20 carbon-burying projects by 2010

[Karl]

AFP, 8 June 2008 –

The Group of Eight industrial powers said Sunday they hoped to launch 20 large projects to bury greenhouse gas by 2010 and aimed to broadly deploy the technology a decade later. G8 energy ministers, meeting in Japan, said in a statement that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which stops emissions at their root, played a "critical role" in "tackling the global challenge of climate change and energy security."

The International Energy Agency, a Paris-based energy security body set up in 1974 after the first oil crisis, has recommended commercial use of the CO2-burying technology by 2020. "We strongly support the recommendation that 20 large-scale CCS demonstration projects need to be launched globally by 2010 ... with a view to supporting technology development and cost reduction for the beginning of broad deployment of CCS by 2020," the statement said.

The G8 groups Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. The G8 ministerial talks were later expanded here to include China, India and South Korea. The 11-nation joint statement said they "will work towards the creation of an enabling environment for the broad deployment."

But the idea of CCS is hotly debated, even among environmentalists. Greenpeace, which published a report in early May entitled "False hope. Why carbon capture and storage won't save the climate," is spearheading the opposition. Its long list of complaints includes the argument that the method consumes a lot of energy, is expensive and there is the risk of leaks.

According to experts, the future of the method depends on its cost. Carbon capture and storage currently costs around 60 euros (95 dollars) per avoided tonne of CO2. But experts say that cost would have to be at least halved to make it a viable alternative to industries, which can buy CO2 emissions rights for about 25 euros per tonne.

Source: World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)

[Karl]

Carbon storage in undersea basalt offers extra security

Environmental Research Web – July 15, 2008

As carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise, schemes for storing the gas underground are attracting increasing attention. Now, for the first time, US researchers are investigating basalt on the ocean floor as an option for carbon sequestration. The plan is for the carbon dioxide to react with the rock to form carbonates, permanently removing it from the carbon cycle in a process known as geochemical trapping. Landlocked basalt is already under investigation for carbon storage but subsea basalt has the advantage that if any of the carbon dioxide doesn’t react, the ocean environment provides additional safety mechanisms to prevent it from returning to the atmosphere. There’s also a large volume of undersea basalt available. "By being under the ocean you add a number of trapping mechanisms as security – insurance on your insurance on your insurance, if you will," David Goldberg of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory told environmentalresearchweb. "There are four trapping mechanisms that are effectively in play – geochemical, sediment, gravitational and hydrate formation. If you have some leakage of carbon dioxide or there are some losses during injection, hydrates will form because it’s cold, it’s physically trapped by sediments above the rock, and carbon dioxide is more dense than seawater and will tend to sink – the gravitational trap – even if it hasn’t turned to carbonate in the geochemical trapping." Goldberg and colleagues from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, US, found that sediment-covered basalt aquifers on the Juan de Fuca plate off the western coast of the US are suitable for storing around 780 cubic km of carbon dioxide. That’s equivalent to 208 gigatonnes of carbon – enough capacity for 122–147 years of US emissions at current rates (1.7 gigatonnes of carbon per year). What’s more, the midpoint of the plate is only around 150 km away from the coast, making transport and injection of the gas relatively easy.

To begin with, the researchers focused on the US as the country is a major emitter of carbon dioxide and there’s a suitable subsea basalt reservoir close to its shores. They’re currently evaluating the rest of the globe. "All the reservoirs are very large, a number of them are viable," said Goldberg. The hundreds of gigatonnes of carbon dioxide storage offered by the Juan de Fuca plate is ten times the volume another single reservoir might typically provide, he adds. "Globally, the problem is huge. We’ve got to look at all the reservoirs we possibly can, and this is a huge one that’s not really been considered." In the laboratory, it takes days for carbon dioxide to react with basalt and form carbonates. But it’s not yet known how long the process would take in situ underneath the ocean. "There are a number of scientific questions still out there to do with reaction rates and flows that we would answer in a pilot experiment of some modest size," said Goldberg. "That would take some years of experimentation, unless it fast-tracks in some way." The researchers are currently seeking funding for such a pilot. "Then there’s a market process that will take implementation forward at whatever rate the market moves at, which is sometimes incredibly slow and sometimes at lightning speed,"said Goldberg. "I don’t see any technical reason why it couldn’t happen. It’s answering the science questions first and then it’s the political and economic will."

One of the challenges of using undersea basalt, rather than disused oil and gas reservoirs, to store carbon dioxide is the current lack of knowledge. "It’s a less well known and less well studied area of the globe," said Goldberg. "We know a lot more about oil and gas reservoirs than we do about subocean basalt reservoirs so there’s a research curve that we need to go up pretty quickly. That takes commitment and resources." Empty oil and gas wells also have the advantage of having "plumbing and piping" infrastructure in place. Goldberg likens the process to "just refilling the can with liquidized carbon dioxide". "[Using undersea basalt] would take investment in infrastructure which is not there at present, but 40 years ago the offshore oil and gas industry didn’t have that infrastructure either," he said. "The cost would not be unlike the costs of building an offshore industry for the production of hydrocarbons, which to some extent caused the problem." According to Goldberg, like any sequestration option using geology, it will be more difficult to store carbon dioxide in basalt offshore than on. "It will be more expensive than onshore but the two big benefits [volume and security] are such grand prizes that they can’t be ignored," he said. "And doing the research first is the right step."

Source: Carbon storage in undersea basalt offers extra security - environmentalresearchweb

Related: ENVIRONMENTAL BASE NETWORK - Kicking the Carbon Habit

[natureguy]

US unveils its CCS plans... Though nothing concrete is expected soon

Checkout...Its2hot.in | US Unveils CCS Plans

[Karl]

USEPA Begins Sketching Carbon Capture and Storage Framework

GreenBiz.com, 17 July 2008 –

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday began etching the regulatory framework for the underground storage of carbon dioxide. Capturing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants and injecting it deep in the earth is touted by many as a potential weapon against climate change. The proposed rule aims to protect drinking water and is geared toward companies that own or operate the underground wells. Requirements call for underground wells to be properly located, constructed, tested, monitored and safely closed.

The draft rule proposed Tuesday also is meant to lend "regulatory certainty" to the market to drive the adoption of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). "Today's proposal paves the way for technologies that would protect public health and help reduce the effects of climate change," EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said in a statement. Estimates suggest there is enough geologic space in the U.S. to store more than 3,000 gigatons of CO2, enough to store emissions from nearly 1,000 coal-fired power plants for a millenium. CCS, however, is in its infancy and not practiced on a broad scale in the U.S.

The European Union is testing several projects and on Wednesday gave Norway additional funds for an experimental CCS project at a gas-fired power plant. The Alberta government in Canada said last week it will spend $2 billion on major CCS projects. Other countries pursuing CCS include Australia, United Kingdom and Japan. By 2012, the global CCS market could top $236 billion, according to a report from BCC Research.

Source: World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)

[natureguy]

According to NAS, Scientists have suggested to use volcanic rocks near few western states of US, for CO2 Sequestration. The report says that 150 years of CO2 produced in US could be safely stored in these volanic rocks.