I thought a little hands-on knowledge and experience on the carbon sequestration would be helpful to the readers. After graduating high school in 1965 I ran a water flood project near Carmi, Illinois for the summer. My father had been operating it since its start but had a heart attack. I ran it until I had trained my brother-in-law and started college. My brother was an engineer for Halliburton and designed water and air flood systems in Wyoming and Montana. We had many conversations on this topic.

            The truth is no project is going to be completely fail-proof. Just because the formation held hundreds of pounds of pressure when it was full of petroleum and methane doesn’t mean it will hold carbon dioxide injected into it. They held the grains apart and when removed the formation was compressed causing cracks to occur in the formation and in the caprock over it. Injection of water or air under a cracked caprock will cause the injected matter to seep or gush upwards to higher formations. Parts of Texas have collapsed several feet.

            The flood I ran got its water from a well about two hundred feet deep in a very permeable strata. We added some liquid soap to aid the water to push remaining petroleum to extraction wells. After a few years people living over a mile away complained of soapy water. The petroleum formation was 1,800 feet deep.

            If that had been carbon dioxide instead of water the people would have had free carbonated water!

            This is a great way to save the planet’s ecosystem as long as it isn’t used to extract petroleum as is being done in Oklahoma and Texas. Those projects should not get any tax benefits from carbon storage legislation. Temporary storage is when you drink a Coke or Pepsi.