Dr. Steve Bryant (PhDChE ’86), professor of petroleum and geosystems engineering, believes the oil industry is uniquely qualified to help save the planet.
Dr. Steve Bryant
Here’s his logic: Greenhouse gases pose one of the biggest threats to the planet’s health, and carbon dioxide remains among the most offensive of these gases. A chief method proposed for clearing the air involves capturing and storing the offensive carbon dioxide—a tall order given the sheer amount of carbon dioxide and its multiple emission points.
However, Bryant believes that managing emissions is within the technological capability of the oil industry. “The oil and gas industry has decades of experience moving large amounts of gas underground and above ground,” he says. “Few other industries deal with fluid volumes of this size.”
In fact, capturing the gas from fixed sources, such as coal- and gas-fired power plants and injecting it into geological formations mimics many of the processes that fuel producers already undertake. “The industry could respond with an ‘off-the- shelf’ geological storage service in a short time—a key advantage given the urgency of the problem.”
Through his Geologic CO2 Storage Joint Industry Project in the Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, Bryant has found that injecting carbon dioxide into formations deep within the earth’s crust is one of the few technologies that can be implemented rapidly enough and at a large enough scale to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
His research led to the “inject low and let rise” strategy for maximizing the secure, long-term immobilization of stored carbon dioxide, endorsed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in spring 2007. Subsequently, the IPCC received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Read more about Bryant’s work in the Journal of Petroleum Technology and in the Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in spring 2007.
For an Energy Future Free of CO2 Emissions, Look to the Oil and Gas Industry
Dr. Steve Bryant (PhDChE ’86), professor of petroleum and geosystems engineering, believes the oil industry is uniquely qualified
to help save the planet →
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