Carbon Flooding, a means for EOR and its climate potential
- Posted By
10Pointer
- Categories
Environment
- Published
17th Apr, 2021
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Context
In the Southwestern United States, mainly in Colorado and New Mexico, a process of obtaining more oil is facilitated by drilling pure reserves of carbon dioxide out of the ground is underway. This is also said to have climate resilience potential.
What is Carbon Flooding?
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) floodingis a process of injecting carbon dioxide into oil reservoirs in order to increase output when extracting oil.
- Neutral atmosphere: If the Carbon is being captured from the atmosphere then it could help in creating the Carbon neutral oil production.
- Reduction in carbon: Carbon flooding is also said to have a positive climate impact as it would help in reducing the Carbon amount from the atmosphere and would reduce the global warming.
- Concerns: However, It is also said to have negative impact as it would enhance more fossil fuel burning and would release other chemicals such as Hydrogen Sulphide into the atmosphere. It also has chances of natural Co2 leakage in atmoshphere.
Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)
Co2 is extracted from the natural source underground fields and then piped into the well forcing the last dregs of crude to come to the surface. This whole process of using Co2 is known as Enhanced Oil Recovery or EOR.
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