So what is this?
This is a very short work, prompted by the following two quotes:
“Talk, loudly and frequently and in detail, about the future you want. You can’t manifest what you don’t share.”
~ Madeline Ashby
And
“Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within.”
~ Ruha Benjamin
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Rock Making at Well 4,702
Today was my 1 year anniversary of working the wells. They threw me a small party in the dorm at breakfast. A stack of pancakes with a single candle. We all laughed. But work remained doing, so we ate quickly and set off.
It was about 10 years ago that the injection technology we use was first tested. And since then steadily improved. It was about 7 years ago that the big money started to flow into the idea of sequestering CO2 in basalt rock. It needed to be fairly new, on a geological scale, basalt so to be rich in minerals and porous enough to accept the pressurized carbonated water. But by now this was all routine.
The work paid pretty good, and out here in the wilds there wasn't much to spend it on. A year and a half ago I was an intern, paid by the International Conservation Corps. but now I was a full time member of the worker owned co-op, and proud, that I was. Our crew was 16 men and women, that worked hard, partied hard, and this was a life I couldn't have imagined back in 2023, when my family were refugees from a stupid war.
Today the big air ship was coming in, carrying the compressed CO2 in tanks that we would mix with filtered seawater. If I told you 10 years ago that our biggest bottleneck was getting the CO2, when we were just throwing it away into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. You wouldn't have believed me. But it's true. The CO2 coming in today, would be spray mixed with chilled water, pumped into the basalt, where it would mineralize and become solid rock in about two years.
Also that big dirigible would be bringing in fresh fruit, greens, eggs, and other highly desirable foods. So we all were eager to get it tied up and unloaded. The tanks would be untethered, and later we will tie up the empties. But it was the fresh food we cherished.
The thing about an operation like this, dependent on so many mechanical parts, was not so much the day to day running, as it is about maintenance and repair. Murphy lived at every well site and tried hard to make anything that could go wrong, go wrong. Right off the bat, today, Murphy was in fine form.
First the airship radioed in to tell us it was going to be late due to head winds. Then alarms started to go off on two large pumps. One we could deal with quickly at one of the main injection wellhead sites, the other some ways off in the seawater filter line. Since I had more experience with the well pumps, I headed that way, as others took the electric truck to drive out to the other.
"Pumps break and everything leaks" is one of the first lessons learned. We had spares, at the site, so worse case, we could swap out the pump, install the spare, and bring the broken back to repair in the shop. But this would take a full days work, and a crane to lift and move. But the heavy truck was now unavailable. Pulling one injection well of line wasn't a huge deal as we have 32 others in about a square kilometer. But we have a contract that pays by the metric ton of CO2 permanently mineralized. So more well hours, more pay.
Turns out that the well site pump wasn't broken, it had just shutdown due to an electrical fault. Salt water and electricity don't mix. And after an hour of trouble shooting we fond the corroded terminal, on a line from the solar array. So that's fixed. Not so with the other pump. It was a goner said the other team by radio. And although we had 48 hours of storage water, we would need to get that pump back up ASAP.
We hiked back to base to deal with the late airship. We were warned that no one touches the oranges on pain of sarcastic harassment. The air ship came in and we hustled to winch all the lines down. When to our surprise, the air crew announced they had a dignitary aboard. This could be very bad or vey good news, nobody knew.
Murphy half defeated, we were all ready for good news and indeed that was the case. Down the stairs came a well known spokesperson for the World Environmental Emergency Organization. She was beaming a giant smile. We were all getting an award, and a bonus, for being the first well complex that permanently sequestered ten million metric tons of CO2. No the world was still warming, but we had made a big dent in slowing it down.