University (of Texas at Austin) Receives $19 Million to Monitor Carbon Storage Project

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2010/06/28/geosciences_carbon_storage/

University Receives $19 Million to Monitor Carbon Storage Project

June 28, 2010

AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin will receive up to $19 million from the U.S. Department of Energy and NRG Energy to design and oversee a monitoring plan for a carbon capture and storage demonstration project in southeast Texas.

The project will demonstrate advanced technology to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from a coal-fired power plant.

This project will be among the first in the state of Texas, and one of only a handful in the world, to use anthropogenic CO2 as opposed to naturally occurring CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). EOR is a technique that involves injecting CO2 into declining oil fields to increase oil yield. The objective of this project will be to ensure the long-term geologic storage of the injected CO2.

"It's exciting because for the first time in Texas, we'll be storing CO2 captured from industrial processes that would otherwise have gone into the atmosphere," said Rebecca Smyth, principal investigator at the http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/">Jackson School of Geosciences' http://www.beg.utexas.edu/">Bureau of Economic Geology.

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[Javaman]

1. I always have wondered, what if there is an earthquake?

suppose one of these old caverns suffers a crack or rupture after it's been pumped full of C02?

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. The schemes I think are the most realistic don't depend on using caverns as pressure vessels

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink#Mineral_sequestration