Store carbon underground? There is less room than we thought, suggests a new study

Many countries, including Canada, are counting on a kind of underground carbon storage to keep the greenhouse gases warming at the planet of the atmosphere and avoid the most catastrophic climatic projections.

But a study published this week in the newspaper Nature raises a new problem with what is already a mainly unproven technology.

The study, led by researchers in the United Kingdom, Austria and the United States, analyzed a wider range of risk factors than conventional carbon storage potential.

They have found that around the world, around 1,460 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide can be stored underground safely. This is significantly lower than current projections of around 12,000 billion tonnes. This means that using all safe areas for carbon storage would reduce global warming by only 0.7 C, much less than previous estimates of around 6 C.

“If we consider carbon storage as a rare resource, which, depending on our evaluation, countries should be very explicit about how they plan to use it in order to respond to their climate commitments,” said Matthew Gidden, associated research professor at the World University Center for Maryland and the author of the study.

The interest in the elimination and storage of carbon has developed, as climate modeling suggests more and more to reduce our current emissions alone will not be enough to continue to warm up at safe levels. In Canada, the federal government offers a tax credit to support carbon capture and storage projects, planned to cost taxpayers Up to $ 5.7 billion until 2028. The United States and Europe also have massive programs to support technology.

“As the study authors point out), if we act to reduce emissions now, we probably have enough storage, but that ceases to be really true, very soon,” said Rob Anex, professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison who research technology.

“Global emission rates are so high that the time window in which geological storage is practical is really closing, very quickly.”

What are the factors that retain carbon storage?

Gidden said that most engineering studies that examine carbon storage focus on technical potential – engineering or technically necessary quantity of carbon can be collected and stored underground in a sedimentary rock. His team adopted a different approach: taking into account many risks such as proximity to cities, sensitive ecosystems and protected wild areas and seismically active areas.

They also assumed that carbon storage would not occur beyond a depth of 2.5 kilometers, according to their assessment of current technology and excluded certain emerging storage technologies. Some researchers say it could be too limiting, given the speed with which carbon storage technology is improving.

“They have very valid reasons for choosing these scales of depth according to the literature and the previous studies they cite. But I do not think that it is necessarily a harsh cut,” said Anna Littlefield, researcher at the Payne Institute for the Public Policy of Colorado School of Mines, focused on energy transition.

Kate Moran, President and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada, an Oceans research observatory, works on Carbon storage exploration project in basalt rock under the seabed. She says that CO2 reacts with basalt to go from gas to solid, making it a more attractive way to store carbon compared to a gas form that can flee.

“The capacity is enormous,” said Moran. “The basin we are studying, the Cascadia basin, we believe that there are at least 200 gigatons available in this place off the west coast of Canada.”

Look | How carbon emissions could be stored under the ocean:

The British Columbia program aims to capture carbon and push it underwater

British Columbia scientists have developed a carbon storage program that would take air carbon dioxide and push it deep into the ocean where it would be injected into basalt, a type of volcanic rock, and would end up turning into rock itself.

ANEX, on the other hand, says that the study of the study of the study can be too pink given the financial challenges to quickly strengthen storage capacity to meet the increase in global temperatures.

“To evolve quickly, it is almost almost unimaginable. And that competition for capital competes with many other social needs,” he said, adding that the study assumed that many carbon would be transported large distances, on land in pipelines or shipped, where it would be stored, by increasing the costs and the potential for public opposition.

The biggest problem always demonstrating that it works

However, the space available for storage may not be the biggest obstacle.

“There is a lot of geological space there. And this study says in a way, well, there is not as much You thought, comma, but there are still a lot of points, “said Dave Sawyer, principal economist at the Canadian Climate Reading Group.

The real challenge, say the experts, is to demonstrate that carbon capture and storage can actually operate on a scale large enough to compensate for emissions. Pilot projects in Canada and abroad have often seen mixed results.

Littlefield said that if the main problem with carbon storage was simply that we lacked storage capacity, it would be a good place to be for industry.

“Because right now, we are still trying to succeed in operational projects,” she said.

Gidden said that one of the study messages concerns the so-called the theory of overcoming-where climatologists believe that the world will exceed 1.5 C of warming, but later, thanks to carbon storage technology, will be able to bring temperatures (the world is currently 1.3 C of warming above pre-industrial levels).

“(If) we know that there is a limit in terms of carbon that we can store, so there is a possibility that we will not be able to return to 1.5 degrees,” he said.