Carbon Cycles Miscalculated?

In a recent blog post on Mongabay.com, a site that promotes community awareness on environmental news, it was presented that a paper published by Science has addressed the issue that previous means of measuring the planets overall carbon cycle emissions and absorptions may not be up to snuff.  It has been suggested by the paper that natural emissions of methane and carbon dioxide from streams, lakes, and rivers are not even  accounted for in the previous measurements of carbon cycle totals.  This potentially represents a "major accounting error," supposedly on the line of 1.4 billion metric tons, yikes.  Still, these numbers are estimates.  They remain estimates because we apparently haven't had the proper means to measure, or think to measure, such volumes.  The paper urges more precise measurements because conversation of conservation and policy making highly depend on these figures.  Hmmm... yes, important stuff.

The blog post was informative, yet did not take a stance on the issue, it was merely written to inform the public.  For a reaction I explored the comments.  Pleasantly I found not outrage but comments that were more of a problem solving mentality.  Though the mentality did not include any formal answers, it is nice to see the support for moving forward with the issue at hand.  The link to the blog can be found here. and the comments. I did take the chance to comment, it awaits the approval from the site.  If it does not make it on, I will post it... but it was appropriate and really has no reason not to make it....

Enhanced Reservoir Modeling Developed by Berkley Could Speed Up Future of CCS

Nearly all of today's mathematical modelling is done by computers.  Rightly so, no need to be a generation of pencil pushers in this super computing age.  Most people that have any experience with mathematical modelling know, the details involved mean everything.  Plainly, the system inputs highly coincide with the system outputs.  Even more simply, garbage in = garbage out.  Scientists therefore spend an enormous amount of time trying to develop more and more detailed models in order to achieve better results from their model simulations.  Berkley Labs have just recently developed a simulation technique called adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) to combat existing modelling problems.  The Berkley article can be reviewed here.

Called Porous Media AMR, or PMAMR, the code concentrates computing power on more active areas of a simulation by breaking it into finer parts (higher resolution), while calculating less active, less critical portions in coarser parts (lower resolution). The size of the chunks, and thus the resolution, automatically shifts as the model changes, ensuring the most active, critical processes are also the most highly resolved. This ability to automatically shift focus makes AMR a powerful tool for modeling phenomena that start small and grow over time

This statement essentially says that modelling techniques can now focus on smaller "chunks" of modelling data and set more importance upon them.  The areas of high resolution are usually where more important data is being collected and therefore the model should favor those areas of data.  Being that these areas are of high resolution, this means more specific input details can be made about these "chunks" and therefore better output information can be collected.  How does this apply to CCS?

This new modelling technique may have developed a better simulation code to model CO2 injection into underground saline reservoirs!  Saline reservoirs account for the largest potential storage capacity for injected CO2 on the planet.  The new software developed by the Berkeley team was able to provide a much finer grained model than that of a traditional geological simulation code, and was able to generate a 3D model of the C02 in solution over time.  The eventual goal is then to be able to use the physical characteristics of a particular aquifer to predict how much CO2 it can accommodate.

This process stands the potential to help or hurt CCS.  If it can be proven through models that CO2 will stay in the designated aquifers without any leakage occurring, the case for CCS is greatly improved.  However, if the new models show that CO2 has the potential to leak in certain reservoirs, a stronger case against CCS will build.  If the modelling goes in favor of CCS, hopefully this will speed processes to get CCS up for review from a legislative standpoint.

Visual Learing

In an effort to connect to the audience in another way, a visual way, I will post a few videos concerning the topic at hand - carbon sequestration.

The first video is another general introduction to carbon sequestration, yet also touches on the involvement of the Department of Energy in the movement to reduce green house gases.  In combination with renewables, and increased efficiency, it is projected that a great reduction in overall emissions can be made.



The second video touches on a different form of sequestration, and that is terrestrial.



