Three ports straddling the North Sea are going to work together to store carbon dioxide in disbandoned gas fields.
At a first stage, the ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Ghent-Terneuzen-Vlissingen aim at storing 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
The project, code-named CO2TransPorts, is an extension of an existing initiative started by the port of Rotterdam, Porthos.
It involves the building of a network of pipelines to catch the emissions of the neighboring refineries and chemical industry, transporting it to the harbour of Rotterdam, and from there through a 20 km underseas pipeline towards an abandoned gas field, 3 kilometers underneath the North Sea.
The ports involved already possess an extensive network of pipelines: Antwerp, for example, has 720 km of pipelines in the port alone, along with extensive connections to other pipelines criscrossing the Low Countries. The North Sea will see more than 300 gas/oil fields being decommissioned by 2025, according to industry figures.
The announcement comes closes on the heels of an investment of 2.7 billion euro in the Antwerp harbour by fast-growing British chemistry group Ineos. The investment is the biggest in the European chemical industry of the past 20 years and is controversial. Ineos CEO (and Brexiteer) Sir Jim Ratcliffe insists that the whole thing can only be profitable if it's fed by (US) shale gas. Ineos has big investments in the shale gas industry in the US.
Fracking, however, is considered environmentally damaging. Next to that, Antwerp is already the second largest petrochemical cluster in the world after Houston, Texas. The Ineos investment would increase further its carbon dioxide emissions to an unknown amount.
The three ports combined are currently responsible for 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year, or one third the total yearly emissions of the countries they're based in (the Netherlands and Belgium).
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @02:43AM (1 child)
CO2 emissions have caused global greening, so a reduction will cause the opposite, global browning.
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Monday May 13 2019, @07:50AM
That's quite good, I might appropriate it.
"Why don't you go feed a tree" is now my new signoff for greenies.
They can figure out what it means for themselves.
(Score: 4, Funny) by progo on Monday May 13 2019, @03:49AM (3 children)
"Disbandoned" doesn't sound cromulent.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday May 13 2019, @06:35AM (1 child)
So perhaps the word is actually a discromulent word pulled from his fauxcabulary?
Three grammar Nazis were severely injured in creating this post.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Monday May 13 2019, @10:11AM
One dyed at the scene, another one was uttered dead-on-arrival, the 3st is still, in a critical condition (until it reads this comment, that is).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday May 13 2019, @11:52AM
Perhaps it's a portmanteau of 'disused' and 'abandoned'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @04:27AM
The beavers are just going to release this later.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by quietus on Monday May 13 2019, @10:37AM (2 children)
The Sleipner gas field in Norway has been used since 1996 to store about 1 million ton carbon dioxide.
A case study [bellona.org] on the field has this to say:
(touches wood no further grammarists were killed after readings)
(Score: 2) by quietus on Monday May 13 2019, @10:44AM (1 child)
correction: ... been used since 1996 to store about 1 million ton carbon dioxide, annually.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @03:09PM
Or a big metal tube has a speaker in it that makes whirring sounds all day, and they are taking the CO2 emissions credits as cash payments, for running the worlds worst ambient music 24 hours a day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @12:27PM
grow grasses, tie some weights to them, and drop them into the black sea. salinity below 200 m is (as far as I know) high enough to disallow decay, so that carbon will be there to stay.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Monday May 13 2019, @05:02PM (1 child)
I'm curious to know the geological impact of increasing the pH of the local groundwater. Tennessee and Kentucky are littered with caves caused by the slow action of carbonic-acid in groundwater.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday May 14 2019, @08:50AM
That is indeed a serious concern. On a somewhat related note, here's a BBC broadcast [bbc.co.uk] featuring a specialist in what to do with abandoned (sic) mines: simply doing nothing can (will) lead to unexpected results once the mine gets flooded by groundwater again.