Sequestration — The Underground Storage of Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

Underground storage of industrial quantities of carbon dioxide in porous and permeable reservoir rocks has been taking place for the last 11 years at the Sleipner West gas field in the North Sea. A further commercial-scale CO 2 storage project has recently begun at In Salah, Algeria, and the Snohvit field, Barents Sea, is to begin injecting CO 2 underground in late 2007 or early 2008. A monitored CO 2 -EOR project is underway at Weyburn, Canada and research scale injection projects have been undertaken at Nagaoka (Japan), Frio (USA) and K12-B (offshore Netherlands). This demonstrates that CO 2 can be successfully injected into underground storage reservoirs on a large scale. Natural analogues (natural fields of CO 2 and other buoyant fluids) demonstrate that under favourable conditions gases can be retained in the subsurface for millions of years. Although there is still very significant uncertainty in the actual figures, it appears that globally there is enough underground storage capacity for CO 2 storage technology to make a significant impact on global emissions to the atmosphere. Some other major issues that must be addressed if this technology is to spread to power stations, and thus make a significant impact on global CO 2 emissions, are the cost of CO 2 capture, further demonstrations of safe and secure storage and public acceptance that long-term storage will be successful.

Role of Underground Carbon Storage to Assist Reaching Net Zero by 2050: Perspectives on Petroleum Reservoirs

“…In addition to depleted petroleum reservoirs, petroleum fields often contain reservoirs above or below the hydrocarbon producing reservoirs that do not contain petroleum themselves, but have the necessary characteristics for storing CO₂, such as cap rock, base rock, permeability, porosity, and containment fractures. These reservoirs are often saline water-bearing reservoir rocks (aquifers) [22], injected with sCO2 [19].…”

Cost analysis of geological sequestration of CO₂

“…It can be noticed that up to the distance of about 1500 km it pays to transport carbon dioxide by a pipeline. However, above this value, if possible, must be considered sea transport, due to the high costs associated with the infrastructure that is essential for the proper operation of the pipeline [15].…”