Rapidly-emptying oil and gas fields under the North Sea used to signify only depressing news for industry: precious fossil fuel resources, and the profits they provided, were running out.
No longer: that increasingly empty graveyard is being viewed as a fresh commercial opportunity – a new kind of natural resource, even, supporting what still seems a bizarre new industry: that of capturing, piping and storing carbon dioxide deep underground.
Offshore (under-sea-bed) storage is particularly attractive. It involves geological structures that are known to hold carbon dioxide underground, thanks to decades of experience in the oil and gas industry. (A Geology paper published in January says natural carbon dioxide stored in reservoirs under the North Sea has moved 12 metres upwards in 70 million years). And it doesn’t attract the kind of public resistance that accompanies schemes to, say, inject carbon dioxide under a shopping mall.
This offshore ‘oil industry in reverse’ could mean boom-time for Scotland, the FT notes today in a summary of latest developments.
Last week, oil giant Shell and UK electricity and gas network operator National Grid both joined a consortium led by Scottish Power, which has entered a bid into the UK government’s competition to host a commercial carbon capture and storage plant. It has a carbon-capture test unit at its Longannet power station in Fife.
“The Longannet project … presents a potential opportunity to reuse some of our existing natural gas transmission pipelines in Scotland for carbon dioxide transportation as North Sea gas supplies decline, helping the scheme to a running start,” said Chris Train, from the National Grid [FT, Wall Street Journal]
How much space has the North Sea got? Could we inject billions of tons of carbon dioxide under it every year? A May 2009 research study commissioned by Scottish government, academics, and industry concluded that Scotland’s offshore resources alone could ‘easily’ accommodate Scotland’s industrial carbon dioxide emissions for the next 200 years, and could probably import carbon dioxide from north-east England.
“Scotland’s offshore CO2 storage capacity is extremely important on a European scale: comparable with that of Norway, and much greater than Netherlands, Denmark and Germany combined,” it said.
So Scotland is poised to welcome a multi-billion-dollar industry, with all the jobs that brings with it. Just a few small matters to overcome: demonstrating the technology on a commercial scale; writing legal and regulatory frameworks; public acceptance – and the vast cost of capturing, compressing, piping, injecting and monitoring carbon dioxide.