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.)

ground fog around their legs

There was an incident that occurred in 1985 that helped improve safety in the pipeline industry. It is referred to as the Camrose Accident. It occurred on a pipeline owned by IPL, now called Enbridge -- the operator of the longest pipeline system in the world.

At 12:42pm, Feb. 19, 1985, the senior shift dispatcher at the Edmonton Control Centre suspected a leak in the No.1 liquid natural gas pipeline based on strange pressure readings. At 1pm, a landowner phoned the dispatcher to report a vapour cloud in a field 27km northeast of Camrose. The No.1 pipeline was shutdown and the road near the leak was barricaded.

At 3:30pm, the Maintenance Foreman and District Engineer arrived and approached the suspected leak site from upwind, using their gas detectors. They found the leak in a slough; the ground was pushed up and white clouds of natural gas were spewing out of the ground, gathering in pockets in low-laying areas (natural gas is heavier than air). At 4:30pm, they radioed the Control Centre and recommended flaring the escaping gas (i.e., lighting it on fire) as darkness was approaching. The District Manager declined. A maintenance crew was sent in to install a "stopple" about 220m upstream (and upwind) of the leak which would plug off the pipeline and allow repairs to take place.

The six man maintenance crew began building an access road with a Caterpillar front-end loader, building a snow buffer (between them and the leak), installing floodlights, and operating the Gradall (an excavation machine similar to a back-hoe). Little did they know that the wind direction had been shifting since they arrived on site.

At about 8:30pm, the men were discussing the smell of gas in the air around them, and what appeared to be a ground fog around their legs. Also they noted the vehicles were stalling or idling roughly and the generator powering the floodlights again had stalled. At this point in time, one of them got into the 2 1/2-ton truck to restart it. Almost immediately, a ball of flame erupted in the cab of the truck and quickly engulfed the whole site. All six men at the site were caught in the fire ball.

Two men received 3rd degree burns to 90% of their bodies and died in hospital. Three men received 3rd degree burns to 30% - 70% of their bodies and lived. One man, Mr. Bone, was uninjured.

The current form of the Pipeline Standard is due in part to the investigation of the Camrose Accident.