Technology Review - Published By MIT
Technology Review  in English | en Español | auf Deutsch | in Italiano | 中文 | in India
Advertisement

Observing Buried Carbon Dioxide

Continued from page 1

By David Talbot

Thursday, November 20, 2008
smaller text tool iconmedium text tool iconlarger text tool icon
Model map: The Weyburn sequestration site sits within the red dot at the center of the image, in southeastern Saskatchewan, where carbon dioxide is being pumped underground for enhanced oil recovery (labeled “EOR”). Researchers are trying to model how CO2 behaves within about 10 kilometers of that spot, and they’re studying the geology of a far larger area (200 kilometers by 200 kilometers) within a regional geological depression called the Williston Basin. Vertical scale for depth is greatly exaggerated. The buried CO2 lies at a depth of 1.5 kilometers, and the depth of the study area is about 2.5 kilometers.
Credit: Courtesy of Geological Survey of Canada

Larry Myer, a geophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who is developing sequestration plans in California, says that the Weyburn experience is showing the way toward broader implementation of accurate monitoring technologies. "In these early stages, one of the most important questions we have to answer is, what techniques work best under what conditions?" Myer says. "Certainly one of the key things they showed was the value of seismic technologies for mapping where the CO2 is going. It provides tremendous confidence that we can apply this broadly for monitoring."

White says that the Canadian agency is hoping to install a permanent seismic array and a new sensor-laden monitoring well to further improve the tracking of the CO2, and ultimately develop a computer model that can be used by future projects around the world. "We want to understand the different [geologic] trapping mechanisms that will be active and the applicability and usefulness of different monitoring techniques, and how they should be applied over time," he says.

Ultimately, CO2 sequestration will require more than just knowing the fate of the carbon dioxide: it will require understanding the full range of impacts on everything from groundwater to natural-gas deposits. "No one has injected 10 million tons of CO2 for 50 years--anywhere," John Bradshaw, CEO of Greenhouse Gas Storage Solutions, an Australian petroleum consultancy, pointed out at the conference. "How we model that, how we regulate that--on groundwater, oil, gas, CO2--is something we will have to work together on how to handle."

Tags

carbon dioxide clean coal climate change coal  energy

Related Articles

Comments
  • Do We Need to Bury It?
    Would it be worth thinking through the possibility of streaming the CO2 over a catalyst to return it to carbon and oxygen?
    Rate this comment: 12345

    JAJansenJr
    11/20/2008
    Posts:7
    Avg Rating:
    3/5
    • Re: Do We Need to Bury It?
      Yes you are right...

      It is called Algae !

      Bubble the stuff through water and add sunlight ...
      Wala

      The problem is all the other bad stuff in the air with all that Co2, the land needed, the energy to pump the volume of exhaust now going up the smoke stacks.

      The bio-diesel will probably not offset the pumping and/or filtering energy or cost.

      I have not seen an analysis of this i  terms of land, capital cost, energy balance. carbon trading system costs when/if they are imposed

      It may be worthwhile considering the alternative of doing nothing.
      Rate this comment: 12345

      techron
      12/09/2008
      Posts:13
      Avg Rating:
      3/5
  • reducing CO2
    I think that's a great suggestion to reform the CO2 into it's components...then there is no need to pump it underground.

    Maybe some one can address the energy required to do that or some alternate way to reform.

    Monitoring is one thing but how do you ensure the
    safety of people around the storage area when a massive leak happens?...as happened at that African lake some years ago??

    "Oh, look the monitors are showing there is a leak."

    And within moments a thousand people are dead from lack of Oxygen.

    Of course it would also be nice to really prove that CO2 is actually a problem...and that has not been done, contrary to what you may have read or heard.
    Rate this comment: 12345

    devassocx
    11/20/2008
    Posts:53
    Avg Rating:
    4/5
  • Carbon Dioxide sequestration
    I'm sorry to say this, but this scheme has the same problems as burying nuclear waste.

    There's a tight metaphor here about burying your head in the sand.

    dib
    Rate this comment: 12345

    dib
    11/20/2008
    Posts:9
    Avg Rating:
    2/5
  • Reducing CO2 to C + O2
    Great idea but there's a little known concept called the first law of thermodynamics, which says that to split CO2 into C and O2, you need to put back all the energy you got from burning it in the first place - and the second law says (roughly) that in practice, you need to provide more than that. Plants split CO2 into C and O2, but not all that efficiently. Wonder catalysts can improve efficiency, but you still need energy.
    Rate this comment: 12345

    RickJ
    11/20/2008
    Posts:9
    Avg Rating:
    5/5
    • Re: Reducing CO2 to C + O2
      A brief glance at this article doesn't begin to bring up the problems and limitation of this technology. It is apparent, though, that it will be used as energy industry propaganda.

      Sequestering CO2 in underground storage has not been studied for possible negative effects. Monitoring can only tell if leaks are present, but will not cap releases. The huge amount of gas pumped underground into the limestone formation represents only a tiny percentage of annual U.S. power plant emissions.

      I spoke to an Oklahoma power plant operator that has been extolled for its efforts to capture carbon dioxide. The technology is complicated and expensive and only manages to capture 5% of the plant's exhaust. Of the CO2 that is captured, it is used entirely for fast freezing frozen foods, for manufacturing dry ice for refrigeration and transportation of perishables and for putting fizz in drinks. None of this is actually sequestering, of course. The process merely briefly postpones eventual release through sublimation, gassing off and belches.

