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Sequestration: Big Term, But a Simple Concept

The world produces 31.5 giga-tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually (EPA, 2021) to keep and raise mankind’s standard of living and well-being. But CO2 is a pollutant that raises the earth’s average temperature. Can we solve the pollution problem and still maintain our standard of living? Pessimistic thinkers say, “no”, but science says, “yes”.

Capturing CO2 emissions and injecting them deep into the earth’s crust is the most cost-effective, large scale and scientifically demonstrated way to lower pollution without dramatically impacting our standard of living. By implementing CO2 sequestration, the life of existing industrial and power production infrastructure life can be extended. This allows the long-term development of industrial processes that are purpose-built for zero-emissions and that are not based on hydrocarbons.

The earth’s crust is many miles thick, made up of hundreds of layers of compacted sand grains, mud, clays, shales and, deep enough, granite or bedrock, see Figure 1. These layers are compacted and cemented together by the weight of the shallower layers. However, they are not solid. The layers have voids, or pores, between the sand grains, cracks, and small cavities. And, since Nature abhors a vacuum, the pores, cracks, and cavities are filled with water (brine) and sometimes oil and gas. These ‘empty’ spaces are where we can store millions of tonnes of CO2 safely and securely for millennia…

Carbon Dioxide Sequestration: Ensuring Safety and Security

Windom Peak’s mission is to develop and support large scale Carbon Sequestration (CO2) sequestration projects. The key drivers for our efforts are safe sequestration, secure containment of the CO2 and executing the projects economically. Windom Peak follows the guidance of US EPA (2009) for CO2 sequestration as well as the detailed standards published by the International Standards Organization (ISO 27914-2017). This note describes our planning efforts to ensure sequestration projects are designed and executed to achieve our drivers.

So, how does a sequestration company, like Windom Peak, assure the emitter, local populace, state and local government regulatory agencies and investors that the project is done safely and securely? …

How Big is a Sequestration Project?

This is really two questions in one. There is a surface footprint requirement and the areal extent of the CO2 plume in the deep aquifer storage formation.

Let’s begin with the subsurface, where the CO2 plume resides in the saline aquifer, because this dictates how large an area the project occupies. There are four parameters that determine how large a volume the plume requires:

· annual emission volume and the number of years to capture and store,

· depth of the aquifer (its temperature and pressure),

· the porosity of the aquifer rock and

· the thickness of the aquifer.

The first parameter is the annual CO2 emission amount needing sequestration. A ton of CO2 is slightly more than 17,000 cubic feet at standard conditions (60 ^◦F and 1 atmosphere pressure) and has a density of 0.115 lbs/feet³. Then, for example, a facility that needs to sequester one million tonnes per year for 20 years will require a volume of 340 billion cubic feet of pore space, before compression…

Can I Sequester at My Facility's Location?

Very likely the answer is yes, but extensive testing is required by regulatory agencies to validate two criteria safety and the storage capacity of the proposed storage formation.

Focusing on the primary question: “Is my facility location suitable for sequestration?”, let’s consider the primary issues that must be addressed…