Could carbon dioxide be stored beneath Metro Vancouver? SFU researchers explore
Global News
Shahin Dashtgard believes the climate-polluting greenhouse gas could be stored beneath up to 2,000 metres below the streets of Metro Vancouver.
As governments around the world scramble to make headway in the race against climate change, researchers at Simon Fraser University are exploring a new carbon capture and storage possibility for the Lower Mainland.
Earth sciences professor Shahin Dashtgard believes the climate-polluting greenhouse gas could be stored beneath the streets of Metro Vancouver, dissolved in salt water and kept in a salty substance up to 2,000 metres below the surface.
The high pressure at those depths would keep the carbon dioxide in its dissolved state in the brine solution, which is denser than the brine in the rock, and would sink.
The tactic wouldn’t work in Alberta or northeastern B.C., Dashtgard explained, because the subsurface is full of fine-grained, impermeable rock formations.
“We do, in fact, have porous and permeable rock (here) that we can inject CO2 into,” he said.
“But unlike other places, we’re going to have to look at a different form of injection, kind of a made-in-B.C. solution that allows us to store that securely in the subsurface in a way that’s actually safe for society.”
Injected into the ground, he added, the earth would function almost like a pop can — a pressurized container that would trap the carbon dioxide for a millennia.
Dashtgard and his team are working with the Metro Vancouver Regional District, with funds from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, to assess the potential impact of seismic activity on possible storage sites.
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