Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Scientists investigating the CO2 absorbing properties of mine waste have discovered asbestos fibres are a good candidate for climate change carbon capture projects.
Asbestos could be a powerful weapon against climate change (you read that right)
Scientists are exploring ways to use mineral waste from mines to pull huge amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air.by
James Temple
October 6, 2020…
The vast surface area of certain types of fibrous asbestos, a class of carcinogenic compounds once heavily used in heat-resistant building materials, makes them particularly good at grabbing hold of the carbon dioxide molecules dissolved in rainwater or floating through the air.
That includes the most common form of asbestos, chrysotile, a serpentine mineral laced throughout the mountain (serpentine is California’s state rock). The reaction with carbon dioxide mainly produces magnesium carbonate minerals like magnesite, a stable material that could lock away the greenhouse gas for millennia.
…
Mineralization is already the main mechanism nature uses in the so-called “slow carbon cycle.” The carbon dioxide in rainwater dissolves basic rocks, producing magnesium, calcium, and other compounds that make their way into the oceans. There, marine life converts the materials into shells and skeletons that eventually turn into limestone and other rock types.
There are more than enough minerals to tie up all the carbon dioxide we’ve ever emitted and more. The problem is that the vast majority are locked away in solid rock that doesn’t come into contact with the greenhouse gas. Even when they’re exposed in rock outcroppings, it takes a long time for these reactions to occur.
…
The approaches could include spreading the material out to increase the reactive surface area, running fans that increase the amount of air flowing over the asbestos, or directly injecting concentrated carbon dioxide into the mineral pits.
…
It’s possible that some amount of asbestos would remain or could be dispersed in the course of doing the work, Aines says. Those are among the key questions that would need to be tested, he adds.
…
Read more: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/06/1009374/asbestos-could-be-a-powerful-weapon-against-climate-change-you-read-that-right/
The plan is to take a known long term lightweight fluffy fibrous carcinogen, spread it on the ground, and blow fans on it to increase air circulation.
I think I prefer to keep the CO2 in the air.
Make it into N95 masks, cigarette filters, make toupees for balding climate scientists and coat wind turbine blades with it. There are all kinds of ideas.
All natural fiber for the diet
“cigarette filters”
Kent Micronite – cutting edge
It actually was in tobacco filters for quite a while.
Such an insane suggestion shows how desperate they are to maintain the narrative. Once the People wake up that the constant stream of fear campaigns backed up by a barrage of lies was always about deceiving the whole of humanity, they will not be very happy.
Once woken up to the propaganda, there is no turning back. Once the escalation of insane excuses and ever more bizarre solutions is recognized as a load of bovine excrement, it will be nearly impossible to put the People back to sleep.
Then it will be the turn of the People to determine their own destiny after “dealing” with those that tries to enslave the entire human race.
Tommy Wils called it
Not to mention that we need CO2 to green the planet and have a reliable food supply. You might as well put a legal limit on oxygen in the air and then ratchet it down until 50% die. Same thing. With Sol going night-night for awhile, we need more CO2 not less.
The subtext of this is, “Why would we be doing all this work unless CO2 was a true danger to the climate and humans?” This is like a parent whipping a child (and enjoying it), all the while telling the child it’s for his/her own good.
I guess if wind mills are allowed to chop up endangered birds, killing a few (or many) people with lung cancer is fine. Their logic is consistent, even if it is horribly wrong. At the bottom of their doctirne is the priciple that people are bad and don’t belong here.
They tried to depopulate with a COVID virus.. didn’t work. They will the slow and painful death by giving everybody lung cancer. Maybe I should start a face mask company after all….
The idea was actually to shut off Trump’s booming economy, and they still can get away with it. Zuckerberg, Soros, and quite a few more I can think of need to dance Danny Deever. Just to make sure, a few boys from the rez could give them each a very nice going away present, genuine arrow shirt.
No, C-19 was relatively harmless and, just as in any other flu season, the elderly and people with critical conditions are the most at risk. They are pretending this is a new phenomenon by consistently saying, “Novel virus” as if all that we have learned about infectious diseases does not apply any more. Gas-light the public should indeed be a punishable offense.
But, the Scamdemic/Testdemic is indeed a dry run for a possible worse pandemic. The authorities (UN, WHO) actually assume there will eventually be a release of a manmade real scourge. So, with that in mind and the UN’s clear goal of lowering the world population, why not have the scourge-plan field tested, tune their world imposition strategy, line up the proper pieces (including masks which are clearly bad for your health), and then release the scourge when they are ready.
