It has been well established that climate change is driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns us in their 2021 report that even with massive reductions in current GHG emission levels, we will soon experience unprecedented rises in global temperature and natural disaster frequency (IPCC, 2021). The harsh reality is that the ease of our 21st-century lifestyles will soon be shattered by the consequences of global warming unless we take rapid and drastic action. A promising climate solution being developed and deployed globally is carbon capture and storage.
In 1977, Cesare Marchetti was the first to suggest atmospheric carbon capture and storage. He proposed that natural gas processing technology could be repurposed to collect carbon dioxide (CO₂) and then inject it into the deep ocean where it would theoretically be stored for hundreds of years (Marchetti, 1977). This idea quickly evolved into what is known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) whereby CO₂ is captured from the atmosphere and pumped into depleted oil fields to promote recovery of crude oil supplies (Brock and Bryan, 1989). EOR projects have seen reasonable success in boosting oil extraction. For example, the Wasson Field’s Denver Unit EOR project yielded over 120 million barrels of oil in 2008 alone (National Energy Technology Laboratory, 2010). Ironically, OER carbon capture is not only futile in the fight against global warming, but actually exacerbates GHG emissions. The dire state of our climate will necessitate the phasing out of fossil fuels to prevent global catastrophe (IPCC, 2021). The rapid carbon cycling pathways promoted by fossil fuel industries must be supplemented with closed system pathways which support permanent carbon storage (Figure 1).
Notice in the figure above, CO₂ EOR pathway is denoted by a red arrow to represent a closed pathway for permanent carbon sequestration and storage. This is misleading because CO₂ EOR supports the burning of fossil fuels which is directly responsible for cycling pathways 1 and 2 seen in Figure 1 above. The success of carbon capture and storage technology hinges on the permanence of the carbon storage method. Among the various types of carbon storage, the most promising method in terms of cost-efficiency and scalability appears to be storing carbon within deep geological formations. A study in Iceland has demonstrated large-scale injection of CO₂ through 400-800m wells into reservoirs under basaltic lavas and hyaloclastites. Virtually all of the CO₂ injected was mineralized within two years, becoming stable carbonate minerals (Matter et al., 2016). This method provides a safe and long-term carbon storage alternative to CO₂ EOR, which is being used by oil companies to boost their oil extraction and greenwash the public. Carbon capture is an important first step but these efforts will quickly be nullified without a permanent carbon storage method. If we wish to avoid devastating global warming, we must continue implementing and researching strategies for permanent carbon storage.
References
Brock, W.R. and Bryan, L.A., 1989. Summary Results of CO2 EOR Field Tests, 1972-1987. Low Permeability Reservoirs Symposium. OnePetro. https://doi.org/10.2118/18977-MS.
Hepburn, C., Adlen, E., Beddington, J., Carter, E.A., Fuss, S., Mac Dowell, N., Minx, J.C., Smith, P. and Williams, C.K., 2019. The technological and economic prospects for CO2 utilization and removal. Nature, 575(7781), pp.87–97. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1681-6.
IPCC, 2021. Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.
Marchetti, C., 1977. On geoengineering and the CO2 problem. Climatic Change, 1(1), pp.59–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00162777.
Matter, J.M., Stute, M., Snæbjörnsdottir, S.Ó., Oelkers, E.H., Gislason, S.R., Aradottir, E.S., Sigfusson, B., Gunnarsson, I., Sigurdardottir, H., Gunnlaugsson, E., Axelsson, G., Alfredsson, H.A., Wolff-Boenisch, D., Mesfin, K., Taya, D.F. de la R., Hall, J., Dideriksen, K. and Broecker, W.S., 2016. Rapid carbon mineralization for permanent disposal of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Science, 352(6291), pp.1312–1314. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad8132.
National Energy Technology Laboratory, 2010. Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery: Untapped Domestic Energy Supply and Long Term Carbon Storage Solution. Albany, OR: US Department of Energy.p.32. Available at: <https://www.netl.doe.gov/sites/default/files/netl-file/co2_eor_primer.pdf>.
