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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The longest project running is the Weyburn-Midale Canada oil field CO2 injection project. It has doubled oil production from the field.
I’m guessing there’s no underground aquifers nearby. Water injection should be at maintaining pressure. But if they wanted to use gas to maintain well pressure, why not use compressed air? CO2 special chemical properties ?
The CO2 to methanol story made me remember an old Wizard of Id cartoon from the early ’70s, era of oil embargo gas lines.
Three guys hanging from shackles in the dungeon;
guy #3 in a lab coat with glasses, passed out.
Guy #1: “What’s he in for?”
Guy #2: ” He found a way to turn oil into food.”
So let me get this straight – nuclear waste which is vitrified in glass then embedded in concrete, will not be stable is buried in stable geological strata. Not safe.
BUT – the GAS CO2 can easily be buried permanently. Safe.
Plant trees
“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.”
I notice there are zero map dots for China, India and Brazil. I wonder why not.
Just another …COS
GlynnMhor says:
November 8, 2013 at 11:01 am
“Unless storing the CO2 produces some sort of real economic benefit (as opposed to the fake carbon quotas, permits, credits, or whatever they’re being called) then it’s not a good idea.”
Researching the storage of CO2 provides a real economic benefit to the parasites in the German Green Research complex.
And a real economic damage to German taxpayers like me.
Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is the most viable use of CO2 that is captured economically. Unfortunately, there are only a few processes that produce economic quantities of CO2. One is the Ethanol industry that converts a significant fraction of starch into CO2 during fermentation. The other is at a Coal-to-Liquids facility that gasifies coal and produces large quantities of CO2 that must be removed from the synthesis gas before the syngas is used in other processes. CO2 generally sells for about $20/ton for EOR.
EOR has been an established method for extracting additional oil from reservoirs for at least 40 years and is only limited by the availability of CO2 and the applicability of EOR to a given reservoir. Most EOR is done with natural sources of CO2 such as Sheep Mountain. The oil industry would welcome additional CO2 availability, but coal fired power plants are not amenable to carbon capture technology. Although it can be done, CO2 capture from coal fired power plants is both costly and reduces overall power production efficiency by 5-8% (from about 36-38% overall efficiency to 25-29%. So it is not economically viable to waste so much coal in this type of facility.
I say, pump the CO2 into the same location as the CRU #3 emails. That way, We will never be troubled… again.
Sorry… I couldn’t resist. GK
cnxtim…plant trees. Almost right.
What you do is plant trees, let them grow, chop them down and bury the suckers.
Problem solved.
Why not use it to fill the bubbles in bubble-wrap, then make it a crime against humanity to pop those bubbles ?
If the biosphere has been greening in recent decades then isn’t some storage already being done for us? If you really think the trace rise of the trace gas is a problem then why not plant more trees in available and previously deforested areas? Parts of Australia could do with a seedling planting scheme.
The reason they are not interested is because this is a con. They want to create huge bureaucracies and jobs for the boys. They want to feel important, they want to feel they are saving the world. That a load of horse bollocks.
drama greens are vehemently against fracking cause all that fracking using deadly chemicals cause earth quakes YET they don’t bat an eyelid to pumping billions of tons of the most noxious gas known to mankind in to the ground!?!?
How the hell does that kind of reasoning work?!?!?
Regards
Mailman
Store it in corn plants and make biofuel from the corn. If there’s any left over, feed it to starving people who are freezing to death owing to the expense of heating fuel.
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I’m sorry. Upon further (unsubsidized) research I’ve found that converting CO2 into the even more potent greenhouse gas methane is counterproductive.
Subsidizes are needed for further research.
(In the mean time I suggest you keep the greenhouse windows open.)
CRS, DrPH wrote (re CO2): “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.”
The problem with these schemes of re-using CO2 is that they take more energy to perform than can be obtained afterward by burning the resulting fuel. It’s a classical problem in chemical engineering.
Ian M
CCS has to be the most hare-brained idea ever devised by humans. They want to sequester oxygen (along with carbon)? Which is what they would be doing when storing carbon dioxide.
Help me out someone – how do you get from this data:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/34/7ty.png/
the idea that there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere?? (not enough, OK, but too much???)
“Bill Parsons says:
November 8, 2013 at 11:15 am
I’ve seen several articles lately about converting CO2 into Methanol. It appears there are several variants on different innovations with promise. Perhaps the chemists here have some insights into feasibility:
Too Green to Be True? Highly Effective Method for Converting CO2 Into Methanol”
Alright, one more time. On an economic basis, converting CO2 into methanol will NEVER be a good idea. It only makes sense if CO2 MUST be recycled and you need a source for a transportable fuel. In terms of an energy source, CO2 is nothing more than a dead battery. You will NEVER get any more energy out of burning the methanol back into CO2 than it took to convert the CO2 into methanol in the first place. In fact, because you never have 100% efficiency you always get LESS energy out than what you put in regardless of what catalyst used. Would be much more economical to use the energy that is required for the conversion to directly do real work instead.
If CAGW were real, and there was an absolute need to prevent the CO2 concentrations in the atm from going up, then recycling CO2 might be an option, but NOT because of the economic benefit.
Summarizing: In the absence of CAGW or we have run out of fossil fuels, converting CO2 into a hydrocarbon to be used as fuel source will always be a total waste of money.
Ian: “The problem with these schemes of re-using CO2 is that they take more energy to perform than can be obtained afterward by burning the resulting fuel.”
Learn to Green: “Use a solar reflector”
/flees
Thanks, Ian! Not so, our group at University of Illinois has proven that we can convert a synthetic fossil fuel-flue gas into algae biofuel for less than $2.00/US gallon at full scale. That includes all of the carbon capture, photosynthesis, oil extraction, refining etc.
We can also directly convert carbon dioxide into methanol or methane by bacterial fermentation. We’re still tweaking that one.
Stay tuned, I can’t spill the beans yet. BTW, I’m a former consultant to a major industrial gases company & worked on harvesting carbon dioxide from huge US ethanol plants, refining it and selling it to the carbonated beverage industry. The stuff has value, but the missing part is how to improve collection and refining. We think we know how. Cheers, Charles the DrPH
I am a Swede.
We have been paying CO2 duties since 1991. Today it is 1.85 USD per gallon for petrol or diesel. This is three times the estimated cost for CCS. Over the years I have payed 46,000 USD to the state to take care of my cars CO2 emissions and now i find it was all bogus?
Dr Bob is saying above that oil companies could have earned both in capturing the CO2 and in production rate if they have gotten the money!
I say, politicians all over the world need to reconsider their duties!
The real worry with any of these CO2 sequestrations is that they are aimed at reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere…….. just when we are starting to get up up away from the subsistence level its been at for many thousands of years.
It is SHEER STUPITY on so many different levels !!
FEED THE PLANTS,………………LET NATURE PROSPER .
This was a prototype last time I saw it.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428348/what-to-do-with-co2-from-coal-how-about-make-bakin
CRS: ” Not so, our group at University of Illinois has proven that we can convert a synthetic fossil fuel-flue gas into algae biofuel for less than $2.00/US gallon at full scale.”
Which is excellent, btw. But the relevant question is whether your EROEI is north of 1 or not.