Carbon, not just for pencils!

Our company is looking into Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology as an area to get involved it.

CCS can be summarized as so:
1. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is produced mainly from coal-fired electricity plants, but also from other processes in the Oil and Gas industry. It is also produced by most animals when they breathe and by vehicles during combustion.
2. The CO2 is transported at high pressure to suitable areas to be stored.
3. CO2 is injected into the ground, either into oil/gas reservoirs or into deep aquifers.

There are some large challenges that CCS must overcome before becoming viable. CO2, when mixed with water, becomes carbonic acid which can destroy steel pipelines in months. Because of this, the CO2 is typically “scrubbed” of any water and transported at a very high pressure so it becomes a liquid.

Storage of CO2 is a challenge. If it is just pumped underground into a cavern it can leak out so it is typically injected into a deep underground river (called an aquifer). As discussed above, this will make the water undrinkable, so aquifers of already poor quality are used. However, CO2 can be injected into old oil wells as a way to revive them (called Enhanced Oil Recovery or EOR). This is really great because not only does it allow more oil to be recovered, but it traps the CO2 underground.

The future of CCS is a bit fuzzy. After Al Gore’s movie, a lot of people became aware of CO2 and climate change. So there is definitely a political push to do something with the CO2 created. However, I’m not sure that when the bill comes in, people will want to pay. Capturing CO2 from a power plant will raise the price of power; maybe not a lot, but some. Capturing CO2 will require building thousands of kilometers of new pipeline. Storing it will create some environmental risk.

The reality is most electricity is created by burning fossil fuels (e.g., coal, oil, gas). Renewables (e.g., solar, biofuel, wind, tidal) will be very difficult to scale up. Even then they will never cover the energy our planet currently uses. The only real scalable alternative is nuclear power, which has an image problem. Nuclear power has no emission, but does create spent fuel rods which are radioactive for thousands of years. To me, it is the same as if you took all the widely dispersed pollution created by a coal-fired power plant and just concentrated it into one rod. One really really dirty rod. That you don't want to touch. Or hide under someone's pillow, even as a joke. (I'm looking at you, Pickles.)

Our company is committed, so we will be entering an exciting few years while we enter this relatively new area. (At least for North America; Europe has be doing CCS for a decade or so now.)