Government of Canada, 07 / 09 / 2004

EnCana was able to produce more oil when carbon dioxide (CO2) was injected into geological formations and mixed with petroleum. For example, the Weyburn field, operated by Calgary-based company 50 in southeastern Saskatchewan, has stockpiled some five million tonnes of CO2.
A report concludes that the Weyburn oil field is very suitable for long-term storage of CO2 due to its geological characteristics. ENAA (Japan), Nexen, SaskPower, TransAlta and Total (France) participated in a multidisciplinary study, lasting four years, which cost 40 million Canadian dollars. During the study, researchers performed a risk assessment of this long-term repository, completed geological and seismic studies, compared environmental models to actual results, and carried out repeated and frequent sampling in an attempt to understand the chemical reactions occurring in the area. The reservoir.
This study proves that we can store 5.000 tons of CO2 per day in the soil and thus limit the release of this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. However, the CO2 used was channeled through a 325 kilometer pipeline and originated from a North Dakota coal gasification plant. This shows the limits of the project since it remains easier to manufacture CO2 than to trap, store and transport that emitted by polluting activities. In addition, there is still much to be done to apply the techniques and systems employed here to other geological formations elsewhere in the world and to ensure that CO2 storage truly becomes an option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. tight.

Econology note:
See the order of magnitude of humanity's CO2 emissions:

- the current daily consumption is 80 Million barrels of oil
- 85% of this oil is consumed in the form of energy (therefore burnt)
- 1 kg of burnt oil rejects, around and to simplify the calculations, 2.5 kg of CO2
- a barrel of oil contains 159 L
- the density of oil is about 800 kg / m3

So there is 80 * 0.85 * 159 * 0.8 = 8650 Million kilograms of oil burned daily.
Hence CO2 emissions of: 8650 * 2.5 = 21 600 Million kg… or 21 Million Tons.

It would be interesting to compare this figure with the daily absorption of CO2 from biomass (mainly plants and plankton).

Obviously this figure ONLY takes into account the oil discharges, not the CO2 discharges from other fossil fuels (gas and coal). The "large scale" mentioned in the title is therefore not very credible ... for the moment.

Wouldn't a more effective solution be to simply reduce oil consumption? By increasing the conversion efficiency of processes… for example.