You might not know it, but the hot water and rocks deep within Earth are teeming with undiscovered life. Dr. Tanvi Govil is one of the biologists studying this new frontier of microbial life that thrives in extreme places.

I posted this in the science community but I think it could be relevant here too. If its not or I shouldn’t have posted it twice let me know and I’ll remove it! Curious to hear more opinions.

    • MrQuallzin@pie.eyeofthestorm.placeEnglish
      32·
      9 days ago

      Nope! These microbes eat CO2 and poop rocks. Algae like other plants take in CO2 but I believe it gets released back into the environment after the plant dies. Bring stored in a rock is a pretty big difference

      • bluGill@fedia.io
        10·
        9 days ago

        algae releases oxygen, but then consumes the oxygen again latter when the energy is needed. There is just a surplus that isn’t consumes - everything that makes up the cell isn’t recombined, also oils and such may result as well. Sometimes this surplus rots/burns thus converting back to CO2, but other things can happen (sink to the bottom of the sea where there isn’t spare oxygen to recombine with). Not all recombining is perfect either, sometimes you get coal as a result. The vast majority is recombined, but there is a lot of algae and so just a little bit of difference makes for a massive amount that isn’t. (not near enough to make up for all the fuel humans are burning - but overall the earth seems to have been slightly net negative in CO2 before humans started burning fossil fuels for energy)

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    8 days ago

    Researchers are combining the best attributes from each microbe to engineer enzymes that can convert CO2 from coal-fired power plant emissions into calcium carbonate—a mineral that can later be sold as a concrete additive or for other industrial purposes.

    Gotta be honest, that’s pretty slick. Making concrete is one of the biggest culprits when it comes to adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Concrete has a very high carbon footprint. If we can find a way to make concrete carbon neutral, or even carbon negative… That would be truly transformative.

    • Nouvellalia@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      8 days ago

      Unfortunately using calcium carbonate (CaCO3) from this process to make calcium oxide (CaO) for concrete would release whatever carbon dioxide (CO2) you sequestered in the process.

      As you can see, to get CaO from CaCO3 you have to remove a C and two O’s. or properly put, a CO2. Doing this would actually release more CO2 than you sequestered originally because to get that CaO you’d have to heat up the calcium carbonate to a few thousand degrees again, burning more coal or whatever to create the heat.