ISU study: Crop waste could fill old wells and sequester carbon

Driving the news: A research team led by ISU mechanical engineering professor Mark Mba-Wright concludes that a thick oil made from corn stover or other biomass and pumped into abandoned wells could be an economically feasible solution for extracting carbon dioxide from the air.

• The study was published in the Oct. 1 edition of the journal Energy Conversion and Management.

State of play: Carbon dioxide is linked to global warming and scrubbing it is "a new climate gold rush," according to the New York Times.

The intrigue: Charm Industrial, a San Francisco-based carbon removal company that partly paid for the ISU study, has already used some of the wells to store bio-oils permanently.

What they're saying: The study will help companies make reliable investments and provide a way to find new revenue streams in rural areas where biomass is collected, Peter Reinhardt, Charm's CEO, told ISU's News Service.

Stunning stat: The average well, measuring 1.6 feet wide and 2.6 miles long, can hold about 216,000 gallons of liquid, per the study.

• There are as many as 800,000 undocumented orphaned wells in the U.S., ISU researchers noted.

The bottom line: Iowa could play a key role in finding a creative solution to address climate challenges.