RaoulDuke

These researchers from Canterbury University have come up with an idea that they say can cheaply remove 3 million tonnes of CO₂ from the air each year. And it utilises existing infrastructure.

The TLDR is that geothermal water contains CO₂, and the stations here have systems that capture and dissolve that CO₂ into the water before it's reinjected. This CO₂ rich water is heavier than the surrounding water, so it sinks to the bottom.

The heat from geothermal wells is not replenished at the speed it's taken by the stations, so eventually the water coming out isn't hot enough and new wells need to be drilled.

The scientists are suggesting that instead of simply drilling a new wells, we burn biomass from forestry to heat the warm water up the last bit. The carbon in this fuel has been gathered by the trees, and if it was released into the atmosphere it would be carbon neutral. But if you use the station's existing CO₂ capture and dissolve systems, the carbon goes underground permanently. The operation becomes a carbon sink that also enables the use of geothermal energy that would otherwise be unusable.

They say, "in terms of buying ourselves out of an emissions liability, geothermal carbon removal is one of the cheapest options out there." They compare it with the cost of switching from a petrol to electric car - US$700 for each tonne of CO₂ saved. With the existing infrastructure, they say their plan would remove CO₂ at a cost of about US$55 a tonne.

Their papers and a bunch more evidence and info is linked in the article.

I want to finally get an icon up for !newzealand , but I want you to decide between these two.

The icon will show up as a circle in some places and a square in others. Both could have some small tweaks if they're chosen.

Vote on the comments. Best score at 10pm Thursday will be the icon.

EDIT: Well that was pretty clear. The kiwi it is. Thanks to @[email protected] for the suggestion.

Bonus sexy John Oliver on holiday in the South Island:

"An international survey of almost 22,000 adults across 29 countries found British people had the third-most enthusiastic outlook towards refugees, just behind Spain and New Zealand."

Edit: Just found the actual report by Ipsos. We are #1, not #2. Fixed the title.

Edit 2: We're also the most likely to agree that refugees make a positive contribution to our country (70%). And here's the breakdown on the central question:

Based on feedback from this post, we're going to trial pushing for more politically controversial posts to go in !politics instead of !newzealand.

We're interested in seeing where users think the line is. Which of these recent posts do you think belong in !politics?

1. Frustration mounting as high school teacher strikes roll on - 1News
2. All Whites game abandoned after alleged racial abuse - RNZ
3. ‘Random’ group of Kiwis caught protesters who lit Parliament fires - 1News
4. Teacher struck off after refusing to use student’s pronouns - 1News
5. New additional ETS scheme floated in review of carbon market - RNZ
6. Migrant workers being exploited, Queenstown Citizens Advice Bureau says - RNZ
7. Operation Pakari: More arrests of people linked to Mongrel Mob, 85 charges laid - RNZ
8. Auckland surgeons must now consider ethnicity in prioritising patients for operations - NZ Herald
9. This RNZ story is probably more complicated than first thought - Stuff
10. Teacher struck off after refusing to use student’s pronouns - 1News

We're not able to move posts to another community at the moment, but we're thinking of locking posts that should be in !politics and asking the OP to cross-post them there. Do you think this is the best approach?