The various countries of the world have clearly shown how easily they can be manipulated and almost gleefully give up their freedoms in light of what was basically the flu season.
No, this virus was not a strong one and clearly not as effective as in many other flu seasons. The elderly and critically ill are at risk every year, in every flu season, but they are pretending this is new. They consistently like to call it a “novel virus” as if all that we have learned about coronaviruses and infectious viruses no longer apply. Gas-lighting the public should be a punishable offense.
However this Scamdemic/Testdemic/Casedemic serves as a field test for the UN/WHO for a future real bad pandemic. They assume that this will eventually be a manmade virus that gets out or is released on the world. They now know how compliant various countries and peoples will be and how easily they will give up their freedoms and rights over a flu season virus.
As their goal is indeed to lower world population, they can now organize and revise their plan, get the political and key elements lined up, and then have total control when, logically, they will release the pathogen themselves. Why wait until an accident happens when you are ready for it now. Agenda21/2030 is their goal and why not impose world power while also lowering world population. It’s a win-win for them
And how much CO2 will be released getting the stuff out of the ground ?
Then burying it again once its been mutated.
The other way.. sounds like fracking 😉
In other news and not necessarily off topic as the topic seems to be the insanity of it all,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom urges diners to wear their masks in between bites
To Save the Climate, Give Up the Demand for Constant Electricity
“To save the Climate, give up the demand for constant electricity” When we tell the greens that soft technology cannot supply the energy needs of a modern industrial society we are giving them the benefit of the doubt. Those of them who know up from down have no such intensions.
A bullet point from the article: Zimbabwe and Puerto Rico provide models for what we might call
pause-full electricity. By abiding an interlude—by shedding their load—
people can preserve life near and far.
I think that tells us where we’re headed.
Intermittent electricity in a modern society dependent on electricity to keep food fresh, power life and charge their cars makes me shed my load
Someone ought to urge that dolt, Newsom, to wear a mask all the time..
One that stops him talking !
Thanks Steve, I had missed Newsom’s latest silliness. Is our dear governor daft? I thought we were not supposed to touch our masks. Is this the moment the governor ‘jumped the shark’?
What, the heck, good are masks when the only people who wear them properly work in Operating Rooms?
”The approaches could include spreading the material out to increase the reactive surface area, running fans that increase the amount of air flowing over the asbestos, or directly injecting concentrated carbon dioxide into the mineral pits.”…
In other news, scientists consider how the ingredients of pepperoni pizza would separate out as they enter black holes.
They should throw in some Radium dust to help fight tooth-decay and such. Make it a two-fer.
https://histmed.collegeofphysicians.org/for-students/radium/
“With little to no regulation of radium and other treatments in the early 20th century, ambitious medical doctors and salesmen looked to make products using radium to cure many ailments. These products ranged from additives in toothpaste to “Revigator,” which was water with radium dissolved into it. Patients would drink from the container throughout the day to cure their ailments. “
And if radium+asbestos in the wind doesn’t float your boat, then add in some plutonium dust as well.
Why not do it right and go straight to polonium 210
The Russians seem to have lots
Messy death just like with asbestos but far quicker
Cousin died of mesothelioma a few years ago, was 60
In late teens he had job cutting up and disposing tanks line with asbestos
Nasty shite
And the caring and sharing Quebec government resisted closing mines forever, the town is even named Asbestos
Pat my Father-in-law died an agonising death from asbestosis in 1978 at the age of 52. He was a gunner in the Australian Navy and apparently was exposed to asbestos in his career before and during world war two.
The Australian government requested that my mother-in-law sign a document waving any responsibility against the Australian Navy. She did, he died, she received nothing.
There is so much in the waste of renewables and batteries that is toxic and I wonder, will this be the new ‘asbestos’?
Radon inhalers for asthma!
I don’t mind a Radox bath occasionally ! 😉
To be fair, fluffy chrysotile asbestos has not been shown to be carcinogenic. This is the mineral used for heat-resistant fabrics etc. It is the amphibole asbestos minerals like actinolite and tremolite plus other needle-shaped ones that are the baddies. Sometimes these are contaminants, and there is plenty of literature on their occurrence. Still, we must keep the geo-engineers at bay. Unintended consequences is not part of their education.
