program of AWI. The work of J.H. was supported through the German Science Foundation [Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft project HA 4472/6-1 and the Cluster of Excellence “CliSAP” (EXC177), University of Hamburg].

Footnotes

  • 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Peter.Koehler{at}awi.de.

  • Author contributions: P.K., J.H., and D.A.W.-G. designed research; P.K. performed carbon cycle simulations; D.A.W.-G. performed calculations of the marine carbonate system; and P.K., J.H., and D.A.W.-G. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1000545107/-/DCSupplemental.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

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Geoengineering potential of artificially enhanced silicate weathering of olivine
Peter Köhler, Jens Hartmann, Dieter A. Wolf-Gladrow
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2010, 107 (47) 20228-20233; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1000545107
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