Many countries, including Canada, depend on a type of carbon underground storage to maintain greenhouse gases that aim to the planet from the air and avoid the most catastrophic climatic expectations.
But a study published this week In the magazine nature It raises a new problem with what is already unusual technique.
The study, led by researchers in the United Kingdom, Austria and the United States, analyzed a wide range of risk factors from the traditional assessments of carbon storage capabilities.
They found that worldwide, about 1460 billion tons of carbon dioxide can be safely stored under the ground. This is much lower than the current expectations of about 12,000 billion tons. This means that the use of all safe areas to store carbon would reduce global warming by only 0.7 degrees Celsius, that is, much lower than previous estimates of about 6 degrees Celsius
“If we consider that carbon storage is a rare resource, which depends on our evaluation,” said Matthew Giden, a co -researcher professor at the Maryland University Center for Global Sustainability and the study author.
Carbon’s removal and storage grows because climate modeling increases increasingly reducing our current emissions alone will not be sufficient to maintain safe levels. In Canada, the federal government provides tax credit to support and store carbon capture projects, The taxpayers are expected to cost Up to $ 5.7 billion until 2028. The United States and Europe also have huge technology support programs.
“As (study authors) note, if we work to reduce emissions now, we may have sufficient storage, but this stops being really correct, soon,” said Rob Inskin at Wisconsin University – Madison, who is looking for carbon technology.
“Global emissions rates are so high that the time window where geological storage is practically closed very quickly.”
What are the factors that prevent carbon storage?
Kaiden said that most of the engineering studies looking to store carbon focuses on technical capabilities-the amount of engineering or technically possible from carbon can be collected and stored under the ground in sedimentary rocks. His team followed a different approach: taking into account many risks such as rapprochement between towns and cities, sensitive ecosystems, protected wildlife areas, and seismic areas active.
They also assumed that carbon storage will not happen beyond 2.5 km, based on their evaluation of the current technology, and excluded some emerging storage techniques. Some researchers say this may be very limited, taking into account the speedy improvement of carbon storage technology.
“They have very good reasons for choosing these depth ranges based on the literature and previous studies they cite. But I don’t think this is necessarily difficult,” said Anna Littlefield, a researcher at the Pino Institute for Public Policy at Colorado College of Colorado, who focused on energy transmission.
Kate Moran, President and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada, is the Ocean Research Observatory, is working on a Carbon storage project In the basalt rock below the sea floor. She says that carbon dioxide interacts with basalt to turn from gas to solid, which makes it a more attractive way to store carbon compared to the gas form that may leak.
“The ability is huge,” Moran said. “The basin we are studying, the Cascadi Basin, we believe that there are at least 200 Gigown, at least available on this site off the Canadian West Coast.”
BC scientists have developed a carbon storage program that would take carbon dioxide from the air and push it in the depth of the ocean where it will be injected into basalt, a type of volcanic rock, and ultimately turns into a rock itself.
Meanwhile, ANEX says that carbon storage expectations in the study may be very pink given the financial challenges of building a storage capacity with enough to address global temperatures.
“Expanding the scope of fasting almost expensive. Competition for capital competes with many other social needs,” he said, adding that the study assumed that a lot of carbon will be transferred to large distances, on lands in pipelines or shipping, to where they will be stored, increase costs and the possibility of public opposition.
The biggest problem still shows that it works
However, the space available for storage may not be the biggest obstacle.
“There is a lot of geological space there. This study is somewhat you say, well, there is no “I have thought, a comma, but there is a lot, the period,” said Dave Sawyer, the main economist at the Canadian Climate Institute in Al -Khanji, Canadian.
Experts say the real challenge shows that carbon capture and storage can actually work wide enough to compensate for emissions. Experimental projects in Canada and abroad often witnessed mixed results.
Littlefield said that if the main problem with carbon storage is just a precaution, it will be a good place for the industry.
“We are still trying to get successful projects,” she said.
Gideen said that one of the study the letters revolves around the so-called transgression theory-where climate scientists believe that the world will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming but later, through carbon storage technology, it can retract temperatures (the world is currently at about 1.3 ° C from the pre-industrial temperature).
“If) we know that there is a limit in terms of the amount of carbon that we can store, there is a possibility that we can return to 1.5 degrees.”
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