Environment

Denmark reverses the direction of an oil rig for bulk carbon storage

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Project Greensands will capture and liquefy industrial carbon emissions, then ship that carbon out to sea and pump it into old oil fields to refill them
Semco Maritime
Project Greensands will capture and liquefy industrial carbon emissions, then ship that carbon out to sea and pump it into old oil fields to refill them
Semco Maritime
The Nini 2 oil platform in the North Sea is now running in reverse, pumping CO2 down into a largely depleted oil reservoir below
Ineos

Denmark is moving forward with Project Greensands, an initiative that will take huge quantities of captured carbon out to an oil rig in the North Sea, and pump it down to sequester it in the sandstone formations that once held oil and gas.

After being awarded the largest single grant in Danish history last December – some €26 million (US$27 million) – project leader Ineos Energy has tapped UK engineering consultancy Kent to "conduct screening studies covering the CCS Value Chain from the onshore capture sites, liquefaction, onshore storage, transportation, and offshore sequestration."

It's a remarkable project, for sure. Greensands will repurpose the Nini A oil platform, some 200 km (120 miles) off the cost of Denmark in the North Sea, reversing its previous flow to pump liquefied CO2 some 1,800 m (1.1 miles) below the sea bed. Here it will begin refilling the Paleocene sandstone reservoir known as the Siri Field, which has done a fine job containing oil and gas for the last 20 million years, and which has been identified as an excellent spot for carbon sequestration.

The Nini 2 oil platform in the North Sea is now running in reverse, pumping CO2 down into a largely depleted oil reservoir below
Ineos

Denmark plans to begin sequestering carbon here at a rate of 1.5 million tons a year by 2025, rising to 8 million tons a year by 2030. The latter figure represents more than 13% of the country's current known emissions. Annoyingly, it'll have to get there by ship, so until carbon-neutral shipping is sorted out, that part of the process will still be dirty.

The project website claims there's enough space in this single reservoir to store all the carbon Denmark has ever created in its history, and then some. Indeed, it says there's enough sequestration potential in the Danish subsoil to stow 500 year's worth of emissions at today's rate.

Why go out so far to sea and cause yourself all the trouble of sending tankers on 400-km (240-mile) round trips all day long? Presumably because there's already a nice big hole, pipes and an oil rig sitting there ready to go.

Source: Project Greensand via Recharge News

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3 comments
Grunchy
When trees first appeared there was no lifeform evolved capable of bio-degrading lignin, which resulted in vast forests becoming sequestered underground and subsequently turning into coal. Today there’s another carbon-based substance, on a similarly vast scale, which also cannot yet be bio-degraded (and therefore is a terrific candidate for sequestering carbon). That substance would be PLASTIC.
SteveMc
Sounds great but what's already in the big 'empty' hole they removed the crude oil and gas from? I assume it's sea water which must surely be contaminated with the remains of the oil extraction? Therefore that water needs to be piped out (I again assume) at the same time as the liquid CO2 is pumped in? I'm not knocking it, just curious about the process and the side effects that may or may not raise it's ugly head but is perhaps conveniently not being mentioned...
@Grunchy Can you imagine the massive logistics nightmare that would be involved in gathering, transporting and liquifying plastic in order to bury it under the sea? If you are at that stage of liquifying plastics on a mass scale, then the greenest step forward is to process it back into new plastic. Instead of manufacturing more.
MQ
Amazing that the Danish govt just spent a whole lot on project which many oil companies need to do to etend the life of a project...

Energy analysis on CCS operations - the normal "business as usual" has a significant energy deficit when one factors in CO2 disposal... Now we are using Oil and Gas to make wind and solar which will use up a bulk of its useful life pumping air underground so corporations will profit... And The Public Gladly pays.