Princeton University researchers have proposed a pipeline network for the United States that would capture, transport and store underground up to 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emission each year — an amount equal to removing 6.5 million cars from the road. The network (thick blue line at center) would transfer carbon dioxide waste from ethanol refineries in the American Midwest (green dots) to oil fields in West Texas. Midwestern ethanol refineries, which emit 43 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, are currently located far from existing carbon dioxide pipelines (orange lines) and largely don’t sit atop geological formations suitable for storing CO2 (beige areas). Image by Ryan Edwards, Princeton University.
With the right public infrastructure investment, the United States could as much as double the amount of carbon dioxide emissions currently captured and stored worldwide within the next six years, according to an analysis by Princeton University researchers.
The authors propose in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a pipeline network that would transfer carbon dioxide waste from ethanol refineries in the American Midwest — where grains are fermented to produce the alcohol-based fuel — to oil fields in West Texas. The captured carbon would then be pumped into near-depleted oil fields through a technique known as enhanced oil recovery, where the carbon dioxide helps recover residual oil while ultimately being trapped underground.
