CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURE AND STORAGE Background Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) is considered a critical technology to reduce world greenhouse gas emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations estimated that carbon dioxide capture and storage might provide up to half of all emission reductions necessary to stabilize greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. CCS plays a major role in the plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industry at relatively low cost that have been developed by the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta, and the Government of Saskatchewan. There are two separate technologies involved in carbon dioxide capture and storage – carbon dioxide capture technology and carbon dioxide storage technology. Carbon dioxide capture technology usually is applied to large industrial facilities such as coal-fired electricity generating stations, oil refineries, upgraders, and fertilizer plants. Carbon dioxide capture technology can be pre-combustion technology (such as coal gasification or an Oxyfuel process) or post-combustion technology (involving options such as ammonia, amines, or porous membranes). There is considerable potential for improving the efficiency (and thereby reduce the costs) of current carbon dioxide capture technologies through research. Carbon dioxide can be permanently stored underground in various geological formations, particularly those containing salt water (deep saline aquifer disposal) or coal, or in oil and gas reservoirs where it can be used to increase oil or gas production.
Illustration courtesy Energy Resources Conservation Board/Alberta Geological Survey
www.economy.gov.sk.ca
2 Carbon dioxide storage technology is based on the knowledge that there are a large number of natural occurrences of carbon dioxide stored in geological formations in many locations throughout the world, including Saskatchewan. Carbon dioxide storage technology is more advanced than carbon dioxide capture technology, since storage technology is heavily based on well understood, common, everyday oil field practices for disposal of substances such as salt water and acid gas. The Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) is managing the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas Weyburn-Midale Carbon Dioxide Monitoring and Storage Project. The project has been undertaken at the site of a commercial scale carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery project in Saskatchewan, to provide scientific evidence that the carbon dioxide injected into a geological formation can remain underground in the oil reservoir for at least thousands of years. This research project has received significant publicity around the world. The carbon dioxide will remain underground because of the various layers of rock which overlay and seal the storage reservoir. The graphic below shows the various rock layers, including those containing salt water, overlying the site of the Weyburn-Midale Project in southern Saskatchewan. Additional layers of rock filled with salt water lie below the oil reservoir. Southeast Saskatchewan has two commercial carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery projects operated by Cenovus Energy Inc. at Weyburn and by Apache Canada at Midale. Both of these projects obtain their carbon dioxide from a coal gasification facility in North Dakota. The carbon dioxide is shipped through a 325 kilometre pipeline that crosses the international border. The first carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery injection in Saskatchewan began in 1984 as a pilot project in the Midale reservoir. This initial, small project was expanded in 1992 and continued until 1999 when it was shut down. In 2005, carbon dioxide injection resumed at the Midale reservoir as part of a commercial carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery project. Cenovus began injecting carbon dioxide into its Weyburn field in the fall of 2000 as part of a major enhanced oil recovery project. Cenovus experienced a 60 per cent increase in oil production rate as a result of the injection of carbon dioxide. The two enhanced oil recovery projects inject almost 3 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide annually. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that this amounted to 46 per cent of all the carbon dioxide stored around the globe in 2009.
3 The International Test Centre (ITC) for Carbon Dioxide Capture at the University of Regina is researching economical amine-based technologies to capture carbon dioxide from flue gases emitted at large industrial facilities such as refineries or coal-fired electricity generation stations. The work at the ITC has identified significant potential for reductions in the cost of capturing carbon dioxide.
The Government of Canada has committed $240 Million for the Boundary Dam Integrated Carbon Capture and Storage Demonstration Project which involves the life extension and retrofitting of Unit 3 of the Boundary Dam coal-fired electricity generation station in southeast Saskatchewan. SaskPower, the provincial Crown electricity utility, will contribute $1 billion to the project. The Clean Coal Project will capture up to one million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year which would be available for enhanced oil recovery purposes. This project will be one of the first to develop and demonstrate carbon dioxide capture at a coal plant on a commercial scale.
In 2009, the International Performance Assessment Centre for the Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide (IPAC-CO2) was established at the University of Regina through funding from the Government of Saskatchewan, Royal Dutch Shell as well as the Government of Canada through Western Economic Diversification. IPAC-CO2 is an environmental non-government organization (ENGO) that works to gain public and regulator confidence in the geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a sustainable energy and environmental option for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
Want to know more? Contact: Howard Loseth, P.Eng. Director, Energy Development and Climate Change Ministry of the Economy 300, 2103 – 11th Avenue REGINA SK S4P 3Z8 Ph: (306) 787-3379 Email: howard.loseth@gov.sk.ca
Disclaimer: The information in this document is accurate as of May 2012; however, the Government of Saskatchewan accepts no liability for any actions taken as a result of the information contained herein. Printed in Canada