Binding carbon dioxide in mineral form: A critical step towards a zero-emission coal power plant

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The authors have successfully developed the foundation for sequestration of carbon dioxide in mineral form. The purpose of this technology is to maintain the competitiveness of coal energy, even when in the future environmental and political pressures will require a drastic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. In contrast to most other sequestration methods, this is not aiming at a partial solution of the problem, or at buying time for phasing out fossil energy. Instead, the goal is to obtain a complete and economic solution of the problem, and thus maintain access to the vast fossil energy reservoir. Such a technology will guarantee energy availability for many centuries even if world economic growth exceeds the most optimistic estimates. The approach differs from all others in that the authors are developing an industrial process that chemically binds the carbon dioxide in an exothermic reaction into a mineral carbonate that is thermodynamically stable and environmentally benign