The Death of Capt Carbon Sequester

We are sorry to formally announce the death of Capt. Carbon Sequester.  He passed away late last night after sucking on the tailpipe of an idling car that some irresponsible person left running in an attempt to filter the carbon emissions through his body.  After several minutes of mouth-to-tailpipe, he had fallen unconscious and later was determined dead.  We give great thanks for his concerns about the environment and hope others will do their best to preserve our great land..... with common sense of course.

Has the world's largest carbon-capture project sprung a leak?

That was the charge placed earlier this year by Jane and Cameron Kerr.  The Kerr's are a Canadian couple who live near the Weyburn oil field in Saskatchewan.  The Weyburn field is responsible for nearly 16 million metric tons of compressed carbon dioxide that have been pumped into a reservoir deep underground for permanent storage, since early 2000.  At a news conference, the couple revealed a report by a geological consulting firm that appeared to link elevated levels of carbon dioxide on their property to gas from the reservoir.  Addressing the Canadian news media, they described a pond on their property “fizzing like soda pop,” and mysterious late-night explosions.  They also stated waking up to the discovery of dead animals that appeared to be asphyxiated.  They declared that they had abandoned the property out of fear for their health.

The entire story has postulated questions among the interested whether the entire prospect of storing carbon dioxide underground was unworkable.  “What started as a series of worrisome problems on a rural Saskatchewan property has now raised serious questions about the safety of carbon sequestration and storage, a technology that has drawn billions in spending from governments and industry, which have promoted it as a salve to Canada’s growth in greenhouse-gas emissions,” an article in The Globe and Mail newspaper said.  Not so fast, some top geologists say.  Sally Benson, a geologist at Stanford University, described the report, by Paul Lafleur, president of Petro-Find Geochem, a Saskatoon-based geological consulting firm, as far from comprehensive and said that other causes unconnected to the Weyburn project could be the source of the Kerrs’ problems.  “It’s a very short report and it’s a very complex issue,” Dr. Benson said.  Susan D. Hovorka, a geologist at the University of Texas at Austin, went further, saying that Mr. Fleur’s declarations that a firm link had been found between carbon dioxide on the Kerrs’ property and the storage project were “misleading.”  “He may be certain, but he’s wrong about his certainty,” Dr. Hovorka said. “His confidence is not justified by the data.”

The Petroleum Research Technology Center, a Saskatchewan-based research group overseeing the Weyburn project, has also issued a report strongly rebutting the consultant’s report.  An independent investigation of the Kerr property has already been proposed by IPAC-CO2, a carbon-storage research institute, and both Cenovus and a lawyer for the Kerr family have signaled their approval.  “It certainly warrants looking into,” Dr. Benson said. “If there’s damage occurring, a remedy should be made.”

Though the results of this story are still inconclusive, it brings some more attention to the CCS scene.  An interesting quote I saw last week kind of got my attention and made me want to include it in this post.  It went along these lines, "Attention, no matter what type, is still attention."  This might not be the type of attention CCS is looking for, but maybe at this point CCS will take any attention it can get.