Blog Self Interview

Welcome to Captain Sequesters self interview... this is hard, yet hopefully will be insightful for mainly me, and translate to better blog posts for you the reader.  First, just to break the tension of a self interview i would like to post a video of another self interview, probably the greatest of all time.

Now if you can't appriciate what was just done right there... we obviously have different tastes in humor.  Nonetheless, on a more serious note, i will aim to answer a few questions that are directed at the blog. 
"Captain Sequester, what is the purpose of this blog?"
"Please, call me Captain Carbon Sequester.  Well good sir, captain, if you can call yourself that, you would know from reading the introduction post that this blog is focused on the subject of carbon sequestration.  It is the goal of the blog to present past and current information, expand public knowledge, and create a general forum for discussion on the subject"
"Captain will do just fine thank you.  Who is the imagined audience(s) of this blog?"
"Well Captain, the audience is not imaginary at all, (laughs) but seriously I started this blog in order to reach out to a select group of individuals, mainly class LAIS498DD at the Colorado School of Mines, woot woot, and those that show any remote interest in carbon sequestration at all.  There was the selected crowd, but hopefully the bounds are endless"
"Just like the quipy jokes you have I'm sure, Arrrghghhmmmmm, excuse me.... Have your posts matched up with your purpose? Also, who/what might you be overlooking in defining your purpose and audience in this way?"

Learning to engage; an informal science

Given that this blog does not aim to influence science policy directly, and attempts to avoid the deficit model, this blog is considered an informal dialogue.  Sarah Davies, one of many authors in the book Investigating Science Communication in the Information Age, points out that informal dialogues mostly do not even attempt to connect to policy or have large-scale outcomes.  That is moderately true for the purpose of this blog.  However, she points out that rather than to aim at large outcomes, informal dialogues should concentrate on outcomes and impacts on individuals.  That statement is profound, and has lead me to redirect my thoughts concerning this blog.  I need to connect with the people more, encourage the dialogue, and give people information that will lead to opinions and discussion, maybe even debate!  In this context, WE can reconceptualize informal dialogue to having mutual, individual learning as its purpose.  Better attention to the new informal dialogue to follow!

Thank you,
Cpt. Carbon Sequester

Framing an issue at hand

The largest volume of carbon sequestration currently occurs in the form of geologic sequestration.  In this form, carbon dioxide is injected into depleted oil and gas reservoirs, unmineable coal seams, and underground saline formations.  These reservoirs represent a strong majority of underground storage capability, and the capacity volumes necessary to make a difference in the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  However, it must be pointed out that the present form of injecting carbon dioxide has not taken place as a means of purposely reducing global carbon dioxide levels, but as a form of enhanced energy production.

            The thought of injecting carbon dioxide into the ground to reduce greenhouse gas emissions seems counterproductive and dangerous to some people.  Why pay high operational costs to inject the carbon dioxide?  Many think the money would be better spent cleaning up industrial processes.  Skeptics also point out that reservoir capacity calculations are estimations and companies can never possibly know the exact volume of gas that can be put into the reservoir.  Worst of all, the gas could potentially migrate into aquifers and contaminate drinking water and further harm the environment.  These are all fair dissertations, but a closer look is needed.

            Carbon dioxide has been injected for decades into oil and gas reservoirs as an enhanced oil recovery technique.  The gas is pumped into the formation and remains in the reservoir to provide an extra drive mechanism to produce increased amounts of oil.  This method represents an opening to sequester carbon at an overall low net cost.  The cost is considered low due in part to the great profit margins recovered from oil and gas production.  The carbon dioxide injected into the reservoir is well documented, and as long as the initial pressure of the reservoir is not exceeded, theoretical knowledge indicates that the reservoir should remain intact.  This means no formation damage should occur and leak-off volumes of gas are very minimal.  Reservoirs hold there integrity extremely well, after all they have held oil and gas for millions of years already.  Also, there has never been a proven case in which carbon dioxide leakage from an underground reservoir has had detrimental effects on the outside environment.