Initial validation of a soil-based mass-balance approach for empirical monitoring of enhanced rock weathering rates

TL;DR

This paper presents a soil-based mass-balance method using isotope-dilution mass spectrometry to accurately monitor carbon removal in enhanced rock weathering, validated through controlled experiments with promising initial results.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, cost-effective soil analysis approach for MRV of ERW, improving accuracy and robustness over existing methods.

Findings

Method accurately estimates initial CDR within error margins.

Controlled mesocosm experiments demonstrate feasibility.

Provides a robust, time-integrated CDR measurement.

Abstract

Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) is a promising scalable and cost-effective Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) strategy with significant environmental and agronomic co-benefits. A major barrier to large-scale implementation of ERW is a robust Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) framework. To successfully quantify the amount of carbon dioxide removed by ERW, MRV must be accurate, precise, and cost-effective. Here, we outline a mass-balance-based method where analysis of the chemical composition of soil samples is used to track in-situ silicate rock weathering. We show that signal-to-noise issues of in-situ soil analysis can be mitigated by using isotope-dilution mass spectrometry to reduce analytical error. We implement a proof-of-concept experiment demonstrating the method in controlled mesocosms. In our experiment, basalt rock feedstock is added to soil columns containing the cereal crop Sorghum bicolor at a rate equivalent to 50 t ha$^{-1}$. Using our approach, we calculate rock weathering corresponding to an average initial CDR value of 1.44 +/- 0.27 tCO$_2$eq ha$^{-1}$ from our experiments after 235 days, within error of an independent estimate calculated using conventional elemental budgeting of reaction products. Our method provides a robust time-integrated estimate of initial CDR, to feed into models that track and validate large-scale carbon removal through ERW.