Meet olivine, a greenish rock that is basically the Clark Kent of the mineral world: It may look boring, but it has a secret superpower. Specifically, it can pull CO2 from the air and sequester it.

 

Retired geochemist Olaf Schuiling has spent decades advocating for using the abundant mineral as a solution to our climate change woes — by carpeting as many surfaces as possible in the stuff, from playgrounds to roads to beaches, we could allegedly remove enough carbon from the atmosphere to slow the rate of climate change. According to one analysis, one ton of olivine can dispose of approximately two-thirds of a ton of CO2.

 

Schuiling’s skeptics point out that the olivine cure would take 20 years to start making a difference, and likely account for a slew of new emissions from mining and distributing tons of rock over the surface of the planet.

 

Schuiling’s responds by noting that industry extracts and transports huge quantities of coal, oil and gas, so if society decided that geoengineering was necessary, why couldn’t it do the same with olivine? The annual amount needed, equivalent to about 3,000 Hoover Dams, is available around the world and is within the limits of modern large-scale mining.

 

The National Academy of Sciences is expected to release a report on geoengineering sometime this year, most probably it will still include more questions than answers.