Icelandic power plant transforms carbon emissions into stone

In a world first, a team of engineers and scientists at Iceland’s Hellisheidi power plant have been able to capture carbon emissions and turn them into stone for storage. This new process, described in this week’s issue of the journal Science, involves mixing carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide released by the plant with water, and injecting the mixture into underground layers of basalt. Within months, the mixture is converted into rock-hard carbonate, safely storing the carbon and preventing it from entering the atmosphere.