University of Oxford Press Release
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Safer carbon capture and storage
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels have increased significantly over the last 50 years, resulting in higher global temperatures and abrupt changes to Earth’s climate. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the new technologies that scientists hope will play an important role in tackling the climate crisis. It involves the capture of CO2 from emissions from industrial processes, or from the burning of fossil fuels in power generation, which is then stored underground in geological formations. CCS will also be key if we want to produce “clean-burning” hydrogen from hydrocarbon systems.
The UK government recently selected four sites to develop multi-billion-pound CCS projects as part of its scheme to cut 20-30m tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030 from heavy industry. Other countries have made similar carbon reduction commitments.
Depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs have a smaller (10%) storage potential compared to deep saline aquifers but are seen as a critical early opportunity in developing geological CO2 storage technologies. Fortuitously, CO2 has historically been injected into numerous depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs as a means of enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR). This provides a unique chance to evaluate the (bio)geochemical behaviour of injected carbon over engineering timescales.
‘CCS will be a key tool in our battle to avert climate change. Understanding how CCS works in practice, in addition tocomputer modelling and lab-based experiments, is essential to provide confidence in safe and secure CO2 geologicalsequestration.’ Said Dr. Rebecca Tyne, Dept Earth Science, The University of Oxford
In a paper published, today in Nature, Dr. Rebecca Tyne and Prof. Chris Ballentine from Oxford University, lead a team of international collaborators to investigate the behaviour of CO2 within a CO2-EOR flooded oil field in Louisiana, USA. They compared (bio)geochemical composition of the CO2-EOR flooded field with that of an adjacent field, which was never subjected to CO2-EOR. Data suggest that up to 74% of CO2 left behind by CO2-EOR was dissolved in the groundwater. Unexpectedly, it also revealed, that microbial methanogenesis converted as much as 13-19% of the injected CO2 to methane, which is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2.
This study is the first to integrate state of the art isotopic tracers (noble gas, clumped and stable isotope data) with microbiological data to investigate the fate of the injected CO2.
‘Methane is less soluble, less compressible and less reactive than CO2, so, if produced, the reduces the amount of CO2 we can safely inject into these sites. However, now this process has been identified, we can take it into account in future CCS site selection.’ Said Prof. Chris Ballentine, Dept. Earth Sciences, The University of Oxford.
Additionally, the authors suggest that this process is occurring at other CO2-rich natural gas fields and CO2-EOR oil fields. Temperature is a critical consideration, and many CCS geological targets will be too deep and hot for microbesto operate. However, if CO2 leaks from deeper hot systems into similar shallower colder geological structures, where microbes are present, this process could occur. This research is critical for identifying future CCS targets, establishing safe baseline conditions and long-term monitoring programs, which are essential for low-risk, long-term carbon storage.
END
Full paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04153-3#citeas
For interviews or other requests, please contact:
Rob Ashley, Strategic Communication, Oxford University
Robert.ashley@tss.ox.ac.uk +44 (0)7490 688891
Prof. Chris Ballentine, Dept. Earth Sciences, The University of Oxford
Phone +44 (0)1865 272 938 https://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/people/chris-ballentine/
Rebecca Tyne, Dept Earth Science, The University of Oxford rebecca.tyne@earth.ox.ac.uk
About the University of Oxford
This work is the result of an international collaboration between Oxford University, ExxonMobil, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, California Institute of Technology, CRPG-CNRS Université de Lorraine and the University of Toronto.
Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the sixth year running, and at the heart of this success is our ground-breaking research and innovation.
Oxford is world-famous for research excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.
Through its research commercialisation arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts, having created more than 200 new companies since 1988. Over a third of these companies have been created in the past three years.
JOURNAL
Nature
DOI
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
ARTICLE TITLE
Rapid microbial methanogenesis during CO2 storage in hydrocarbon reservoirs
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
22-Dec-2021
COI STATEMENT
N/A
Why?
Maybe:
There are [super] precedents for planned people… parent… personhood.
to sell to farming tunnels for huge profits in 2333, when food production for 333 billion people has depleted all but 33 ppm of atmospheric CO2
I stopped reading after the blatant lie – ie, the first sentance.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2)Higher global temperatures have increased significantly over the last 50 years, resulting in higherglobal temperaturesatmospheric carbon dioxide levels.“to investigate the behaviour of CO2 within a CO2-EOR flooded oil field”
This seems like a reasonable thing to do – –
. . . despite the fact that Earth sequests CO2 long term at no cost.
Governments have already decided to reduce CO2, but that is not what this research was about. Because it is going to be done, should they understand the consequences?
CO2 sequestration is an idea with out merit.
As are bird choppers and bird fryers
Ah, the Green gauntlet, the Green blight generally, and intermittent/renewables, of course.
A solution without a problem.
A solution that doesn’t work, for a problem that doesn’t exist.
Put succinctly Mark. You need to add “at high unnecessary cost and a waste of time for all those involved”.
