Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
We know that the oil and gas reservoirs did not leak
before they were exploited. If they had, the gas would be
gone and the pressure in the oil reservoirs would also be
much lower than it is found to be. However, the reser-
voirs have had many holes punched in them, and all those
holes would have to be plugged; probably not a big prob-
lem, but a concern. We do not know about the long-term
behavior of the saline aquifers. The leaks of concern in
those are not like the catastrophe that occurred at Lake
Nyos in the Cameroon in
]. (Nyos, a lake with
huge amounts of CO
dissolved in its cold bottom waters
from volcanic activity, released the gas in a rush, creating
an asphyxiating cloud that suffocated most living things
within
[
kilometers.) Leaks from CO
reservoirs will be
slow. However, given the litigious nature of many of the
world
s countries (particularly the United States), liability
for leaks will surely delay any large-scale implementation
of a CCS program.
The CCS option needs to be tested. If it works, the
world will be able to continue using coal for some time
while newer carbon-free technologies mature, especially
important for the developing nations. We know enough
from small-scale applications to know that it works in
principle, but we do not know if it works at the scale
required for a power plant. The US DOE started such a
project, but recently canceled it as costs went up and up
and up. I always thought this project, called FutureGen,
was misguided. It tried to do too much: produce electri-
city, produce hydrogen, and demonstrate CCS at an
industrial scale. I would separate the parts. An
industrial-scale demonstration of CC needs to be done
for separation both before and after combustion to learn
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