Hollywood seems to be the go to source of info on climate, on this I agree with you and them, every movie featuring geoengineering is a catastrophe of good intentions run amuck
Warming is nice
Leave it the EFF alone
Words to that effect
Mr. Pratt – According to available research, Chrysotile asbestos does in fact contribute to lung interstitial fiber loading as it is inhaled and not removed via muco-ciliary escalation (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380325/, also https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/mucociliary-clearance). This fiber loading occurs in a location where immune system cells such as macrophages (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC98382/) must take over the job of removal of foreign material. It is, according to current knowledge at this stage where issues that lead to asbestosis, and increased risk for lung cancer development occur. Such adverse medical outcomes have been the subject of research for decades, theories have been proposed, and subsequent studies have replicated the theorized outcomes linking exposure to Chrysotile asbestos to increased lung cancer risk. And yes – exposure to the Amphibole fiber series (such as Amosite and Crocidolite asbestos) are proven to enhance lung cancer risk factor based on morphology (shape and form) as well as chemistry differences between the Serpentine form and the Amphibole – but to state “To be fair, fluffy chrysotile asbestos has not been shown to be carcinogenic. This is the mineral used for heat-resistant fabrics etc. ” as you have above outright discounts voluminous studies concluding that Chrysotile exposures that meet the ‘Dose-Response’ criteria (see: https://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/dose-response) do in fact contribute to increased lung (and other types of) cancer risks.
Please, remember that WUWT is a science-based website – and science does in fact refute your posted assertions above.
Yours in WUWT,
Regards,
MCR
LOL You can’t make this stuff up! Well, I guess you can…if you are a Climate Scientist or their kin.
Another ‘solution’ to a non existent problem.
The asbestos class action lawyers are already sharpening their pencils. A whole new raft of plaintiffs.
Didn’t you get the memo? Anything driven by the climate change agenda gets a free pass.
The choice between spreading about a well known lightweight fluffy carcinogen, and then blowing it all over the place with air circulation, risking people’s health and reducing CO2, or doing nothing and allowing extra CO2 to enhance crop and tree growth would appear to be a No-Brainer, except for those with no brains.
Leftist says…….. “Oh, Oh, Oh.. can I have that fluffy white stuff.. it FEELS so smooth !”
In case you missed it earlier,
Here is more research that shows CO2 change follows temperature change:
https://tinyurl.com/y4zso26m
Nice one Dan
It confirms what I’ve been raving about for years= that the CO2 is coming from farmland soils
Its produced by bacteria in soil.
They are insanely temperature sensitive but also are Liebig limited by water soluble nitrogen.
Farmers some to their rescue with artificial fertiliser but also Mr & Mrs Public – producing nitrogen ‘pollution’ as they drive their cars, heat their homes and are generally responsible for the burning of vast amounts of ‘stuff’
Any stuff
Burn anything in ordinary atmospheric air and you get nitrogen oxides. Also sulphur
And they all go to fertilise the soil bacteria, thence any/all green-growing plants.
CO2 is NOT the Global Greening fertiliser.
There are 3 sorts of asbestos: blue, brown and white
Blue & brown are slight variations on Iron Silicate= the stuff of cancer
Used less than 10% of the time when asbestos was used
White asbestos is Magnesium Silicate, as they allude to. It simply dissolves/melts if/when it ever gets inside us. Our internals are slightly acidic and the white asbestos turns to, as they say, magnesium carbonate 90%+ of all asbestos ever used was= White Asbestos = NOT a carcinogen.
Do we see ANOTHER wild panic set off among the illiterate people?
Notice here how even the skeptics believe the hideous Doom & Gloom surrounding asbestos?
Considering that magnesium is a VITAL neurotransmitter for us, that easily 25% of us are deficient in the stuff (hello dementia), doing as they say might be A Good Thing
Especially as a lot of farmland soils are now becoming deficient in magnesium – flushed away by nitrogen fertiliser Also: as Seen On TV in brown/orange/red/yellow flood waters sweeping through towns/villages/cities.
What they suggest doing SHOULD have been happening naturally anyway.
Soil Erosion strikes again
We just sold a lot with a teardown on it. It took a couple of years because the house has that fibre board stuff on it which is supposed to contain asbestos. People are really scared of it. If it had not sold now we were going to remove it all and decorate the house with tar paper and battens. Exposing it in ‘wilderness’ areas will be a good way to keep people out.
In case you missed it, co2 forcing explained by skeptic astronomer Nir Shaviv:
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
Do you think there would be a concern for catastrophic global warming if it was widely known that ocean surface temperature cannot exceed 32C (305K):
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNg2j12L80QUka–hI
The reason for this is CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) and the reflectivity of tropical storm clouds:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNg2bZUBb60GfpUmGr
They storm clouds cause a rapid reduction in ocean surface temperature. The storm potential rises with the 4th power of surface temperature above 277K:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNg2fysG93NziCOK9k
Sadly climate models are not able to produce storms, the resulting clouds and the associated rapid increase in reflected energy.