Comments
15 Responses to “Is Carbon Capture Accelerating Global Warming?”
Hello iSci! I chose to write my post on a common misconception about carbon capture and storage technologies. I was heavily inspired to write this post after watching a mini documentary about Enhanced Oil Recovery and how fossil fuel industries are using “carbon capture and storage” to actually boost their oil extraction while greenwashing the public. The topic of this post ties heavily to our Climate Change RP and connects the disciplines of biology, earth science, and biochemistry. Writing this post was quite eye opening for me so I hope you enjoy the read. I look forward to hearing your feedback!
Hi Andre, this post was a great read. I was not aware that carbon capture technology that seemed beneficial to stopping climate change was actually being used to create more oil for companies. Your post was written very well but here are a few minor changes that I think can be made:
– The last sentence of the first paragraph says “A promising technology currenting…”, I think you meant to put currently here.
– Additionally, I think that adding a better transition between the last two sentences of the first paragraph, or moving the last sentence to the beginning of the second paragraph could improve the flow of the post. There’s a bit of a sudden jump between the sentences in my opinion.
– Lastly, you can probably replace “in order to” with to, just to shorten up wordcounts and make sentences less word heavy
Again, great post these are all very minor suggestions.
Hi Edmund!
Thanks for the sentence structure feedback and grammatical correction. I’ll implement these changes during my editing process.
Cheers,
André
Hi Andre!
I found your post to be very interesting and well written. I have a few suggestions that might help you in the editing process.
– In the last line of your first paragraph, you write “A promising technology currenting being developed.” “Currenting” should be replaced with “currently.”
– In the fourth line of your second paragraph, you mention The Wasson Field’s Denver Unit OER project. I was wondering if it should say EOR instead of “OER.”
– You could possibly include a diagram showing the process of EOR to help readers in their understanding of this process.
– A concept you could expand further, if you have the word count, is providing examples of geological formations that assist in storing carbon and how they do so.
Overall, this is a great blog post! I look forward to reading the final version.
Naya
Hi Naya!
Thanks for the sentence structure feedback and grammatical correction. I’ll implement these changes during my editing process. Rather than adding a figure, I’ve expanded the explanation of EOR as well as the explanation of geological formations.
Cheers,
André
Hi Andre, great blog post! Here are just a few minor suggestions you might want to consider:
1- I believe ’21st century’ is missing a hyphen in the third sentence of your first paragraph.
2- I think you meant ‘currently’ instead of ‘currenting’ in the fourth sentence of your first paragraph.
3- Replace ‘in order to’ with ‘to’, in both the third and seventh sentences of your second paragraph.
4- Sarah and Abeer had mentioned in Week 5 of SciLit class to not include the ‘access date’ in your references. Also if you’re providing a link, I believe you can remove the ‘(online)’.
Overall, good job. I commend your writing skills and look forward to reading your final draft!
Hi Sayna!
Thanks for the citation feedback and grammatical corrections. I’ll implement these changes during my editing process.
Cheers,
André
Hi Andre!
Very interesting topic! Carbon capture is a buzzwordy idea that I don’t think is very understood well. I definitely learned a bit more about it today, and I didn’t know that it us often used in conjunction with fossil fuel extraction and refining, which seems ironic to me (both extracting it from the air and from the earth?). I have a few suggestions which I hope are helpful for you when you edit your post:
1. (P1, S3) The third sentence of the first paragraph is a bit awkwardly structured. I might rewrite it as “The scary truth is that our comfortable 21st lifestyles may soon be upended by the consequences of global warming.” A few more notes on this: I might use the term “climate change” or “global climate change” instead, and also I might mention that the impact of such will be even greater for those who cannot already live “comfortable lifestyles.”
2. (P1, S4) The last sentence in the first paragraph is abrupt. I might lead it in with “In order to prevent the devastation from climate change, we must find creative solutions…” or something.
3. (P2, S1) The first sentence of the second paragraph could possible be omitted, it doesn’t add anything that the sentence following it doesn’t already introduce. I’d also reword “proposition of” to “proposal for.”
