How dangerous is it to breathe in particulate matter from peridotite? There's another approach to making sequestration within these rocks economical - we could use underground explosives to simultaneously disperse peridotite particles into the air and uncover formations that haven't been exposed to CO2 yet. This would drastically increase the surface area and hence absorptive power of the rocks.
Even if this could be done in a manner that keeps the air safe to continue breathing, the other problem from doing too much of this is that it could increase the Earth's albedo and have a global cooling effect (akin to when volcanic eruptions on earth have caused famines, skipped summers/growing seasons). But in some ways, that may make this the perfect worst-case-scenario solution to runaway global warming. We could periodically use "clean" nuclear detonations to put enough particulates in the air to reduce the global temperature and sequester carbon. Once the particulates settle, if there is still too much CO2, we could do another round of detonations, etc.
Well, I'm sure in a limited case it wouldn't be that dangerous. But yeah, regarding the nuclear detonations, that's why I think it would have to be a last resort. Like, last resort as in a situation where humanity is in danger of extinction or in making Earth mostly uninhabitable.
In that case we should adopt a more cavalier attitude toward nuclear weapons. If we allow at least one nuclear exchange between two nations we could help offset the effects of global warming for a good while longer.
After all, a scientific community that still discovers things at the most fundamental level, like how this or that emission or process that has been going on for billions of years affects the ecosystem, is 100% to be trusted that it knows everything there is about the byproducts and consequences of such a process.
It's not like until e.g. merely 80 years ago scientists still helped produce and sell radioactive consumer products. Or they considered thalidomide safe. And any number of such things...
Even if this could be done in a manner that keeps the air safe to continue breathing, the other problem from doing too much of this is that it could increase the Earth's albedo and have a global cooling effect (akin to when volcanic eruptions on earth have caused famines, skipped summers/growing seasons). But in some ways, that may make this the perfect worst-case-scenario solution to runaway global warming. We could periodically use "clean" nuclear detonations to put enough particulates in the air to reduce the global temperature and sequester carbon. Once the particulates settle, if there is still too much CO2, we could do another round of detonations, etc.