Like sea ice at the cool end that prevents heat loss from oceans, storm clouds at the hot end reflect solar energy to reduce heat input. Oceans surface temperature can not go below 271.2K or exceed 305K. The average sea surface temperature will always be between these two extremes provided water persists across broad latitudes and the atmosphere is retained.
I do have a problem with locking up carbon dioxide “for millennia.” During the next Ice Age when atmospheric CO2 plunges down nearer to the deadly 150 ppm number required for photosynthesis, having CO2 locked up for millennia may not be in the best interests of the biosphere.
“To save the Climate, give up the demand for constant electricity” When we tell the greens that soft technology cannot supply the energy needs of a modern industrial society we are giving them the benefit of the doubt. Those of them who know up from down have no such intensions.
A bullet point from the article: Zimbabwe and Puerto Rico provide models for what we might call
pause-full electricity. By abiding an interlude—by shedding their load—
people can preserve life near and far.
I think that tells us where we’re headed.
The fixation on CO2 is becoming very unhealthy. But great news for Asbestos, Quebec. They can reopen the mine there. What do they plan to do with all the asbestos laying on the ground with fans blowing on it? I got an idea…they could use it for insulation. Wait..I think they already tried that with the insulation. Along with a 1001 other products. They also put it in the drywall and drywall mud back in the 50’s to the early 80’s so a lot of old houses and condos still have it in-situ. I think they should do an asbestos abatement study first. How is it they can come up with the same ideas that cost billions already and did major medical harm to a lot of people?
“To save the Climate, give up the demand for constant electricity”
With these types of sentiments, Gavin Newsome and his California government has single handedly caused the biggest sales of fossil fuel fired generators the Earth has ever seen.
When PGE cuts power, the hardware stores sell out of generators!
What could possibly go wrong?
The belief in the catastrophic effects of Climate Change is now well established in government. It seems open-ended – there is no limit to the damage that it can cause.
That being so, I propose that we buy up some asbestos mines, and ask for grants for developing the asbestos clothing which will be needed when the world temperature exceeds that of molten lead.
Looking at the staggering graph created by the UK Covid scientists, when they presented a simple exponential curve in order to scare people into submission, I calculate that we will need asbestos underpants sooner than you think! I show my rough workings below, strictly following UK Government statistical procedure, which accords well with international Climate Change approaches. If Mr Eschenbach (or any other reader) would like to check the figures he is welcome to do so – maybe we could submit a paper to Nature….
Earth Temperature Projections using metadata fromm WoodForTrees Temperature Index.
1 – For the period mid 2015 to Jan 2016, Woodfortrees Index gave an increase in Earth Average Temperature (EAT) of 0.6 deg C.
2 – So we have an estimated increase of 1.2deg C per year, when the nominal EAT is, say, 15 deg C.
3 – That is an increase of about 1/10th per year. The actual figure is 1:1.08, which I have used in the calculation below.
4 – Fuafuaina Data
(Fuafuaina means ‘projected’ in Samoan – I do not expect that anyone will bother to translate this, thus enabling us to present it as real). The calculation covers 5 year periods, and shows the approximate average temperature at the end of each period.
Start 15C
Period 1 – 22C
Period 2 – 32C
Period 1 – 47.5C
Period 1 – 70C
Period 1 – 102C (above water boiling point)
Period 1 – 150C
Period 1 – 221C
Period 1 – 325C – (above lead melting point)
You can see that within a period of 40 years the temperature on Earth will be suitable for smelting a number of metals with very little if any added heat. I therefore propose that we begin investing in metal extraction capability….
Dodgy Geezer:
“…I calculate that we will need asbestos underpants sooner than you think!”
Not sure I’m all on board yet with that one. I still have (somewhere) a pair of lead BVDs from the ’50s as recommended by Tom Lehrer “to watch the fellas practice dropping bombs through the clean desert air” back when nuclear testing was a spectator sport in Nevada. That all changed when they started bombing Bikini Atoll and detonated a fashion explosion in female beach attire, a huge improvement over lead BVD’s and your asbestos undies.
Not to worry, let me know when you’re in production, I could change my mind.
Cheers
Mike
Just checked the date, nope, not April 1srt so that doesn’t explain it?
Then it dawned on me. With all these face masks we have cluttering up our world, they obviously need a new use for them because the Covid need seems to be running out of hype.
At least filtering rock fibres could physically work even if said masks don’t stand a chance of stopping a 0.12 micron diameter virus.😊
Asbestos can help to reduce the excess population and hence reduce CO2 emissions but the reality is that CO2 has no effect on climate.
