MUN professor says N.L. could be a world leader in CO2 storage

Researchers at Memorial University's Hibernia Research Lab want to force carbon from the atmosphere back into sandstone under the ocean floor. They're seeking $3 million from the Newfoundland and Labrador government to support their studies.

Engineering professor Lesley James and her team have submitted a proposal as part of the government's Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Innovation Challenge. The initiative is offering up to a total of $6 million into the research and development of carbon-capture projects in Newfoundland's offshore, with the goal of becoming a global hub for carbon storage.

She says the province has significant carbon-storage potential and must look at safely storing carbon. 

James sat down with The Broadcast's Paula Gale to discuss her research and the province's offshore carbon-storage potential. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: We just had a chat before we started, before we turned on the microphone, about capturing the carbon straight from the atmosphere, and you made a very good point, that we should remind people that there is one very easy way to capture carbon right from the atmosphere.

A: And that's trees, yep. So if we can biologically capture that carbon, that is probably the most efficient way of going forward. But that doesn't mean that we let all of our carbon dioxide from our point sources, so from our oil and gas platforms, from oil refineries, from cement, you know, cement kilns and all the steel production up in Ontario and all of that [be emitted]. Those are large-scale point sources of CO2, and that's where we can really capture that point source that those higher CO2 concentrations and emission levels and look at storing those. 

Can you give me one example that people might think of in this province where there is a bunch of CO2 being created at one source and that you could fairly easily capture?

Either out at the refinery or at Holyrood. The Holyrood generating station burns fossil fuels to create energy, that would be a great example. But even Holyrood is a small emitter compared to other emitters that we have across Canada. We can think of our offshore oil and gas platforms as well. Can we make those more efficient and, you know, capture the carbon there as well?

Once this carbon is captured from whatever source, theoretically it is contained somehow or in storage canisters somehow … like a huge cylinder that you'd put in your fizzy drink machine, your SodaStream, right?

Absolutely. We're talking big cylinders of CO2, but … we want to compress it so that it's a super-critical or liquid phase, just so that the density is much higher, and in that same canister we can store a lot more.

And from the canister, then, let's go out into our offshore. Tell us about where you see a good place to store this carbon forever. 

We're super lucky that we know a lot about our offshore storage capacity already. And it's through all the efforts that Oil Co., Nalcor and the oil and gas companies have made in doing seismic surveys.

It starts with a seismic survey. We're looking for high-porosity, high-permeability sandstones with a good seal on top. We want to make sure that we have lots of shale and that is going to keep the CO2 in the formations or the rocks that have that storage capacity. And we can think of it like a sponge. We're going to store that CO2 in the holes of the sponge. 

Essentially, it goes all the way down the coast … all the way down through Orphan Basin … and then it wraps down around Whale and South Whale Basin, goes over ... past St-Pierre-Miquelon along and over to the Scotian Basin and the Maritime basin between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

Right now we're looking at a pretty big chunk of sandstone and … you're explaining to me that the carbon is then mushed into this — this becomes a sponge.

We're going to do the reverse of producing oil and gas. Now, this is assuming, of course, all the evaluations work and the regulations are in place … but essentially we'll drill a well into the sandstone formation where we want to store it and we'll push down the CO2 by making sure that the CO2 is at a slightly higher pressure than the pressure inside the rocks. What we need to think about is that, just like diving into a pool, the deeper you go, the higher the pressure. We want to be down 1,000 metres for sure. 

But the reason we want to be that deep is to get the right pressure and temperature so that our CO2 goes from gas to being super-critical. And again, we're just looking to increase the amount we can store in the same space. So [the] density would go from essentially the density of air, or one kilogram per metre cubed, to over 600 kilograms per metre cubed. And the deeper we go, the higher that density. So that means the more CO2 we can store in the exact same amount of space.

So you drill down. The carbon is put down there like the opposite of oil extraction, and then it's sealed off forever, is that how it works?

Yes, ideally it is. Our job again over the next five years is to evaluate not only the storage capacity of the reservoir rocks but also ... to make sure that there's enough seal and that there are no major faults or fractures in the seal for that CO2 to escape. 

That's why it takes so many different people to work on this, because we're working with the geophysicists and the seismologists. And we're working with the geomechanics to make sure that, hey, even if there was a seismic event, what is the likelihood that the rock above is going to fracture and cause the CO2 to come out? And then what minerals are in the rock? Is there going to be a chemical reaction that takes place again [that can] potentially weaken the rock or if there's the right mineral that the CO2 will react with it and actually solidify? But we need to look at both, right? We need to really look at not only how much we can store, but the uncertainty of keeping it and the risk of it escaping.

Looking at the map in front of us here, it looks like we have thousands and thousands of square kilometres of places where you could potentially store the carbon.

Absolutely. Now, some will be better than others, right? We know a lot already about Jeanne d'Arc and even Orphan from not only the seismic, but we've also drilled a lot of wells. And so we have that core rock. We can go in and we can store CO2 in depleted oil and gas reservoirs — we know the most about those. But there are also a lot of sandstone layers that happened after the tectonic shifts that are continuous, nice sandstone layers over the whole region that will give us even more continuous storage. But those aren't as evaluated. So again, that's what we're doing.

When Premier Furey says we have a lot of capacity to store a whole lot of this stuff, would you say we could be a world leader in this?

We have the potential, absolutely.

And here at the Bruneau Centre, you've applied for this $3 million in funding. Just tell me — if you get that, what's going to happen? Or if you don't get that, does that change anything?

The good thing is we can do the work. We've committed to the evaluation work without that $3 million. With that $3 million I will start a lab renovation and get a bigger and better lab. I'll get bigger and better equipment. That will make our lives easier. It'll make some of the tests go much faster. We'll be able to do certain tests that we can't really do. Do we need to do them for this work? Nope. Is it nice to have? Absolutely. But again, it's a risk, right? So that $3 million will give us a lot of capacity and capability.

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