Potential Role of Enhanced Oil Recovery in Carbon Dioxide Removal?

[Wil Burns]

FYI, a new piece I just published in Illuminem:

 

https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/6168b84f-72af-4236-a3ff-36cde731d02e

 

 

 

 

WIL BURNS Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy American University   Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern University   Email: wil.b...@northwestern.edu Mobile: 312.550.3079 https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/   Want to schedule a call? Click on one of the following scheduling links: 60-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/phone-call 30-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30min 15-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/15min 60-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60-minute-conference-call 30-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-group 60-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60min 30-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-zoom-call   Follow us:

 

 

[Toby Bryce]

Hi Wil,

This is a great, nuanced analysis of the EOR question. Thanks for writing and sharing.

Dr. Peter Psarras did a podcast last year on the topic that I would similarly recommend. (And that reached a similar conclusion as yours.)

I'm not sure I 100% agree though, for two reasons:

• From a moral perspective, I personally don't think the CDR sector should serve to advance of sustain the extraction or use of fossil carbon. The fossil carbon sector has its own tremendous inertia, to counter which climate and CDR advocates must (IMO) take a consistent and sustained position to End Fossil Fuels. 
• From a political perspective, it is critical that CDR not be linked to the extraction or use of fossil carbon. (Morals aside, it is very difficult to pass climate / CDR policy that is opposed by the environmental left. And the environmental left is [correctly IMO] inexorably opposed to EOR.

What private industry does is one thing, and if the technoeconomics of EOR work, then I would not actively oppose that (for the moment). 

However I do not think policy should support EOR anywhere near on par with support of long-duration CDR. (Or really at all.) By which reasoning I think the new CCU bill from Sen. Whitehouse is highly problematic. 

I may not be articulating the above-stated view as well as I might -- and certainly open to a discuss of other perspectives -- but wanted to put this out there...

Best, Toby

[Robert Höglund]

For aviation, EOR might be a very good option, at least if more CO2 can be removed than what is emitted in the process. Carbon-neutral EOR oil is Much cheaper and resource-efficient than electrofuels and easier to scale up than biofuels. But yes, difficult optics. 

Regards
Robert

[Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas]

The concept that EOR is at best carbon neutral is though accurate in part, based on a caveat - that all of the CO2 that can be recovered with the product is then recycled to the next well. The CO2 sequestered in EOR science that says "at best neutral," is that unrecoverable C02 is captured in the EOR process because it is mineralized in the ever-present salt water in oil plays, and that is captured in the kerogens that originally held the hydrocarbons.

To create carbon negative oil with EOR, considering life cycle analysis, in order to get the pay from IRS 45Q or the California Low Carbon Fuels Standard sequestration incentive, one must simply leave extra CO2 in the ground instead of recycling it all to the next well. The cost of leaving this excess CO2 in the ground is quite minimal at the end of the EOR cycle because the infrastructure for getting the CO2 in the ground to do the EOR is already in place.

Steep trails,

B

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[Hawkins, David]

CO2 EOR can be carbon negative if regulations require it to be.  But they don’t and the oil industry’s incentive is to inject as little CO2 as possible per incremental barrel of oil produced.  It would be interesting to speculate on what would happen if, say, California or Norway were to enact a law requiring all oil production to be coupled with enough captured CO2 injection to result in a net emission reduction.

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From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas <bme...@earthlink.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2023 3:49:10 PM
To: Robert Höglund <robert.d...@gmail.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CDR] Re: Potential Role of Enhanced Oil Recovery in Carbon Dioxide Removal?

 

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[Michael Hayes]

Technically Straddling the Moral Hazard Divide of EOR/CDR, a new Biochar sink?:

Working fluids are a factor in EOR technical operations and Biochar is likely compatable with, or similar to, polymer enhanced EOR fluid flooding technologies:

https://youtu.be/gF1xFFFw2SY

A Biochar enhanced EOR fluid can likely be tested rather quickly using the above work as a model and as an actual EOR comparison. Supporting Biochar operations with EOR derived C credit dollars may trigger strong pushback from some Biochar advocates on moral hazard grounds, yet, coupling EOR and Biochar at the technical level would be coupling the two most funded forms of CDR at this time. 

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[Michael Hayes]

Biochar is a respectable 'oil spill absorbent':

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep43912

As such, a BC enhanced EOR fluid can likely be supported at the EOR/CDR technical levels, the cost of BC is relatively cheap compared to most 'polymers', and the CDR policy issues of both BC and EOR get equal billing. 

As a technical side note concerning polymer flooding EOR, using nothing but a BC slurry as a 'polymer-like' water additive may meet some well owner's EOR needs. Keeping EOR flood fluids as simple as possible is important for many environmental needs as well as production needs. 

[Roger Arnold]

TBR wrote:

        This is a great, nuanced analysis of the EOR question. Thanks for writing and sharing.

I agree and second that sentiment. Well done, Wil.

I'm less enthusiastic about some of the other statements by TBR and others:

• From a moral perspective, I personally don't think the CDR sector should serve to advance of sustain the extraction or use of fossil carbon. The fossil carbon sector has its own tremendous inertia, to counter which climate and CDR advocates must (IMO) take a consistent and sustained position to End Fossil Fuels. 

I can't speak for the "CDR sector", but from a moral perspective, I would assert that our duty is to advance the reduction of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere in order to mitigate anthropogenic global warming. Positions that contribute to that strategic goal should be supported. Period. Ending the use of fossil fuels is not the primary goal, and treating it as if it were is a mistake and a distraction. Use of fossil fuels will end when it becomes uneconomical to do so, and not before. Anyone who doubts that need only reflect on the quick about face of the Biden administration on leases for new exploration and oil development when the aftermath of COVID and war in Ukraine briefly raised oil prices to levels that might be appropriate if the externalities of fossil fuel use were priced in.

I happen to feel that use of captured CO2 for EOR is far and away the most expedient and effective approach to advance CDR. There's no reason whatsoever to apologize for increasing the production of oil from the mature fields where it's applied. Oil consumption is not supply limited. It's demand limited. Increases in the price of oil do not significantly reduce demand for oil, and reductions in the price do not significantly increase it. That means that a barrel of oil extracted from a mature oil field through EOR is a barrel that will NOT be extracted from a newly drilled oil field somewhere. In fact it will actually reduce net oil consumption be a significant amount.  Exploration and development of new oil fields is energy intensive. Not to mention environmentally destructive. Think of the bulldozers clearing trees and cutting access roads to new oil pads, the grading and construction of holding ponds for the co-produced water, the operation of quarries and the shipping of fracking sand half way across the country, the trenching and laying of gathering pipelines, ... If we can reduce all that by extracting a larger fraction of the oil in place in mature fields where the environmental damage has already been done, should we allow the fact that it will play to the benefit of oil companies dissuade us?