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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

a 300-megawatt geothermal power plant in Hellisheidi, Iceland (pictured above) now captures more CO2 than it emits [technologyreview.com]. Per unit energy, this facility produces about a third of the the carbon a coal-fired plant does. But what it does emit, plus a little bit more, is now captured and buried deep under the surface of the Earth.

How? Well, using a system developed by Carbon Engineering (that we’ve described in the past [technologyreview.com]), a wall of fans at the plant sucks in air, then injects the contained CO2 into water. That liquid is then pumped into the depths, where it amazingly turns into rock (a trick that we’ve also described before [technologyreview.com]). Voila: lots of energy, and less CO2 than at the start. Great.

The only barrier to wider use? Right now, that old niggling issue: cost. Petrifying the CO2 as rock currently costs about $30 per ton of CO2, but sucking it out of the air is rather more expensive. Carbon Engineering doesn’t say what it currently costs, but says it’s aiming to get the price down to $100.

Geothermal energy produces CO2?

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