      An executive from a major Kansas utility corporation confessed to me that no technology exists or is envisioned in the foreseeable future to capture carbon dioxide from power plant emissions.

      The problem with the article is that it presents what appears to be a forseeable solution to the scientifically illiterate and uninformed when in fact there is no such evidence that even the potential for such honestly exists in practical terms.

      We need to develop alternative forms of energy, such as broad utilization of wind energy, instead of trying to make ultimately insignificant improvements to the current dirty production. An industry-driven policy will not serve us well.

      I hope that Obama quickly comes to the realization that there is no such thing as "clean coal" and that one of the few things McCain was right about was a reliance on the equally disastrous ethanol subsidies and mandates.
      Rate this comment: 12345

      Kropotkin
      11/21/2008
      Posts:1
      Avg Rating:
      4/5
      • Re: Reducing CO2 to C + O2
        The Kansas utility executive is wrong (and why should he know about technology, he has a business to run?). There are a number plausible end of pipe CO2 removal technologies (see Alsthom, U.Regina/HTC, Aker JustCatch to name a few) as well as credible alternatives routes to CO2 capture such as Oxyfuel combustion (Vattenfall have a 30MW demo running in Germany, Doosan Babcock, Clean Energy Systems and others have technologies under development) and gasification with CO2 capture (Shell, GE, Siemens gasifiers can hook to Rectisol or Selexol systems to provide hydrogen and pure CO2). All systems need work to cut energy overhead and capex, but there certainly is a credible route to large scale capture. Of course SMR hydrogen plants and many gas processing plants also produce CO2 (Statoil's Sleipner platform has been injecting 1MM TCO2/y into a subsea aquifer for many years and 4D Seis has tracked behavior). There is a ton of information on the internet available to those with the energy to look. I like wind too, but we don't make our case by looking scientifically illiterate and ill-informed.
        Rate this comment: 12345

        RickJ
        11/26/2008
        Posts:9
        Avg Rating:
        5/5
  • Carbon capture
    The cost and economics are serious issues for capture especially, and while less impact on the CO2 pipeline and burial, these parts of the process raise equally difficult legal, PR and other questions given the long-term nature of the action, i.e. monitoring and responsibility for several hundred years at which time one hopes most of the CO2 converts to solids or dissolved salts.

    The US DOE sequestration partnerships have significant literature for anyone's reading pleasure.  As always the reports are somewhat dated by the time they are published, but serve as good background.  If you need the latest info, you need to talk with the technology developers.  Here is a url for one report from the plains partnership.  (Yes, I wrote most of it.)

    http://www.undeerc.org/pcor/products/pdf/CarbonSeparationCapture.pdf

    Happy reading.
    Rate this comment: 12345

    JDRUBY
    11/26/2008
    Posts:15
    Avg Rating:
    3/5
  • Ok,So we can monitor it...so what
    We can safely monitor buried CO2.

    BFD

    What is out their?
    Flat land
    Wind
    Hmm
    Anybody been measuring how much is leaking out?
    What the mixing model needs to be?
    How many ppb we need to acutely measure due to all of the above.

    Next what happens when we try this in a city or a valley?


    OK I am going to buy stock in the carbon monoxide sensor companies..

    also put in a job application to program the super cheap uProcessors that will need to say...

    BEEEEP, BEEEEP, you are about to die...you are about to die, kiss your A$$ goodbye, you are about to die, you are about to die, kiss your a$$ goodbye. And also I will need to put a good thrasher punk band melodie as an over-dub.

    Anybody have any suggestions for the tunes?
    Rate this comment: 12345

    techron
    12/09/2008
    Posts:13
    Avg Rating:
    3/5
  • OK so now to more practical issues
    As if death were a minor problem...

    OK,
    So all we need to do is move all those empty oil fields to the cities...
    or
    move all the cities to the empty oil fields.
    or
    Build a massive complex of pipelines for caring no,nota,zippo energy storing gaseous waste products, poisonous, carcinogenic substances, and not to mention lethal asphyxiation potential all along the way.
    I don't know if they told you but its not just CO2 coming out of those smoke stacks...
    Oh ya also the energy to pump it all the way there and then under ground at pressure.

    And you were wondering what we were going to do with all that excess energy from those silly windmills...

    But the good news is IFF we get it underground we can safety monitor it!

    GREAT...Go Clean Coal...
    Rate this comment: 12345

    techron
    12/09/2008
    Posts:13
    Avg Rating:
    3/5
  • Burying carbon dioxide
    Pollutants from the smoke stack waste stream will kill algae. Scientists have found rocks that react with CO2 and they can inject the CO2 underground where it will remain buried.
    Rate this comment: 12345

    protn7
    12/17/2008
    Posts:69
    Avg Rating:
    2/5
Reply

Log In

Forgot your password?     Register »
Advertisement

Videos
Latest Videos
Microsoft's Many Multitouch Mice

Top Stories Of The Day

Advertisement

RSS Feeds

xml icon TR Top Stories
xml icon TR Editors' Blog
xml icon TR Video Blog
xml icon TR Video
Advertisement
Advertisement
Subscribe to Technology Review's daily e-mail update. Enter your e-mail address

TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES

More Technology News from Forbes

Advertisement
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology © 2009 Technology Review. All Rights Reserved.