A solution that doesn’t work, to a problem that doesn’t exist, imposed by public servants who dont serve the public…
But pays a huge salary.
Exactly, What about the trees and plants?
They can collect carbon credits while the idiot socialists are handing them out and sell freshly made methane when it’s ready in the future.
CCS is an excellent idea….so that we can readily release just the right amount of CO2 should the ice sheets start expanding next 1/2 Milankovich cycle. Plans to turn CO2 into limestone are much less good in this respect…. /s
So they capture and store it. Then what? Use it for soda pop? Don’t we have enough now for our needs? When they figure out CO2 released by fossil fuel burning isn’t the culprit they thought will they just release it again? What a colossal waste of space, time, materials, energy, and money.
Since diet Coke is really horrible when it goes flat on a hot day (you know, that principle carbonistas refuse to understand), perhaps the same is also true of oil?
I knew from the title that Charles Rotter wrote it. Does he represent the fence-sitting of WUWT? Shameful, really.
You don’t understand the process.
He didn’t write it, he posted it. Reading comprehension is a thing, you know.
….. he ain’t no fence-sitter.
From someone who has the pleasure of knowing him personally.
I know this site since just a very short time but I‘m convinced that Mr Charles Rotter is the opposite of a fence-sitter. To have reading comprehension is very helpful indeed.
.+
Wait. Mostly worthless CO2 is converted in to methane? And just as a side effect of injecting it in the ground to produce more oil?
And they’re saying its a bad thing?
Where does the energy necessary for this conversion come from?
Fossil fuel manufactured wind turbines and solar panels. Seriously, this is the utopia they all imagine is waiting for them.
EDIT: In fact, Chinese manufactured turbines and panels, se we’re paying to clean up China’s CO2.
Only the green lunatics could make it up.
Exactly. If putting CO2 into depleted oil fields coverts them back into active nat gas fields that sounds like a potential profit making venture. Climate science may be good for something after all.😃
Shirley you jest. The only “profit” would come from huge subsidies. The EROI on such a venture would be laughably small.
As if the atmosphere were a closed system! Ever heard about Henry’s law? In time the CO2-balance between the sea and the atmosphere will return to “status quo ante bellum”.
” CO2 levels have increased ….. resulting in higher global temperatures and abrupt changes to earth’s climate. ”
Proof please.
Tumbleweed.
“From YouReekAlot!”
“abrubt”???
They can put-out all the ‘studies’ they like but they will never convince me that this whole thing (carbon capture)is an exercise in futility ! !
See above; what I meant to say is ‘nothing more than an exrcise infutility’
Well in a previous job I was a leading luminary in an oil and gas company that produced gas from the Turkish Black Sea. We piped it from about 30 km offshore , processed it and put it into the Turkish gas grid . We got a price of $10 per thousand Cu ft- a good price before present shenanigans . the operating cost of producing this gas was about $5 per thousand cu ft. Now if we had wanted to generate electricity and do CCS then for every Kg of gas produced we would produce 3 Kg of wet CO2. an extremely nasty and corrosive substance which we would then pump down into the ground at at least the same cost per kg as producing it in the first place. So it would cost at least 3 times as much to sequester the gas thereby consuming all profit and incurring a huge loss. And that is without thinking about all the nitrogen involved I know that the learned fools of Oxford Dr. Rebecca Tyne and Prof. Chris Ballentine are rather like the learned fools of BEIS and the Dept of Energy , to say nothing of the idiots at The Committee for Climate Change but someone somewhere must be capable of putting together a spreadsheet a spotting a dud when they see one
Methane is less reactive than CO2? I thought CO2 was pretty much totally unreactive. Methane burns quite easily.
They use CO2 as an inert gas for welding
If CO2 is wet, mixed with water, it becomes an acid – think soda pop.
An expensive solution looking for a problem.
A process to harvest more subsidies: problem defined and solved.
Unexpected by who? Where do these people get their education from?
Zeikus, J.G., 1977. The biology of methanogenic bacteria. Bacteriological reviews, 41(2), pp.514-541.
And just in case someone wants to query where the hydrogen comes from, for good measure there is this geological evidence of the presence of hydrogen gas in oceanic basalt.
:
Welhan, J.A. and Craig, H., 1983. Methane, hydrogen and helium in hydrothermal fluids at 21 N on the East Pacific Rise. In Hydrothermal processes at seafloor spreading centers (pp. 391-409). Springer, Boston, MA.
Ok sure, 80% hydrogen in a field that has had massive quantities of CO2 injected.
Sorry, the logical conclusion would be that the methane is left over from the original oil & gas deposits, isn’t it?
Did you even both to read past that point?
I agree with Rich, if you pressurize a depleted petroleum producing formation it seems reasonable that it could induce more gas production. Not sure how they can tell the origin. Possibly they can tell based on a lack of propane and butane in the mix, i.e. if it was nearly pure methane that might point to methanogens as the source.
