Capturing CO2 and injecting it into a well to squeeze more oil out of the ground is not real carbon sequestration. Why? When the recovered oil is burned, it releases at least as much CO2 as was stored (and possibly much more). Therefore, CO2 used for such enhanced oil recovery (EOR) does not reduce net carbon emissions and should not be sold to the public as a carbon offset.
Yet a company, Blue Source, LLC, proposes to do just that: to capture the CO2 from a fertilizer plant, pipe it to an oil field, and inject it into wells for EOR :
The company hopes to profit from the project by earning credits for the carbon reductions in voluntary carbon markets and by selling carbon dioxide to energy companies.
The deal will cut CO2 from the plant by about 650,000 tonnes per year by permanently storing the emissions in the oil fields, he said. The U.S. Department of Energy says that capturing CO2 from power plants for enhanced oil recovery could greatly boost U.S. oil reserves while permanently keeping CO2 from reaching the atmosphere.
Uh, no. To repeat, if the captured CO2 is used to extract oil that releases CO2 when it is burned, then how is that offsetting anything?