Carbon storage can help stabilize greenhouse gases

Deep well injection can inexpensively capture carbon, IPCC says.

CO₂ emitted from burning fossil fuels can be affordably captured and stored deep underground in oil and gas fields or coal beds, according to a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report estimates that several hundreds to thousands of systems located at power plants could capture and store 220–2200 gigatonnes of CO₂ over the next century.

For example, a number of existing power plants are already using post-combustion capture technologies to remove CO₂ from part of their flue gases. The natural-gas industry uses a similar technology to separate out CO₂. Additionally, fertilizer manufacturers and hydrogen producers widely use precombustion CO₂ capture. And three industrial-scale storage projects are in operation: the Sleipner project off the Norwegian coast, the Weyburn project in Canada, and the In Salah project in Algeria.

That translates to 15–55% of the worldwide mitigation effort needed to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at 450–750 parts per million CO₂. Less than 1% of the stored CO₂ is projected to leak over 1000 years. However, IPCC guidelines do not yet provide methods to inventory and credit underground carbon storage.

To read the IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, visit www.ipcc.ch/activity/ccsspm.pdf.