The Department of Energy has successfully pumped five million tons of carbon dioxide underground. The carbon dioxide is from a coal gasification plant in North Dakota and has been pumped underground to a Canadian oil field. This technology sounds very promising because it could significantly reduce CO2 emissions into our atmosphere while increasing the oil production of a given oil field.
When I heard about this successful test, I was very interested. This technology is highly suggested by Deffeyes in his book Beyond Oil. I hope to hear more about this technology in the future as it is implimented in more places. It seems to me a win-win situation for global warming and oil companies. The technology sounds like it could make a significant dent in our carbon dioxide emissions. The article I read states that if the process were used in all the oil fields of western Canada, “we would see billions of additional barrels of oil and a reduction of CO2 emissions equivalent to pulling more than 200 million cars off the road for a year.”
Click here to read the article.
The most memorable exam question in my college career involved crunching numbers on bacteria driven subterranean in WVa CO2 disposal for my Reactions course. It prompted a nice debate about whether it was ethical to disrupt that ecosystem. Prof. Morrison (did you meet him when we toured CWRU?) s final statement was along the lines of "We have to make choices, I'd rather disrupt a few caves than the air breathed by the majority this planets species."
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