In message , nightjar
writes
Unusable in relation to oil almost always needs to be modified by the words
'at economic cost', which is a variable concept. Some capped wells could be
revitalised by pumping gas down them and that is exactly where it is now
proposed to pump excess CO2. It would probably be uneconomic to do it just
to get the oil, but there is political mileage to be gained by doing
something that people think will help prevent global warming. Of course,
even if the 'CO2 is the culprit' pundits are right, the best that can be
done is to delay the onset by a few years and the money being spent on
'prevention' would be much better spent on getting the world ready for an
increase in temperature.
Carbon Capture and Sequestration is the next big thing in the power
generation industry - for each kWh of power produced, your typical coal
fired power station releases just short of 1 kg of CO2. Since last
year, industry across Europe has been operating in an environment where
they have a physical cap on the amount of CO2 that the whole of Europe
emits. Each power station has a 'free' allocation of CO2 from the
government that allows a limited amount of running each year, after that
the plant has to buy what are called carbon credits from a traded market
but for each year there is a finite number of carbon credits available.
At present, a carbon credit is valued at around £16 per tonne so very
roughly 1 MWh of generation releases 1 tonne of CO2 so the additional
cost of each MWh generated over the plants carbon cap costs £16.
Interestingly, the cost of coal for your average power station also
costs around £16 for that MWh so the cost of the carbon credit is having
the same effect on final electricity price as the cost of the fuel -
whilst electricity prices in Europe have in the main been driven upwards
by the spiralling cost of oil driving the gas prices there is an effect
on prices since last year by the carbon market.

Capturing the CO2 from a power station and stuffing it down an oil field
(Enhanced Oil Recovery as it is known) would save the cost of carbon
credits and release valuable oil so it is of great interest to the oil
and power industries. Trouble is, getting the CO2 to the oil fields
requires pipelines - yet another national infrastructure (and the
technology to scrub the CO2 out of the power plants - very immature at
the moment) so the best option is to build new coal plants on the East
Coast of the UK close to the North Sea oil fields.

Andy
--
Andrew Sinclair http://www.smellycat.org