The news about the world's warming climate is generally bad — the Arctic is melting at an alarming rate, the real costs are mounting, and while some regions are grappling with how to reduce greenhouse gasses, the world can't agree on a unified solution. So here's some good news: Researchers in Iceland have discovered how to take the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), neutralize it, and turn it into harmless rock, WBUR's Here & Now reports.

Specifically, the Carbfix team injects CO2 into Iceland's ample basalt, turning the gas into organic white crystals.

In Iceland, researchers are taking carbon dioxide –– one of the most important drivers of climate change –– and turning it into stone.



Some say it's a potential solution to the global climate crisis. @hereandnow https://t.co/JIMsYsIpb2 — NPR (@NPR) December 15, 2019

For the Carbfix process to work, project manager Kári Helgason explained, "you need a lot of water, it can be seawater. You need favorable rock formations. And you need CO2." Since Carbfix is based at the clean-energy geothermal plants common in Iceland, "we're lacking the stream of CO2," he adds. And basalt works better than the sedimentary rock earlier carbon-injection processes use, says Sandra Ósk Snæbjörnsdóttir, Carbfix's chief geoscientist:

Sedimentary rock, she says, contains softer material that gets washed away leaving only silica behind. It's also not reactive. But basalt rock contains metals that are needed to react with the C02 and turn it into stone. To facilitate the process, she explains, Carbfix infuses the CO2 with water, killing the gas' buoyancy. Then, she says, "it sinks instead of rising up." [Here & Now]