Carbon Storage and Enhanced Oil Recovery FAQs

• Annotated biliography of recommedned reading on geological sequestration. [PDF]
• News feature explaining geologic storage of carbon dioxide and summarizing GCCC's efforts. Click here for link.
• The Gulf Coast leads the nation in emissions: Annual emissions of CO2 in the Gulf Coast region of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi has been estimated as approximately 1 billion metric tons CO2 with emissions doubling over 50 years under business-as-usual.
• The Gulf Coast leads the nation in subsurface storage: 1% of the total volume of storage in the Gulf Coast could store a century of emissions of CO2 in the region.
• Texas alone emits 667 million metric tons of CO2 annually.
• Power plants emit more than one-third of the global emissions of CO2, but the CO2 concentration of these emissions are moderate, 3- to 20%, so that they would have to be separated in order to be injected economically.
• Some industrial processes such as hydrogen production in oil refineries produce nearly pure CO2
• The Gulf Coast region has accounted for approximately 16 percent of the U.S. annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels when calculated on a basis of fossil fuel consumption.
• The percentage would increase if calculated in terms of fossil fuel production to approximately 25 percent.
• If CO2-EOR was expand to other suitable Texas fields outside of the Permian Basin, we have estimated that more than $171 billion wellhead value, $26 billion in taxes, $498 billion in economic value, and creation of 3.3 million jobs would be created.
• More than 700,000,000 tons CO2 storage would be a direct results of maximizing EOR in Texas, which would reduce the amount released to the atmosphere
• There have been 45 bills submitted in Congress on emission controls.
• The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, is a cooperative effort by 10 states from Maine to Maryland to implement a regional cap-and-trade system to cut CO2 emissions from fossil fuel fired power plants.
• The Gulf Coast Carbon Center (www.gulfcoastcarbon.org) is doing research to develop a plan suitable for CO2 reduction and reuse the Gulf Coast.