CCS: Carbon capturing and storage - the ground realities do not look promising

[nsdp + 449]

8 hours ago, Eric Gagen said:

Or sandstone which is SiO2 quartz and is one of the most common and easily found types of rock formations on earth.  You can find it everywhere and the real challenge is ensuring that it doesn’t leak to surface or to drinkable ground water.  Millions of tons of CO2 are used on a regular basis in sandstones for enhanced oil recovery every year, usually at depths of 3,000 - 8,000’ deep.  The CO2 forms carbonic acid anyway (since it’s in contact with water) but stays in solution  due to its low concentration compared to the mass of water and rock in the region.  
 

Limestones and Dolomites are OK.  Bravo Dome was abandoned because they hadn’t properly prepared and understood the consequences of the carbonic acid and other acid types that they generated and because the project didn’t generate enough income to be able to fix the consequences.  Plenty of later CO2 injection projects in carbonates have been done - Kinder Morgan has made a fortune injecting CO2 in reef and carbonate formations of the Permian Basin.  They set up to deal with the carbonic acid and that was the end of that.  
 

Additionally dissolving some of the carbonate rock by generating carbonic acid is actually one of the desired methods of sequestering CO2 - not a failure of some sort. Provided the site is selected properly the amount of carbonic acid generated compared to the amount of rock dissolved is so small that it isn’t appreciably weakened.  
 

the one area where CO2 definitely cannot be injected and stored safely is in granitic shields.  They lack the porosity and permeability to trap the CO2 in solution (like sandstones) or the ability to react the CO2 away like carbonates.  The only other thing that can happen is that eventually the CO2 will return to surface.

IF you could get to 30 miles deep it would work, but mot the way you think.  30 miles deep the rock is so hot it’s not solid any longer - depending on the location it’s either undifferentiated plastic mass or liquid magma.   In either case it will readily react with anything it comes in contact with.  The deepest hole in the world is ~ 6 miles and the metal parts used to drill it were already starting to melt in spite of the best cooling that could be provided for the project.  

Sandstones are porous and you contaminate the surrounding formations.  At least that is what Amoco found with the CO2 that was not recovered with the oil.   You need impervious formations sealing the injection zone above and below or with caverns in them so you do not become  SUPERFUND SITE.   Remember after you put it down in the ground it is still your problem.  That is just like the Oklahoma earthquakes from the injection wells. You don't get to walk away. Unlike oil field brine where oil and gas operators got a special class under Underground Injection Control regs, you are covered by TOSCA as a Class V superpolluter.   I am reasonably sure you are not conversant with TOSCA, Superfund, RCRA and the CWAA of 1991.

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

There appear to be projects that operate carbon sequestration already so I'm interested in whether the Co2 is remaining below ground and whether the water table is being affected by carbonic acid.

Is the Petra Nova project in Texas having any issues or does it appear to work just fine??

https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainability/can-uk-acorn-carbon-capture-project-grow-solution-industry-emissions

[Eric Gagen + 713]

9 hours ago, nsdp said:

Sandstones are porous and you contaminate the surrounding formations.  At least that is what Amoco found with the CO2 that was not recovered with the oil.   You need impervious formations sealing the injection zone above and below or with caverns in them so you do not become  SUPERFUND SITE.   Remember after you put it down in the ground it is still your problem.  That is just like the Oklahoma earthquakes from the injection wells. You don't get to walk away. Unlike oil field brine where oil and gas operators got a special class under Underground Injection Control regs, you are covered by TOSCA as a Class V superpolluter.   I am reasonably sure you are not conversant with TOSCA, Superfund, RCRA and the CWAA of 1991.

As I said - the real challenge is “ensuring that it does not leak to surface or contaminated groundwater” that requires solid subsurface geologic understanding and control - not injection into the mantle boundary 30 miles deep. However it’s an entirely academic discussion IMHO - I don’t believe that geologic carbon sequestration will ever be viable it simply requires to much energy to put the carbon down there in the first place for the thermodynamics to work out. 

[Eric Gagen + 713]

3 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

There appear to be projects that operate carbon sequestration already so I'm interested in whether the Co2 is remaining below ground and whether the water table is being affected by carbonic acid.

Is the Petra Nova project in Texas having any issues or does it appear to work just fine??

https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainability/can-uk-acorn-carbon-capture-project-grow-solution-industry-emissions

It was a CO2 enhanced oil recovery project that was turned off because it wasn’t economic https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063714297. As far as how well it was working at sequestering CO2, I’m sure they didn’t assess that since it wasn’t one of the objectives of the project.  

