Carbon storage is touted as a future part of the solution
of the environmental (climate change) due to burning oil and natural gas.
But what I don't understand (yet) is how it will work.
If liquified carbon dioxide is pumped underground for storage,
is it not to be expected that eventually this "liquid" will warm up enough to revert to CO2 gas,
and create enormous back-pressure - leading to fracturing of rock
--- and leakage back up into the atmosphere ?
NY Times
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
9/6/12
Shell to Test Capturing of Carbon in Canada
Quote:
HOUSTON — In a bid to make oil sands production less polluting,
Royal Dutch Shell announced on Wednesday that it would go forward with
the first carbon capture and storage project ever tried in the fields of western Canada.<snip>
The project, which is scheduled to begin operations by 2015,
is intended to capture and permanently store underground more
than a million tons of carbon dioxide a year, which Shell estimated
was equivalent to taking 175,000 cars off the road.
Carbon capture projects have lost favor in recent years because of concerns
about their heavy costs, which have typically been subsidized by governments<snip>.
Shell said it was hoping to reduce the carbon emissions from a treatment plant in Scotford,
outside Edmonton, that processes extra-heavy oil called bitumen
so it can be shipped to refineries in the United States.
The Quest project will pipe liquefied carbon dioxide to injection wells
and then store the substance nearly a mile underground under
multiple layers of rock and mineral formations.
The oil sands will originate from the Athabasca Oil Sands project,
a giant mining endeavor operated by Shell in a partnership with
Chevron and Marathon.<snip>
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