For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
THE world's biggest carbon dump being planned for the state's Outback could hold up to one billion tonnes of greenhouse gases.
This is more than twice the capacity first planned.
Adelaide-based oil and gas company Santos believes a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide could be stored in its depleted oil and gas reservoirs in the Cooper Basin, compared with an original estimate of 400 million tonnes.
In June, The Advertiser revealed Santos had applied to the Federal Government for $275 million in funding as part of an estimated $714 million first-phase investment, to demonstrate storing greenhouse gases underground worked.
That project was based on eventually pumping 20 million tonnes of CO2 underground per year, for 20 years, from as early as 2010.
This would make it by far the largest carbon sequestration project in the world, but Santos spokesman Matthew Doman said yesterday it could now be even bigger.
"It comes from several things – the existence of aquifers below the Cooper Basin which could also be used to inject and store carbon . . .the other is the fact that as you use CO2 to pressurise the field and get more oil out, the removal of that oil creates more space in the oil field itself so that increases by about 20 per cent the capacity of the oil field storage beyond our initial estimates," he said. _________________ "That the cream cannot help but always rise up to the top, well I say, <censored by peakoil.com> floats"
Jarvis Cocker - "Running the World"
Last edited by Judgie on Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:12 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3431 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:19 am Post subject: Re: Major carbon dump for SA
My objection for this is the same as all the other CO2 sequestration schemes, how much extra energy will we need to produce in order to seperate, refridgerate, and pump in all this CO2 they plan on storing? Those items are not a free ride, someone has to put energy into the system for those to occur.
Producing CO2 from air is easy enough, with a decent compressor and a good refridgeration system, but both need energy to work. Pumping the liquid CO2 and making sure it stays below the critical temperature and above critical pressure also takes energy coupled with moderate knowledge.
Injecting it into an old oil field or aquafer also has some challanges because of the pressure/temperature requirements, but nothing spectacularly difficult, but again requires energy for pumping and monitoring.
According to the EPA the USA generates 26 million tons of food waste per year. That would be about twice as much CO2 sequestered as the Adelaide project if it were high density packed into steel drum and dropped into the abyssal plain on the sea floor!
And you would not have to worry about an Earthquake releasing it back into the atmosphere, or a faulty plug in a well casing turing it back loose in the future either. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Apr 19, 2006 Posts: 197 Location: Australia
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:13 am Post subject: Re: Major carbon dump for SA (South Australia).
Since they will pump CO2 into an old oil field to increase pressure and output, much like the nitrogen thing PEMEX is doing in Cantarell, then it has some purpose. That is the only reason I see for it. Global Warming is not good enough, specially with China completing a new coal thermoelectrical plant every 10 days.
Given the limited information that I have, my verdict at this moment is "thumbs up for this project! " _________________ Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 434 Location: Adelaide, South Australia
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:22 am Post subject: Re: Major carbon dump for SA (South Australia).
BrazilianPO wrote:
Since they will pump CO2 into an old oil field to increase pressure and output, much like the nitrogen thing PEMEX is doing in Cantarell, then it has some purpose. That is the only reason I see for it. Global Warming is not good enough, specially with China completing a new coal thermoelectrical plant every 10 days.
Given the limited information that I have, my verdict at this moment is "thumbs up for this project! "
Thanks for everyones perspective's, it's much appreciated. I too agree that for the moment it's a good thing, giving us that little bit of extra time to prepare/study alternatives or what have you. It's not surprising after you brought it up that the real reason they're doing it is to conveniently up pressures to get the last of the NG out..... _________________ "That the cream cannot help but always rise up to the top, well I say, <censored by peakoil.com> floats"
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