Carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”), while as yet an undemonstrated technology in its entirety for climate change mitigation, is composed of relatively established industrial methods of capturing, liquefying, transporting carbon dioxide (“CO2”) (in gaseous and liquid form), injecting it into deep, stable geological formations, and monitoring the storage areas to ensure minimal leakage. This summer, at the fifth symposium of the Dutch national research and development program for CO2 capture, transport and storage — CATO2 (a consortium of public, private, academic, and nongovernmental entities) — Judd Swift of Swift Global Results (formerly the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs, U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Delegate to Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum) provided an overview of the U.S. and Canadian experience with CO2 transport and injection. The presentation is available here.
According to Judd Swift:
Enhanced oil recovery using CO2 injection (“EOR”) has been successfully field-tested since the 1960s.
CO2 has safely been transported in pipelines since the mid-1970s.
3,000 miles of pipeline in the U.S. transport over 2 billion cubic ft. of CO2 per day.
CO2 is transported in dense gas form with the viscosity of a gas and density of a liquid through standard carbon steel pipes.
The quality of CO2 is controlled during EOR CCS at the time of capture and compression.
At least eighteen states have regulations governing EOR CCS. A smaller number of states have begun to enact statutes and regulations specifically addressing climate change CCS, which has the added difficulty of needing to address liability for CO2 air emission leakage and the potential for groundwater contamination over very long periods of time.
The primary differences between EOR CCS and climate change CCS include the much larger quantity of CO2 that must be handled in a climate change CCS project, the longer period of time over which there is concern about air emission leakage and groundwater quality contamination, and the less well developed regulatory and legal liability framework.
Most U.S. EOR CCS pipelines run through relatively uninhabited land, alleviating some safety concerns.
DOE has partnerships involving seven regional groups, 43 states, four Canadian provinces, and 350+ organizations. At least nine projects are underway seeking to demonstrate large scale CO2 storage potential (> 1 million tons).
The CO2 pipelines are remotely monitored and controlled (i.e., compressors, pumps, mainline valves, and volume/pressure control at metering sites).
With 40 years of proven viability of CCS in the EOR arena, one might hope that there would be less controversy for climate change CCS. However, this is not the case. The primary obstacle to more widespread use of CCS (aside from the high costs and an uncertain current regulatory regime) is lack of a complete legal framework, particularly the fear of long-term regulatory and personal injury liability for essentially a near-infinite period of time. In light of the controversy over the appropriate degree of regulation inflamed by the Gulf of Mexico spill and the Enbridge oil spill in Michigan, it may be difficult to develop a reasonable environmental regulatory framework and liability finality in the short term.
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