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

Thanks for the info Eric

[specinho + 470]

On 7/1/2021 at 4:20 AM, Ecocharger said:

An unnecessary waste of human mind-power, the whole idea that CO2 is a waste is a nonsensical proposition. Without CO2 we would starve by the billions. Pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere would reduce agricultural productivity, which has allowed world population to swell to its current level.

 

Not sure if this assumption is correct, but.......

 

May be, by carbon capture, the initial intention was to capture carbon particles from incomplete combustion processes. Carbon particles are the major culprit for air pollution especially in phenomena like haze, fog, etc. The concern could be on visibility, air breathability and other related hazards shall go out of control.

 

Some smarter opinions raised the decibel to more refined carbon  dioxide. In their opinion, there could be more carbon dioxide gas than particles to be captured in volume. It might mean more money, yes?? And, they got really excited........ when we agreed in unison.

 

 

[specinho + 470]

5 hours ago, Eric Gagen said:

As I said - the real challenge is “ensuring that it does not leak to surface or contaminated groundwater” that requires solid subsurface geologic understanding and control - not injection into the mantle boundary 30 miles deep.

 

On 7/4/2021 at 12:10 PM, nsdp said:

The bigger accomplishment will be converting the light energy to electricity..   You will need to be about 30 million miles away from the source to not melt your solar array.

 

There has been an decades old idea i.e. generate photosynthetic electricity from massive volume of algae........

 

I am not certain if the modified algae nowadays could take in CO2 when they grow and generate electricity with sunlight, but the old version used to be using oxygen for growth..........

 

In short, the experiments aim to mean this: they pump in CO2 for photosynthetic algae and then generate electricity from photosynthesis.........

 

The irony side for this to work might have been discussed somewhere in the forum, some times back.......... but could not recall under which topic.... pardon me.

[nsdp + 449]

8 hours ago, specinho said:

 

 

There has been an decades old idea i.e. generate photosynthetic electricity from massive volume of algae........

 

I am not certain if the modified algae nowadays could take in CO2 when they grow and generate electricity with sunlight, but the old version used to be using oxygen for growth..........

 

In short, the experiments aim to mean this: they pump in CO2 for photosynthetic algae and then generate electricity from photosynthesis.........

 

The irony side for this to work might have been discussed somewhere in the forum, some times back.......... but could not recall under which topic.... pardon me.

We already have the bacteria to do some of this in Shark Bay western Australia, no electricity.   Earth's original atmosphere some 3.75 billion years ago was methane and CO2. Phytoplanktom removed the iron from the oceans and then removed the  CO2 and methane from the atmosphere.  Result was the greatest mass extinction in history  But we got our beautiful blue planet and evolution took over from there.The Planet’s First Mass Extinction Was Caused by the Production of Oxygen  https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/23764/20190907/the-planet-s-first-mass-extinction-was-caused-by-the-production-of-oxygen.htm

Your idea solves the problem not merely delays the disaster as sequestration does.😀😀 Lots of low methane food for cows and I like steak.

Edited July 6, 2021 by nsdp

[Eric Gagen + 713]

14 hours ago, nsdp said:

We already have the bacteria to do some of this in Shark Bay western Australia, no electricity.   Earth's original atmosphere some 3.75 billion years ago was methane and CO2. Phytoplanktom removed the iron from the oceans and then removed the  CO2 and methane from the atmosphere.  Result was the greatest mass extinction in history  But we got our beautiful blue planet and evolution took over from there.The Planet’s First Mass Extinction Was Caused by the Production of Oxygen  https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/23764/20190907/the-planet-s-first-mass-extinction-was-caused-by-the-production-of-oxygen.htm

Your idea solves the problem not merely delays the disaster as sequestration does.😀😀 Lots of low methane food for cows and I like steak.

If done right under the correct geologic conditions,  sequestration doesn't merely 'delay' the problem.  The objective of sequestration is to pump CO2 into rock formations where it will stay until it reacts away and forms solid carbonate rocks.  Eventually, many of these will be recycled over the course of the earth's tectonic cycle, but it will take place over the course of 10's of millions, if not 100's of millions of years.  Diluting the current 'pulse' of CO2 over the course of the next 100,000,000 years means that the concentration is diluted 100,000,000 fold converting it into a change so small that it's a measurement error on the laboratory scale.  

