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Scientific evidence supports carbon storage technique
WHILE full carbon capture and storage systems have yet to be proven on an industrial scale, scientists say all the technology is in place for the technique to become a major player in the battle against climate change.
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Dr Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemists and a former oil industry consultant suggests fears about the "unproven" nature of CCS have been overblown, and the cost of installing the technology is likelier to be a bigger barrier than any risk of it not working.
He said: "I think the overall view on CCS is that we can say, rather tantalisingly, that all the components have been tested – but nothing has been put together in its entirety.
"Capturing CO2 from the flue gas has been proven. Pumping CO2 in pipelines down into a reservoir is proven technology. But it's the last step, putting it in reservoirs at very high pressure and leaving it there for 1,000 years, that's not been proven."
Dr Pike says the same depleted gas fields the CO2 will be pumped into stored vast quantities of natural gas for many millennia before man drilled through the rock to release it.
"Gas has stayed there under the ground at high pressure with no leakage for hundred of millions of years. The rock strata is sufficiently non-permeable to keep it there. So there is proof it has worked."
Dr Pike admits there is a "risk" of leakage from the sealed wells themselves but potential weak spots could be monitored and repaired when necessary.
He said "all the evidence" suggests there is sufficient capacity in depleted oil fields to make CCS viable but stressed it must be developed alongside more long-term renewable solutions.
"There has to be a diverse approach. CCS has to be taken seriously, but there's no silver bullet."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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