From the GFZ GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Helmholtz Centre , probably too little too late, as CO2 sequestration projects worldwide are closing.
Conclusion of an international project for the geological storage of carbon dioxide
![CO2CARE-Projekte[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/co2care-projekte1.jpg?quality=83)
Potsdam, 07.11.2013 | At the final conference of the EU project CO2CARE – CO2 Site Closure Assessment Research – at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences from 04 to 06 November 2013 more than 60 experts from academia, industry and regulatory authorities from 13 countries discussed technologies and procedures for a safe and sustainable closure of geological CO2 storage sites.
Since 2004, GFZ investigates in an international research network the geological storage of the greenhouse gas. “Our work at the Ketzin site has shown that and how geological CO2 storage on a pilot scale can be done safely and reliably,” summarized Axel Liebscher, project coordinator and head of the Center for Geological Storage (CGS) at the GFZ, the results of the meeting.
“The knowledge gained in the project CO2CARE and newly developed procedures and technologies are a key step forward to implement the requirements of the EU Directive (DIRECTIVE 2009/31/EC) for geological storage of CO2 in national CCS laws and to ensure a safe and sustainable closure of geological CO2 storage sites.”
The CO2CARE EU project, coordinated by the GFZ, combined experimental laboratory and field research as well as numerical simulations in an integrated approach and tested and developed technologies and methodologies. The result is that the three main requirements of the EU Directive for the transfer of responsibility to the appropriate regulatory body can be met: modelled behavior conforms with the observed behavior of the injected CO2, there is no detectable leakage, and the storage site is evolving towards a situation of long-term stability.
The key component of the CO2CARE project is the site-based research with an international portfolio of nine CO2 storage projects. In addition to Sleipner in Norway and K12-B in the Netherlands, the Ketzin pilot site operated by GFZ is one of three sites for which in the framework of CO2CARE the closure and the transfer of responsibility to the regulatory authority was theoretically developed. At the Ketzin pilot site the storage of CO2 was terminated in August 2013 after more than 5 years of successful operation. Axel Liebscher: “By now the post-injection phase has begun and the Ketzin pilot site will be the first site which will be closed within a scientific project. The results of the CO2CARE project will be implemented here directly.”
Due to the continuing increase in world energy demand, especially in countries such as China, India and Brazil, and the use of fossil fuels the CCS technology will continue to play a central role in the global reduction of CO2 emissions. For Germany, it is especially also an option to avoid so-called process-related emissions from steel, cement and chemical industries. “Only if we can also demonstrate the safe and permanent closure of CO2 storage sites in addition to the safe operation, CCS is able to develop its potential,” Axel Liebscher concluded.
More information can be found under: http://www.co2care.org.
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Maybe we should bury it under Yucca Mountain?
CO2 storage gets my vote as the most stupid large-scale human endeavor, ever. With the pyramids, etc., at least you inspire something in your contemporaries and get long-term tourist dollars.
Why don’t we safely store it in the atmosphere? Seems a bit cheaper.
No sites in New York City? Way to inspire confidence is to eat your own dog food. The UN should be flooding the basement with the stuff since they claim it is both necessary and safe.
It sure is. You use a process known as photosynthesis.
After CO2 kills everything won’t we all just become fossil fuel again?
I’ve heard that your can do something similar by growing trees – probably just fancifull nonsense I suppose.
So wait greens don’t like fracking because you pump various things into the ground. And greens don’t like storing nuclear waste in underground facilities. But pumping CO2 into the ground i great?
I guess these experts have never seen the white cliffs of Dover?
Actually, safe CO2 storage has been known for a very long time. It’s called Calcium Carbonate and is the source for all of the great limestone and chalk beds throughout the world. White Cliffs of Dover, anyone?
Claim: Safe long term storage of CO2 is possible.
Too right – store it in plants! Any other idea is just plain stoopid!
LamontT: You hit the nail on the green’s ideological head/ Talk about hypocritical!
The other dichotomy is that greens (& politicians) want us to CONSERVE energy, but CCS uses massively MORE energy (which of course creates more CO2). Just doesn’t add up!
Wasn’t all the carbon on the planet once above ground and loose in the environment as part of the carbon cycle?
Safe? Doubtful. It would be far safer to simply take the $$$ that would be spent on CCS technology and operations and store it underground. Same result, too.
I would suggest the best place to put it, but Anthony would delete my comment.
Richard Howes says:
November 8, 2013 at 9:25 am
Why don’t we safely store it in the atmosphere? Seems a bit cheaper.
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Besides saving lots of money, there are other benefits to letting CO2 into the atmosphere. it acts as a plant fertilizer and increases yield. It also reduces stomata in leaves and thereby reduces H2O loss via respiration, an important effect during droughts.
It was once believed that CO2 would help alleviate winter temperature extremes by warming the atmosphere and also provide for a longer growing season which also increases crop yields, but that happy expectation has been abandoned as AGW theory collapses like a house of cards. Too bad, because a warmer world is a better world and the greatest catastrophe for humankind is the onset of another Ice Age.
What about sequestering it in Antarctica with the aid of windmills? What happened to that great idea?
Underground or underwater as carbon dioxide hydrate clathrate?
Quote of the decade as far as I am concerned:
Richard Howes says:
November 8, 2013 at 9:25 am
Why don’t we safely store it in the atmosphere? Seems a bit cheaper.
I think beer is the safest way to store CO2.
(As long as there is a designated driver.)
How about this: We need to store it now for future use during an ice age. WUWT!?
Thanks for all of the articles and comments.
@Bruce Cobb says:
November 8, 2013 at 9:46 am
“Safe? Doubtful. It would be far safer to simply take the $$$ that would be spent on CCS technology and operations and store it underground. Same result, too.”
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Not to mention cheaper, with all the traders, middlemen, and bureaucrats cut out of the loop.
Hmmm… bury money… Shovel-ready jobs!
Keep your eye on the mailbox for a thank you note from the Prez, Bruce.
Capture it, refine it, convert it into biofuel and then burn it again and again. CO2 can be converted into a number of fuels & chemicals via bacterial fermentation, photosynthesis & other processes. Search the term “conversion of carbon dioxide into fuel” for some examples.
“Just doesn’t add up!” — ilma
‘Chewbacca dioxide.’ Which rather well explains everything so far.
Actually, the oceans store CO2 very well. Contrary to alarmists beliefs the ocean absorbs most of the emitted CO2.