Sure is a good thing that CO2 is not a problem.
It used to be just “old white guy.”
When was your birthday?
Oh, goody! Another gift from the Bright Idea Club, even better that it’s NOT harmful, not at all.
If those twinks paid attention to real details (which they don’t), they might be aware that the WEATHER (short- term stuff) is changing and it might have an effect on this warm CLIMATE (long term stuff) we’ve been living in and prospering.
Are any of them even vaguely prepared to live in caves and do without modern plumbing?
The real scandal is people who smoked and were exposed to friable asbestos were six times more likely to have cancer than those who didn’t. The plaintiffs’ lawyers got that fact thrown out immediately. Can’t have contributory negligence be part of the problem. While I’m ranting, none of the defendants ever bothered to examine when VOC’s were repeatedly sucked into lungs – Ronson or Zippo ring a bell, anyone? Look at the main cohort suffering meso, and other smoking diseases.
wsbriggs – Check that ‘six times’ – and insert 37 to 90 times. See the seminal study from the 1960’s by Dr. Irving Selikoff et.al. (https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.201305-0885ED). This tidbit of medical science history was used to drive the asbestos Permissible Exposure Limit set by OSHA in the USA.
Regards,
MCR
From the article” :The approaches could include spreading the material out to increase the reactive surface area, running fans that increase the amount of air flowing over the asbestos, or directly injecting concentrated carbon dioxide into the mineral pits.
It’s possible that some amount of asbestos would remain or could be dispersed in the course of doing the work, Aines says. Those are among the key questions that would need to be tested, he adds.”
A Lunatic solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
That sounds like another one of those “why don’t you try it first?” type situations.
I call it “Climate Voodoo”.
Dodgy Geezer:
“…I calculate that we will need asbestos underpants sooner than you think!”
Not sure I’m all on board yet with that one. I still have (somewhere) a pair of lead BVDs from the ’50s as recommended by Tom Lehrer “to watch the fellas practice dropping bombs through the clean desert air” back when nuclear testing was a spectator sport in Nevada. That all changed when they started bombing Bikini Atoll and detonated a fashion explosion in female beach attire, a huge improvement over lead BVD’s and your asbestos undies.
Not to worry, let me know when you’re in production, I could change my mind.
Cheers
Mike
Well that’s just stupid.
NEXT!
From the Technology Review article:
“Woodall estimates that one asbestos site in Vermont, with about 30 million tons of waste, could capture as much as 12 million tons of carbon dioxide. Mines globally produce enough mineral by-products to capture nearly 40 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to the National Academies study.”
With an annual global CO2 emission of around 36Gt, it would only be necessary to increase the extraction of asbestos by a factor of 900 so that all CO2 emitted can be captured.
Even if this will probably not change the climate very much, trying to capture the CO2 in this way would offer a positive opportunity. All the rotor blades from dismantled wind turbines could be buried under the gigantic mountains of overburden that are created during this process!
The next power couples will be the marriage of asbestos lawyers and climate change litigators.
The plague of first-order thinking.
We’ll have to waive the employment discrimination act for this one. Only Greenies can apply for these new Green jobs and come back James Hardie directors all is forgiven- The Planet Needs You!
The US Government has set aside $30 billion to compensate people who became cancerous due to asbestos inhalation, and to renovate buildings containing asbestos to prevent the fibers from becoming airborne.
Question for these brilliant scientists wanting to use asbestos to absorb CO2: How many people have ever died from CO2 poisoning?
is there no end to the stupidity?
Asbestos tailings piles don’t contain that much asbestos. Copper mine tailings don’t contain that much copper. Gold mine tailings are very low in gold. Good Lord, spare us from modern scientists working on engineering solutions to non-problems. When they mused on using fans to blow 400ppm CO2 air on fluffy asbestos I laughed until I cried.
Humans and other living things essentially oxidize carbon in food and use the energy stored in it to live. Plants, in turn, use the energy from the sun to restore the carbon to freedom, again. It’s a great process…for us. I would resume the process described here buries the oxygen with the carbon, since nothing is said about energy required to make it work. I’m not so sure that burying oxygen, or at least tying it up in minerals, is a good long term plan for us.
I’m sure the CO2 in the exhaust of the mining trucks and rock crushers, exceeds the CO2 absorbed by the mined asbestos fibers….
I’m still trying to find the science to validate the claim that a 1.5 part in 10,000 parts increase in total CO2 spread out over 50 years or so is even remotely the issue it is claimed to be.