[specinho + 470]

On 7/6/2021 at 11:07 AM, nsdp said:

We already have the bacteria to do some of this in Shark Bay western Australia, no electricity.   Earth's original atmosphere some 3.75 billion years ago was methane and CO2. Phytoplanktom removed the iron from the oceans and then removed the  CO2 and methane from the atmosphere.  Result was the greatest mass extinction in history  But we got our beautiful blue planet and evolution took over from there.The Planet’s First Mass Extinction Was Caused by the Production of Oxygen  https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/23764/20190907/the-planet-s-first-mass-extinction-was-caused-by-the-production-of-oxygen.htm

Your idea solves the problem not merely delays the disaster as sequestration does.😀😀 Lots of low methane food for cows and I like steak.

Thank you for the sharing. It's wonderful to know the bio-weapon towards aliens on another planet could be cynobacteria... * vicious smile* 😈

 

Pardon me if my sentence misled you. The idea was not mine. Japanese started the research. Once upon a time, I happened to work in a lab next to a professor who adopted the collaborative idea in later years, in a far flung corner on earth. Until today, the status of progress might be "how to cultivate large scale of functional algae with success"; producing petroleum from massive volume of algae"; and may be "generating electricity from photosynthetic algae"....

 

On 7/7/2021 at 1:34 AM, Eric Gagen said:

If done right under the correct geologic conditions,  sequestration doesn't merely 'delay' the problem.  The objective of sequestration is to pump CO2 into rock formations where it will stay until it reacts away and forms solid carbonate rocks.  Eventually, many of these will be recycled over the course of the earth's tectonic cycle, but it will take place over the course of 10's of millions, if not 100's of millions of years.  Diluting the current 'pulse' of CO2 over the course of the next 100,000,000 years means that the concentration is diluted 100,000,000 fold converting it into a change so small that it's a measurement error on the laboratory scale.  

Although the idea is wonderful, hope the quotation below, from wikipedia, is useful as your second reference:

Calcium is stored in geologic reservoirs, most commonly in the form of calcium carbonate or as calcium silicate.^[1] Calcium-containing rocks include calcite, dolomite, phosphate, and gypsum.^[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_cycle

 

Therefore, carbon dioxide might not be able to be absorbed by solid rocks with calcium. It is existing in the form of calcium carbonate already.

 

Lab reaction shows a promising magical liquid

 

It is likely called calcium hydroxide.............

 

Upon which gas carbon dioxide will react with the solution and form non soluble calcium carbonate...

Ca(OH)₂(aq) + CO₂(g) → CaCO₃(s) + H₂O(l)

CaCO₃(s) + CO₂(g) + H₂O(l) → Ca(HCO₃)₂(aq)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/znwh8xs/revision/8

 

Regarding the possibly lilliputian atomic diluting scale with a possible  future measurement error, we might need not put too much attention there just yet. According to the latest cult news, after so many centuries of fluctuation, the level of carbon dioxide is happily remained at the level of 0.03% of usual, or may be 0.04% of the latest massive increment. The later status is hearsaid caused by melting of polar ice which releases trapped carbon dioxide dated as far as the ice age era, human activities, burning activities, frequent volcanic eruptions and etc.......

eerrr....... it was deducted that the diverging pool of opinions could probably be due to habitual convenience......... of the leaders.....

 

[Eric Gagen + 713]

@specinho CaOH is not even a theoretical method for sequestering carbon dioxide.  Calcium hydroxide is better known as slaked lime, and it is manufactured by placing calcium carbonate (CaCO3) rock in a furnace, then firing the furnace with coal or natural gas with limited air entry to produce a partially reducing environment, creating the reaction CH4 (1 natural gas molecule) + CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) +O2 => CaOH (lime) + CO2 + H2O The laws of thermodynamics ensure that you will definitively without fail emit more CO2 to run this process than you can later absorb with the lime it produces.

CaOH is not found naturally, because if it is ever created accidentally (for example by lightning strikes) it naturally reacts away with CO2 and water vapor in the atmosphere to form CaCO3.  It only exists when it is manufactured, and then only afterwards if it is then stored in airtight containers. 

For carbon capture and sequestration you pump CO2 all by itself into rocks which do not have communication to the surface.  Ideally these are rocks with quartz (SiO2) and water (H2O) where it will form Silcon Carbonate (SiCO4) and other carbonate materials.