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How Asbestos—Yes, Asbestos—Could Fight Climate Change

Photo credit: Fertnig - Getty Images
Photo credit: Fertnig - Getty Images

From Popular Mechanics


Asbestos could be in for a major image upgrade and a second life as a carbon sink. Scientists have been studying how closed asbestos mines may already be acting as de-facto carbon sinks, with the potential to contribute to larger, intentional projects.

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At one time, asbestos seemed like a different kind of miracle material. As a powerful fire retardant, it was loaded into homes and consumer goods by the shovelful. But in many situations, exposure to asbestos fibers is extremely dangerous to humans and causes a virulent lung cancer called mesothelioma as well as a lung disease called asbestosis.

Today, fewer and fewer people are exposed to asbestos in workplaces because of careful regulation. Asbestos is still used in some manufactured goods like high-heat automotive hardware, and these are made with great care and precaution.

Studying asbestos even cursorily for use in carbon sinks, then, is fraught from the get go. But scientists believe a careful approach could lead to a robust resource for absorbing carbon.

“The vast surface area of certain types of fibrous asbestos, a class of carcinogenic compounds once heavily used in heat-resistant building materials, makes them particularly good at grabbing hold of the carbon dioxide molecules dissolved in rainwater or floating through the air,” MIT Technology Review reports.


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Once the naturally occurring asbestos compounds encounter carbon dioxide, they react and form minerals called magnesites that are stable and proverbially inert. That means researchers are exploring ways to capitalize on existing, still-working asbestos mines as well as the potential to break up the asbestos in shuttered mines in order to unlock its carbon capturing power.

People can safely handle asbestos when they’re prepared to do so, and now that scientists more fully understand the medical risks of asbestos, it’s safer than ever. Asbestos broken up inside retired mines doesn’t even have to be removed from the site in order to capture carbon, meaning places like the infamous Asbestos, Quebec could find a useful new vocation that doesn’t perpetuate asbestos harm to their communities.

“The initial hope is to offset the ample carbon emissions from mining itself using these minerals already extracted in the process,” MIT Technology Review reports. “But the real hope is that this early work allows them to figure out how to effectively and affordably dig up minerals, potentially including asbestos, specifically for the purpose of drawing down vast amounts of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.”

The risk pushes in even when describing the promising work; researcher Caleb Woodall is doing his research from a closed mine that is an EPA Superfund site. But one goal of Superfund cleanup is to not just mitigate harm, but to produce usable land afterward. Certainly finding a safe, productive use for closed asbestos mines fits the bill to an almost symbolic degree.

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