Very excited to announce that our lab, along with teams led by Shaun Watmough (Trent) and Noah Planavsky (Yale University) are recipients of a 2023 Google Carbon Removal Research Award! These awards “aim to fund selected research efforts to better characterize and accelerate the development of new carbon removal approaches.”
We are proposing a large-scale demonstration project to sequester 1000s of tonnes of CO2 per year through enhanced weathering of wollastonite, a calcium silicate. The objectives are to quantify CO2 removal and assess responses to forest health. Canadian Wollastonite have 17 million tonnes of wollastonite that readily reacts with CO2 and has very low heavy metals, making it the best mineral for enhanced weathering. Haliburton Forest has 40,000 hectares of managed forests where selective harvesting occurs. Roads and trails used for harvesting will provide access for spreaders, and the proximity of the mine and forest (~300 km) will minimize transportation. Historic acid rain has depleted calcium levels in North American forest soils, resulting in forest health degradation. Applying wollastonite will supply calcium and nutrients, adjust pH, and consume CO2. This project will be amongst the largest enhanced weathering projects to date, demonstrating this technology at scale.
