• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Don’t Attend COP 28 Unless You’re There to Help, Figueres Tells Oil and Gas September 21, 2023
Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote September 20, 2023
Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds September 20, 2023
Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP September 20, 2023
‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak September 19, 2023
Next
Prev

Carbon storage gets rock-solid boost

January 1, 1970
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

Study of natural carbon dioxide reservoirs shows that the greenhouse gas could be safely stored deep in rock formations for tens of thousands of years.

LONDON, 20 August, 2016 – Geologists have resolved one great problem about the capture of carbon dioxide from coal-fired or gas-fired power stations and its sequestration deep in the Earth.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
Subscribe

Once there in the right rock formations, there’s no reason why it should escape. That is, it won’t react with groundwater, corrode the rocks around it and dissolve its way back to the surface in 10,000 years − or even 100,000 years.

And scientists report in Nature Communications journal that they can say this with confidence because they have identified natural reservoirs of CO2 at least 100,000 years old, deep under the rocks near the town of Green River in Utah in the US, and they have drilled into the formation to check the water chemistry

The implication is that the rock that caps the reservoir can resist corrosion for at least 100,000 years. In the timetables of climate change, this is long enough to be considered safe.

Bigger problem

The research resolves just one concern about the challenge of carbon capture and storage. An experiment in Iceland confirmed that it could work in the short term, but the latest study suggests it could go on working in the long term.

The bigger problem is whether it can be made to work at all. Independent studies have decided that the technology is both costly and risky, and in any case the response by the energy industry suggests that the approach is not being prosecuted with any enthusiasm.

But since carbon dioxide emissions from the cities and power station chimneys of the planet are driving global warming, sea level rise and potentially catastrophic climate change, humans must either drastically reduce fossil fuel use or find ways of capturing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

And since international action so far − despite firm promises and declared intentions – looks like falling short of the reductions required, scientists keep checking the other possible options.

“With careful evaluation, burying carbon dioxide underground will prove very much safer than
emitting it directly into the atmosphere”

“Carbon capture and storage [CCS] is seen as essential technology if the UK is to meet its climate change targets,” says Mike Bickle, director of the Cambridge Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Cambridge, who led the study.

“A major obstacle to the implementation of CCS is the uncertainty over the long-term fate of the CO2,which impacts on regulation, insurance, and who assumes the responsibility for maintaining CO2 storage sites. Our study demonstrates that geological carbon storage can be safe and predictable over many hundreds of thousands of years.”

Carbon dioxide would have to be injected into rocks in liquid form, to replace the natural brines already in the rock pores and crevices. This raises the spectre of a carbon dioxide and water reaction, with potentially corrosive chemistry, and some computer simulations suggested that this could happen.

Chemical changes

So, with the support of petroleum company Shell, and money from Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council and the UK government, the Cambridge scientists took a close look at the evidence deep under the sedimentary rocks of Utah.

Instead of the predicted layer of corrosion many metres deep, they found a band of rotten or decayed stone measuring seven centimetres. The researchers looked at the mineralogy and the geochemistry, and they even bombarded samples of the rock with neutrons to try to understand the chemical changes to the stone.

They also turned to computer simulations to see how long it took the geological structure to form, and to work out how long it must have trapped CO2. The answer was: at least 100,000 years.

The thinking is that although CO2 would be a dense liquid, it would still be less dense than any brine in the porous rocks, so it would rise, sit above the ground water, and do little damage to the cap rock that contains it.

“With careful evaluation, burying carbon dioxide underground will prove very much safer than emitting it directly into the atmosphere,” Professor Bickle says. – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
53
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
67
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
34

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

UN Climate Change/flickr

BREAKING: Don’t Attend COP 28 Unless You’re There to Help, Figueres Tells Oil and Gas

September 21, 2023
203
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 21, 2023
517
Asurnipal/wikimedia commons

Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP

September 20, 2023
108
Cullen328/wikimedia commons

Manufactured Housing Could Dent the Affordable Housing Crunch with Energy-Efficient Designs

September 20, 2023
81
Mr Renewables/Wikipedia

Californians Fight for New Community Solar Plan

September 20, 2023
80
Kristoferb/Wikimedia Commons

Canadians Could Save $10.4B, Cut Climate Pollution by Replacing Central Air with Heat Pumps

August 28, 2023
669

Recent Posts

Rewat Wannasuk/Pexels

Virtual Power Plants Could Cut Peak Demand 20%, Save U.S. Grid $10B Per Year

September 20, 2023
66
Jeremy Bezanger/Unsplash

Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds

September 20, 2023
32
Wesley Fryer/flickr

Smart Thermostats Boost Grid Stability Amid Intense Heat

September 20, 2023
31
Plug'n Drive/Wikimedia Commons

Rural Carshares Ensure EV Push Leaves No One Behind

September 20, 2023
24
/Piqusels

‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak

September 19, 2023
405
Clean Creatives

‘Turning Point’ for PR Industry as Clean Creatives Targets Fossil Industry Contracts

September 19, 2023
256
Next Post

Mass extinction forecast with 6C temperature rise

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
The Energy Mix - Energy Central
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}