Burial – Controversial Method of Reducing Air Pollution

As the world’s population increases, technology advances, and government funding for environmental protection is cut, global warming becomes a bigger problem every day. Women of the 1950’s and 1960’s, who spend hours a day sunbathing, are learning a hard lesson today, and scientists and cancer researchers tell us to wear sunscreen every day, regardless of season. Will there ever be an end? Can we ever dramatically reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere? Will our children ever be able to enjoy the sun with no deadly consequence? Some environmentalists are beginning to think we can. Researchers are looking towards an unexpected method: burial. In Saskatchewan, Canada, scientists have been injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into the partially depleted oil field since 2000. What they have found is extremely surprising. Not only are greenhouse gas emissions cut, but oil production is also boosted. The money that the surplus oil makes has been great enough to cover the cost of burying the CO2. So far, the project has cost about $28 million, gets their CO2 from the Dakota Gasification Company in Beulah, North Dakota, via a 220-mile pipeline. This idea has been rapidly gathering attention in places across the world, and it is already part of President Bush’s plan to reduce emissions in the future. There are plans to try the same types of injections in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, where gases would be piped 300 miles away from a natural gas plant to be buried. Japan also has plans to try injecting. The Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE), plans to be able to have technology that will be advanced enough to make injection a routine method by 2012. RITE estimates that Japan will be capable of storing 70 billion tons of CO2 underground. Some economists warn that Japan doesn’t have enough oil fields to make CO2 injection costs worth it.CO2 injections are nothing new to the world, however. Texas has been drawing oil from previously economically drained and useless oilfields. One thing to be noted about the Texas injections is that the CO2 comes from deep underground, so there is no greenhouse gas reduction at all. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the biggest reason oil fields have been chosen for underground storage of CO2 is its economics. The pressure of the injection into permeable rocks forces more crude oil into production wells. The CO2 dissolves the crude oil, making it flow easier, so it is less costly to refine the oil. Without the injection, it costs about $30 per ton of crude oil to refine it. The US Department of Energy is attempting to reduce the cost to approximately $8 per ton. This idea is a fairly new one, and much research still needs to be done. So far, only a few hazards or potential dangers have been found. Because the injection pressurizes oil, it could force dirty water up, polluting ground and surface water sources. CO2 could, of course, leak back into the air, making the project useless. What happens underground with the storage units? Eventually, will re run out of safe places to store it? “So far, none of the CO2 injected into the Weyburn Field has escaped to the surface nor is there evidence of polluted water in the area,” reports Canada’s Petroleum Technology Research Center. The research center has also projected estimates of injection storage for the future. They say that Saskatchewan’ s oilfields are large enough to store the entire providences carbon-dioxide emissions for the next thirty years. This is good news, considering that, over the next twenty-five years, another twenty-one million tons will be injected in the area. One thing that cant be argued is how beneficial injection seems, in more than one way. Since the injection project began four years ago, oil production in the field has increased fifty percent. One thing the articles did not mention is whether or not this rise in production has come from new oil that we could not extract, or if our known supply is merely draining quicker. While burial is a good way of reducing emission, It surely isn’t the answer. It is costly, and extremely dangerous, as these methods haven’t been around long enough to determine if any serious damage can be done. Is it wise for the developed nations of the world to switch their plan of thinking and assume that if we cant see the problem, than it must be gone? If the world is desperate enough to begin digging deep underground to pause pollution problems, shouldn’t we be spending this research time and money onto finding healthier ways of providing the energy the world needs? Doesn’t finding ways of getting rid of the consequences of using oil only encourage us to continue doing so? Burial of CO2 does, indeed, seem like a good idea, provided it is being used right along with wind, solar, and nuclear power, conservation, and other methods of pollution reduction. Conservation is the key to living sustainably, and just because we can bury our problems for a few hundred years, doesn’t mean we have solved the problems of the world.