A comprehensive guide to carbon inside Earth - its quantities, movements, forms, origins, changes over time and impact on planetary processes. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

A fascinating historical account of the emergence and development of the new interdisciplinary field of deep carbon science.

Science of Carbon Storage in Deep Saline Formations: Process Coupling across Time and Spatial Scales summarizes state-of-the-art research, emphasizing how the coupling of physical and chemical processes as subsurface systems re-equilibrate during and after the injection of CO2. In addition, it addresses, in an easy-to-follow way, the lack of knowledge in understanding the coupled processes related to fluid flow, geomechanics and geochemistry over time and spatial scales. The book uniquely highlights process coupling and process interplay across time and spatial scales that are relevant to geological carbon storage.

Carbon in Earth's fluid envelopes - the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, plays a fundamental role in our planet's climate system and a central role in biology, the environment, and the economy of earth system. The source and original quantity of carbon in our planet is uncertain, as are the identities and relative importance of early chemical processes associated with planetary differentiation. Numerous lines of evidence point to the early and continuing exchange of substantial carbon between Earth's surface and its interior, including diamonds, carbon-rich mantle-derived magmas, carbonate rocks in subduction zones and springs carrying deeply sourced carbon-bearing gases. Thus, there is little doubt that a substantial amount of carbon resides in our planet's interior. Yet, while we know it must be present, carbon's forms, transformations and movements at conditions relevant to the interiors of Earth and other planets remain uncertain and untapped. Volume highlights include: - Reviews key, general topics, such as carbonate minerals, the deep carbon cycle, and carbon in magmas or fluids - Describes new results at the frontiers of the field with presenting results on carbon in minerals, melts, and fluids at extreme conditions of planetary interiors - Brings together emerging insights into carbon's forms, transformations and movements through study of the dynamics, structure, stability and reactivity of carbon-based natural materials - Reviews emerging new insights into the properties of allied substances that carry carbon, into the rates of chemical and physical transformations, and into the complex interactions between moving fluids, magmas, and rocks to the interiors of Earth and other planets - Spans the various chemical redox states of carbon, from reduced hydrocarbons to zero-valent diamond and graphite to oxidized CO2 and carbonates - Captures and synthesizes the exciting results of recent, focused efforts in an emerging scientific discipline - Reports advances over the last decade that have led to a major leap forward in our understanding of carbon science - Compiles the range of methods that can be tapped tap from the deep carbon community, which includes experimentalists, first principles theorists, thermodynamic modelers and geodynamicists - Represents a reference point for future deep carbon science research Carbon in Planetary Interiors will be a valuable resource for researchers and students who study the Earth's interior. The topics of this volume are interdisciplinary, and therefore will be useful to professionals from a wide variety of fields in the Earth Sciences, such as mineral physics, petrology, geochemistry, experimentalists, first principles theorists, thermodynamics, material science, chemistry, geophysics and geodynamics.

In its pure form, carbon appears as the soft graphite of a pencil or as the sparkling diamond in a woman’s engagement ring. Underneath the surface, carbon is also the basic building block of the cells in our bodies and of all known life on earth. And at a molecular level, carbon bonds with oxygen to create carbon dioxide—a gas as vital to our life on this planet as it is detrimental at high levels in our atmosphere. As we face the climate change crisis, it’s now more important than ever to understand carbon and its life cycle. The Many Lives of Carbon is the story of this all-important chemical element, labeled C on our periodic tables. It’s the story of balance—between photosynthesis and cell respiration, between building and burning, between life and death. Dag Olav Hessen is our guide as we discover carbon in minerals, rocks, wood, and rain forests. He explains how carbon is studied by scientists, as well as its role in the greenhouse effect, and, not least, the impact of manmade emissions. Hessen isn’t afraid to ask the difficult questions as he confronts us with the literally burning issue of climate change. How will ecosystems respond to global change, and how will this feed back into our climate systems? How bad could climate change be, and will our ecosystems recover? What are our moral obligations in the face of excess carbon production? Neither alarmist nor moralistic, Hessen takes readers on a journey from atom to planet in informative, compelling prose.

Carbon Capture and Storage, Second Edition, provides a thorough, non-specialist introduction to technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels during power generation and other energy-intensive industrial processes, such as steelmaking. Extensively revised and updated, this second edition provides detailed coverage of key carbon dioxide capture methods along with an examination of the most promising techniques for carbon storage. The book opens with an introductory section that provides background regarding the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, an overview of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, and a primer in the fundamentals of power generation. The next chapters focus on key carbon capture technologies, including absorption, adsorption, and membrane-based systems, addressing their applications in both the power and non-power sectors. New for the second edition, a dedicated section on geological storage of carbon dioxide follows, with chapters addressing the relevant features, events, and processes (FEP) associated with this scenario. Non-geological storage methods such as ocean storage and storage in terrestrial ecosystems are the subject of the final group of chapters. A chapter on carbon dioxide transportation is also included. This extensively revised and expanded second edition will be a valuable resource for power plant engineers, chemical engineers, geological engineers, environmental engineers, and industrial engineers seeking a concise, yet authoritative one-volume overview of this field. Researchers, consultants, and policy makers entering this discipline also will benefit from this reference. - Provides all-inclusive and authoritative coverage of the major technologies under consideration for carbon capture and storage - Presents information in an approachable format, for those with a scientific or engineering background, as well as non-specialists - Includes a new Part III dedicated to geological storage of carbon dioxide, covering this topic in much more depth (9 chapters compared to 1 in the first edition) - Features revisions and updates to all chapters - Includes new sections or expanded content on: chemical looping/calcium looping; life-cycle GHG assessment of CCS technologies; non-power industries (e.g. including pulp/paper alongside ones already covered); carbon negative technologies (e.g. BECCS); gas-fired power plants; biomass and waste co-firing; and hydrate-based capture