本文转自《Discover》发表的题为“A Pipeline To Capture Carbon Dioxide And Store It Underground”的报道。

作者：Nathaniel Scharping

日期：2018.09.04

原文链接：http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/09/04/carbon-capture-sequestration-storage-pipeline/#.W484BS274k8

A section of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Someday, similar pipelines could also carry carbon for storage. (Credit: Kyle T Perry/Shutterstock)

Trans-Alaska石油管道的一部分。 类似的管道也可以携带碳来储存。 （图片来源：Kyle T Perry / Shutterstock）

Capturing carbon emissions and locking them away deep underground could be a viable means of beginning to combat climate change. But, the industry needs a little help, researchers find.

捕获碳排放并将其锁定在地下深处可能是应对气候变化的可行手段。 但研究人员发现，该行业需要一点帮助。

While taking carbon directly from the air and sequestering it in rocks is far from a feasible scenario, capturing it at the source — power plants and refineries — is something that’s already being tested at some commercial operations. There, carbon dioxide from burning or refining fuel is separated out and and stored it as a liquid for transport.

虽然直接从空气中吸收碳并将其封存在岩石中远非可行的情况，但在源头 - 电厂和炼油厂捕获碳 - 已经在某些商业运营中进行了测试。 在那里，来自燃烧或精炼燃料的二氧化碳被分离出来并作为液体储存以便运输。

Eventually, it will be injected into deep saline aquifers or spent oil wells and trapped, keeping it out of the atmosphere. Though around 30 million metric tons (Mt) of carbon dioxide annually are stored in this way today, scientists estimate that up to 1,000 Mt, or one billion tons, will need to be stored each year to counteract the effects of climate change.

最后，它将被注入深盐水含水层或废油井并被封存，使其远离大气层。 虽然今天每年约有3000万公吨二氧化碳以这种方式储存，科学家估计每年需要储存多达1,000万吨，或10亿吨，以抵消气候变化的影响。

Putting the Carbon Back

回收碳

It’s a daunting task, but one that the fossil fuel industry has shown support for. A coalition of major oil companies announced a $1 billion investment in carbon capture technology two years ago, and there’s hope that future research will bring down the cost of what is currently an extremely expensive endeavor. There is some financial incentive to scrub and store carbon emissions, though, and it comes, ironically, from the fossil fuel industry itself.

这是一项艰巨的任务，但化石燃料行业已表示支持。两年前，一家大型石油公司联盟宣布对碳捕集技术进行了10亿美元的投资，并且希望未来的研究能够降低目前极其昂贵的成本。然而，有一些财政激励来清理和储存碳排放，具有讽刺意味的是，它来自化石燃料行业本身。

Carbon dioxide can be used to boost production at flagging oil wells; it causes the oil to expand and flow more freely, and can significantly boost production. Carbon used in this way will eventually be stored permanently within the wells, and there’s evidence that the process amounts to a net reduction in carbon emissions. That only holds true if the carbon is recycled, though, and today less than a quarter comes from anthropogenic sources. The largest reason for this is cost: It costs more produce to carbon than oil wells will pay for it.

二氧化碳可用于提高油井原油的产量，它使油膨胀并更自由地流动，可显着提高产量。以这种方式使用的碳最终将永久储存在井内，并且有证据表明该过程相当于碳排放的净减少。然而，只有在碳被回收的情况下才有效，而今天不到四分之一来自人为来源。造成这种情况的最大原因是：碳的生产成本要高于油井所需的成本。

Part of the issue is that there’s currently no large-scale infrastructure to support the movement of millions of tons of carbon dioxide from the places it’s produced to the places it can be used and eventually stored, like the Permian Basin in Texas. This creates a chicken-and-egg scenario where no one is willing to take on the risk of scrubbing carbon because there’s no way to transport it, and vice versa. The creation of a pipeline, though, would solve this conundrum and facilitate future carbon storage operations, helping us to more effectively combat climate change.

部分问题在于，目前还没有大规模的基础设施来支持将数百万吨二氧化碳从其生产的地方运送到可以使用和最终储存的地方，如德克萨斯州的二叠纪盆地。这就产生了一种鸡和鸡蛋的情景，没有人愿意承担减排碳的风险，因为没有办法运输它，反之亦然。然而，管道的建立将解决这一难题并促进未来的碳储存运营，帮助我们更有效地应对气候变化。

The solution, say two researchers from Princeton University, is to take a page from the construction of other utilities that we rely on to facilitate our modern lives today. The highway system, water and electric utilities and telecommunications networks have all benefitted from significant government financing, and they could offer a blueprint for the creation of an economically sustainable carbon capture pipeline.

普林斯顿大学的两名研究人员说，解决方案是从我们依赖的其他公用事业的建设中获取一页，以促进我们今天的现代生活。高速公路系统，供水和电力设施以及电信网络都受益于重大的政府融资，它们可以为创建经济可持续的碳捕集管道提供蓝图。

Incentives For Carbon Capture

碳捕获激励措施

They consider a few scenarios, but if the government and commercial sectors were to split the cost equally, they estimate that a pipeline connecting Midwestern ethanol biorefineries with Texan carbon repositories could be constructed for around $6 billion. Combined with recently passed tax incentives for carbon capture, they estimate that economies of scale should take care of the rest and carbon capture would become an economically sound business. They published their findings Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

他们考虑了一些情景，但如果政府和商业部门平均分摊成本，他们估计连接中西部乙醇生物精炼厂和德克萨斯碳储存库的管道可以建造，约花费60亿美元。 结合最近通过的碳捕获税收激励措施，他们估计规模经济应该照顾其余部分，碳捕获将成为一个经济合理的企业。 他们周一在“美国国家科学院院刊”上发表了他们的研究结果。

With enough financing, the pipeline could carry 30 Mt of carbon a year, or enough to double global carbon capture, they say, and enough to fully support the demand for carbon dioxide in oil wells. Future pipelines could also carry carbon for permanent storage outside of oil wells, too.

他们表示，如果有足够的资金，该管道每年可以运输3000万吨碳，或足以使全球碳捕获量增加一倍，足以完全支持油井对二氧化碳的需求。 未来的管道也可以携带碳用于油井外的永久储存。

The fossil fuel industry has proven adept at building continent-spanning pipelines to deliver oil to refineries — perhaps they can turn that expertise to pipelines compensating for carbon dioxide emissions as well.

事实证明，化石燃料行业擅长建造跨越大陆的管道，为炼油厂提供石油 - 也许他们可以将这些专业知识转化为补偿二氧化碳排放的管道。

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