Event Details
Join the MIT Club of South Texas for a special in-person event featuring a presentation by MIT Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science (EAPS) Professor Oliver Jagoutz and remarks by EAPS Head of Department, Professor Robert van der Hilst.
Agenda
- 5:30 pm - Reception with hors d'oeuvres and cash bar
- 6:30 pm - Presentation begins
Profitable Carbon Sequestration: Harnessing Natural Processes for Sustainable Climate Solutions
Human-caused CO2 emissions far exceed natural geological sources and sinks, leading to its accumulation in the atmosphere and oceans, which drives global warming. According to the 2023 IPCC report, billions of tons of CO2 need to be sequestered annually to avoid catastrophic impacts. One promising approach is converting atmospheric CO2 into stable minerals like calcite (CaCO3), which can safely and permanently store large amounts of carbon. Common methods focus on capturing CO2 from the air or point sources and reacting it with mafic rocks (e.g., basalt) or ultramafic rocks (e.g., peridotite). Alternatively, finely ground rock powders could be spread on agricultural fields to react with atmospheric CO2 over time. However, the main challenge for these methods is cost—sequestering the vast amounts of CO2 required, even at less than $100 per ton, is prohibitively expensive. The key to large-scale carbon sequestration is finding solutions that are economically viable, independent of political support, subsidies, or premium pricing for carbon-neutral products. Sequestration will only succeed if it can be profitable.
In this talk, I will introduce a novel carbon sequestration method inspired by natural processes. Our approach not only captures significant amounts of CO2 but also generates valuable byproducts, making the process economically sustainable.
About our speaker:
Oliver Jagoutz is a professor in the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences whose research concerns the origin and evolution of the Lithosphere. Favoring addressing scientific questions by a multidisciplinary approach, his research includes fieldwork, petrology, isotope geochemistry, structural geology, and major and trace element geochemistry. Particular interests include field studies on magmatic processes, magmatic accretion of continental crust in subduction zone, oceanic crust evolution, formation and evolution of the ocean-continent transition zone. At the undergraduate level Jagoutz studied Chemistry and Geology at the University of Mainz and as an Erasums student to ETH Zurich. After graduating in Geology (2000) he began a Ph.D. with J.P.Burg at ETH Zurich during which he spent three months at the Tokyo Institute of Technology with Shige Maruyama. On completion of his Ph.D. in 2004 Jagoutz worked as a postdoc with Othmar Müntener at the University of Bern. He joined the faculty in 2008. Fieldwork is central to Jagoutz’s research: He usually spends around 3-4 months a year in the field and has extensive field experience in: Greece, Zimbabwe, Switzerland, Italy, Pakistan, India, Mongolia, Morocco and the western US.
Special pricing for dues-paid members and MIT10s. If you are not a dues-paid member, you can join here:
https://alumcommunity.mit.edu/topics/23422/memberships
Memberships are now valid for one year from payment.
Contact
dhjohnston@sbcglobal.net
Learn More
2024-11-19 23:30:00
2024-11-20 02:00:00
UTC
Profitable Carbon Sequestration with MIT/EAPS Prof. Oliver Jagoutz
Join the MIT Club of South Texas for a special in-person event featuring a presentation by MIT Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science (EAPS) Professor Oliver Jagoutz and remarks by EAPS Head of Department, Professor Robert van der Hilst.
Agenda
5:30 pm - Reception with hors d'oeuvres and cash bar
6:30 pm - Presentation begins
Profitable Carbon Sequestration: Harnessing Natural Processes for Sustainable Climate Solutions Human-caused CO2 emissions far exceed natural geological sources and sinks, leading to its accumulation in the atmosphere and oceans, which drives global warming. According to the 2023 IPCC report, billions of tons of CO2 need to be sequestered annually to avoid catastrophic impacts. One promising approach is converting atmospheric CO2 into stable minerals like calcite (CaCO3), which can safely and permanently store large amounts of carbon. Common methods focus on capturing CO2 from the air or point sources and reacting it with mafic rocks (e.g., basalt) or ultramafic rocks (e.g., peridotite). Alternatively, finely ground rock powders could be spread on agricultural fields to react with atmospheric CO2 over time. However, the main challenge for these methods is cost—sequestering the vast amounts of CO2 required, even at less than $100 per ton, is prohibitively expensive. The key to large-scale carbon sequestration is finding solutions that are economically viable, independent of political support, subsidies, or premium pricing for carbon-neutral products. Sequestration will only succeed if it can be profitable.
In this talk, I will introduce a novel carbon sequestration method inspired by natural processes. Our approach not only captures significant amounts of CO2 but also generates valuable byproducts, making the process economically sustainable.
About our speaker:
Oliver Jagoutz is a professor in the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences whose research concerns the origin and evolution of the Lithosphere. Favoring addressing scientific questions by a multidisciplinary approach, his research includes fieldwork, petrology, isotope geochemistry, structural geology, and major and trace element geochemistry. Particular interests include field studies on magmatic processes, magmatic accretion of continental crust in subduction zone, oceanic crust evolution, formation and evolution of the ocean-continent transition zone. At the undergraduate level Jagoutz studied Chemistry and Geology at the University of Mainz and as an Erasums student to ETH Zurich. After graduating in Geology (2000) he began a Ph.D. with J.P.Burg at ETH Zurich during which he spent three months at the Tokyo Institute of Technology with Shige Maruyama. On completion of his Ph.D. in 2004 Jagoutz worked as a postdoc with Othmar Müntener at the University of Bern. He joined the faculty in 2008. Fieldwork is central to Jagoutz’s research: He usually spends around 3-4 months a year in the field and has extensive field experience in: Greece, Zimbabwe, Switzerland, Italy, Pakistan, India, Mongolia, Morocco and the western US.
Special pricing for dues-paid members and MIT10s. If you are not a dues-paid member, you can join here:
https://alumcommunity.mit.edu/topics/23422/memberships
Memberships are now valid for one year from payment.
Club of South Texas
dhjohnston@sbcglobal.net