Yes, I bothed 😜
Whether you’re talking 80% or 50% H2, it makes no sense at all.
If there was a large amount of hydrogen then why would they not have seen that while the field was producing oil/gas?
If the field had methane (pretty much every petroleum formation does, right?), then there was a lot leftover when economic production ended. If you inject CO2, diffusion of CH4 out of the bearer rocks and diffusion of CO2 into the rocks has to occur, correct?
The opening sentence is complete BS.
The closing sentence, too, and everything in between.
Isn’t this what my face mask is for?
Don’t forget that China emits >9,000 million tons and rising every, and that 7,800 million tons of CO2 puts just 1 ppme into the atmosphere. But more importantly CO2 increases over the last 300 years do not correlate with temperature increases but do correlate with increased greening of the planet; so why pump CO2 into the ground?
Save it for later?
The cartoon perpetuates the fiction that CO2 is synonymous with air pollution.
The cartoonist is obviously victim of that intentionally promoted misconception.
Being for natures natural ways as promoted by progressives you would think they would be for the natural use of Co2 in nature such as in plants. The perfect sink is plants and it costs not much.
It would be easier and safer to store nuclear waste in the same locations.
That’s not meant to be a criticism of nuclear. With proper development of Thorium reactors, waste levels would be reduced by orders of magnitude, accompanied by massive economic increases in efficiency.
They are going to need a bigger trough with all the extra snouts showing up for this green gravy. It’s the sole rationale for this sand pounding.
The global lockdown during COVID had no effect on CO2. Why would they think this midget operation would?
It’s the UK’s version of Solyndra. Several new studies make it clear that, as fast as they could remove carbon from the atmosphere, nature will put it right back in.
https://scc.klimarealistene.com/produkt/the-impact-of-human-co2-on-atmospheric-co2/
https://scc.klimarealistene.com/2021/10/new-papers-on-control-of-atmospheric-co2/
Safer than well-maintained trees or a remote forest?
Academia and “Science”. Who trusts them for just about anything they proclaim anymore?
This project looks like a boondoggle to make somebody rich(er) off of taxpayers backs.
The grifters are everywhere.
One ton of CO2 occupies 556.2m³ of volume at STP.
Do the math. Apparently, any CCS must be pressurized or there won’t be room to make any difference. I wonder where the energy to compress all that CO2 will come from. I wonder what happens if the containment leaks.
That’s why they want to inject into brine where large quantities can be dissolved and remain dissolved (unless it heats up for some reason)
‘CCS will be a key tool in our battle to avert climate change. Understanding how CCS works in practice, in addition tocomputer modelling and lab-based experiments, is essential to provide confidence in safe and secure CO2 geologicalsequestration.’ Said Dr. Rebecca Tyne, Dept Earth Science, The University of Oxford
“Unexpectedly, it also revealed, that microbial methanogenesis converted as much as 13-19% of the injected CO2 to methane”
I think they just found a way to make ccs economically viable – collect carbon credits while idiot socialists are handing them out, and sell freshly made methane when sanity returns.
“Unexpectedly, it also revealed, that microbial methanogenesis converted as much as 13-19% of the injected CO2 to methane, which is
a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2of course a clean-burning fuel.” There we have it, renewable energy from sub-terrestrials! Who knew?“CCS will be a key tool in our battle to avert climate change” says Dr Rebecca Tyne.
It is a most revealing statement in that it is a non scientific, emotional and erroneous statement totally unworthy of anyone claiming to be a scientist. What does she wish to avert? Is it in fact possible, and where does CCS fit into that perspective amid all the other factors that influence change in the climate? These are just the immediate questions.
With views like that anything she produces will have little credibility in determining whether CCS is a ‘key tool’ or not.
The really serious aspect of this is that the article is peer reviewed and stems from a University claiming to be at the top of the academic excellence scene.
It seems to me that academia these days is hell bent on destroying its reputation.
Heaven help us when scientists indulge in the relentless hysterical propaganda which infects the airwaves these days.
Whoopsie, back through the Looking Glass we go, into the upside down and backwards la-la land of Warmunist ideology. The steady climb in CO2 levels haven’t resulted in anything except a greener planet. There have been some rather abrupt changes to people’s mental ability and emotional stability though.
if CERES can be believed you may want to be sure there’s a button marked RELEASE on it
Safest, cheapest, and smartest CCS: None. We win, as do the plants. Win-win!
Anybody undertaking carbon capture should be charged with a crime against humanity
We have yet to see any site which can be profitable/economic without also involving enhanced oil recovery…
How is the UK effort going to be funded?
Hello…the best solution is ‘Temperature Capture’ technologies. I need a SPAC to finance my multi-billion dollar idea…
Imagine taking all that excess heat out of the atmosphere.
I attended US DOE’s first CCS confrerencevin 1999. Nothing new here. Will never fly. Spend away!
CO2 sequestration, sequesters more O2 than Carbon. Does that make sense?