4. (P2, S2) This sentence is confusing, especially when in the context of the sentence preceding it. I first thought that the idea was proposed to be used in the gas processing facilities, not that the devices inspired the idea. I’d reword it to something like “proposed that a technology used in natural gas processing facilities could be repurposed to collect carbon dioxide.”
5. (P2) What does oil recovery mean?
6. You use a lot of acronyms, which is hard to keep track of. I would just use the full names, or natural language variants, to communicate your ideas instead. You also write OER instead of EOR at one point. (GHG, IPCC, EOR)…
7. In paragraph 2 you say that carbon capture is not especially helpful, and then state that closed system pathways must be used. This seems contradictory or at least a little unclear.
8. I feel like you further could explore the idea that carbon capture on it’s own may be useful, but when used to justify further extraction of fossil fuels, it’s utility is offset by it’s justification of worsening carbon emissions. You touch on this, but this seems to be the thesis of your blog and touching on it further might be helpful for understanding.
I hope these help! You chose an interesting topic and I know you’ll have a strong final draft 🙂
– Nathan Hart
Hi Nathan!
Thanks for the sentence structure feedback and grammatical correction. I’ll implement these changes during my editing process. I’ve reworked some sentences and added additional explanations, word count permitting. I’ve strengthen the connections you mentioned to emphasize the thesis and conclusion.
Cheers,
André
Hey Andre!
I feel like I learned a lot from your post, great job!
I only have a few suggestions that I hope will help you while editing:
– At the beginning of your second paragraph you mention “technology used in natural gas processing facilities”. Would it be possible to replace this particular “technology” with a more specific area or process within the general umbrella of processing technologies?
– Consider combining the “EOR…years.” sentence with the one directly following it. This would give a bit more flow to the point of the level of success.
– In your final paragraph, consider splitting the sentence ” A study in Iceland…” at “wells”, then adding that they passed through basaltic lavas and hyaloclastites into the following sentence (possibly use the words “resulting in” to tac these together).
Good luck editing! I’m excited to see the finished product!
Halaina
Hi Halaina!
Thanks for the sentence structure feedback and grammatical correction. I’ll implement these changes during my editing process. I’ve reworked some sentences and added additional explanations, word count permitting.
Cheers,
André
Hi André,
I thoroughly enjoyed your blog post and thought that it was super interesting! Here are just a few minor suggestions:
1) In the following: “[f]or example, The Wasson Field’s Denver Unit OER project yielded..”, I do not believe that “the” should be capitalized.
2) I think Anglia Ruskin format uses (Figure 1) rather than (see Figure 1).
3) I would just tack on one more sentence before your concluding sentence just because it seems quite abrupt–a little connection would go a long way for ending your piece strongly.
Overall, you wrote a great piece and I can’t wait to read the final draft!
Jem
Hi Jem!
Thanks for the sentence structure feedback and grammatical correction. I’ll implement these changes during my editing process. I’ve reworked some sentences and emphasized connections word count permitting.
Cheers,
André
Hi André,
I greatly enjoyed your draft and its very eyebrow-raising title. Just a few suggestions to consider:
– I think the 3rd sentence of your first paragraph would read more smoothly as follows: “The harsh reality is that the ease of our 21st century lifestyles will soon be shattered by the consequences of global warming.”
– Similarly, in your 3rd paragraph, I would write: “Ironically, OER carbon capture is not only ineffective in the fight against global warming, but actually produces the opposite of the desired effect.”
– For visuals, I think you should do something to help distinguish your figure caption from the paragraph below it (eg by italicizing/bolding it or adding more blank space). As it stands, it blends a little into the body text.
This was a very informative post, supplemented by a visually pleasing and very informative figure. Nice work and happy editing!
Cheers,
Katherine
Hi Kat!
Thanks for the sentence structure feedback. I’ll implement these changes during my editing process. I’ve reworked some sentences to help emphasize connections and enhance the flow.
Cheers,
André