One method of CCUS
is CO2 injection. Increasing
oil recovery and storing CO2 (https://netl.doe.gov/oil-gas/oil-recovery,
accessed 19/05/2020)
Conventionally, a well is drilled into a reservoir and the
oil and gas is pumped to the surface. This usually results in around 25%
recovery of the reservoirs reserves. However, by using an Enhanced Oil Recovery
(EOR) method, this can increase recovery to around 40% or more. One method
which is favoured environmentally is gas injection. Carbon dioxide is pumped
into the reservoir and this pushes some of the trapped oil out and up to the
production wellbore, as well as lowering the viscosity of the oil so it can
flow through pore spaces more easily to the wellbore. This not only leads to
more oil being recovered, but also is a method of storing carbon dioxide
underground, so it is not released into the atmosphere.
Video
- This animated video shows how EOR using CO2 injection
is used at Elk Hills, California
(Oil Technology Group)
Pumping carbon dioxide into wells does have its technical
challenges. One of which is the acidity of the CO2. This makes
corrosion of equipment more likely so special consideration and engineering
needs to take place in designing the system..This role is primarily
dealt with by a Corrosion Engineer. A Corrosion
Engineer studies the properties of different materials and decides how best to
minimise corrosion.
Corrosion of an oil and gas pipeline (http://himipex.com/trunk-pipelines-corrosion-protection\,
accessed 19/05/2020)
Webpages
- For more information about the role of a Corrosion Engineer, this Wikipedia Page gives a lot of detail.
- To conduct your own investigation to determine how different materials are effected by an acidic solution try the Investigating the Effect of Acids on Materials experiment from the CCUS WASP STEM Year 10 package.
-
A video showing how to conduct the investigation at home is available here.