{"id":51752,"date":"2025-06-25T12:56:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T07:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=51752"},"modified":"2025-06-25T14:39:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T09:09:37","slug":"enhanced-rock-weathering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/enhanced-rock-weathering\/","title":{"rendered":"Enhanced Rock Weathering"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Enhanced Rock Weathering Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, big business with tech giants, airlines and fast fashion firms lining up to buy carbon credits from enhanced rock weathering (ERW) projects.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Enhanced Rock Weathering<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It aims to <\/span><b>speed up the natural capture<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>storage of carbon dioxide<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8212; a planet-warming greenhouse gas &#8212; and also to turbocharge a <\/span><b>natural geological process called weathering.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Weathering is the breakdown of rocks by carbonic acid, which forms when carbon dioxide in the air or soil dissolves into water.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Weathering <\/span><b>occurs naturally when rain falls on rocks<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and the process can lock away carbon dioxide from the air or soil as bicarbonate, and eventually limestone.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ERW speeds the process up by <\/span><b>using quick-weathering rocks like basalt<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that are ground <\/span><b>finely to increase their surface area.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Projects are happening in most parts of the world, including <\/span><b>Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Effectiveness of Enhanced Rock Weathering<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its rates depend on variables <\/span><b>including rock type and size,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> how wet and hot the climate is, soil type and land management.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The added <\/span><b>rock increases soil alkalinity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which can <\/span><b>boost crop growth<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, soil nutrients and soil formation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Basalt is both naturally abundant and often available as a byproduct of quarrying, <\/span><b>lowering the costs of the process.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Experts note that even if the rock reacts with other acids in the soil, failing to lock away carbon dioxide at that stage, it can <\/span><b>still have planetary benefits.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That is because acids in the soil would otherwise eventually wash into rivers and the sea, where acidification leads to the release of carbon dioxide.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It prevents carbon dioxide being released from the water into the atmosphere downstream.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Issue with ERW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Some quick-weathering rocks have high levels of potentially poisonous heavy metals.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/energy-and-environment\/how-crushed-stone-could-help-fight-climate-change\/article69731144.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TH<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enhanced Rock Weathering speeds up natural CO\u2082 capture by accelerating geological weathering, helping reduce greenhouse gases and combat climate change. Read more about Enhanced Rock Weathering, Process, Benefits, Methodology, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":51779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1024,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-51752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-enhanced-rock-weathering","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}