Blog Action Day - How About Carbon Sequestration? .....

Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be one of the largest-ever social change events on the web. The focus this year is on Climate Change.

There are no lack of ideas out there about how we - as a people, as businesses, as governments - might address climate change. But, so far, no single idea has stepped forward as THE idea, the panacea, the one-size-fits-all solution to reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, and heading-off their contribution to climate change.

There is one idea out there that could help. And it involves a technology more-than-a-little familiar to the Permian Basin oil and gas industry - carbon sequestration. And while it may not emerge as THE idea, it is one that could do its part ... depending on ...

"Curbing greenhouse-gas emissions to counter climate change would involve action on multiple fronts, and the contribution from each front would probably change depending on the price for CO2," the Congressional Budget Office notes in this September 2007 report.

"No one mitigation strategy will single-handedly meet the challenge of alleviating climate change, and considering any one strategy in isolation is likely to overstate its potential contribution. Examining mitigation strategies as a group highlights the fact that their collective potential falls short of the sum of their independent potentials and alters their relative importance. Ultimately, society can achieve more at a lower cost with a wider mix of approaches—taking advantage of the least costly options early on and, when those are exhausted, exploiting more expensive options as CO2 prices rise."

But it could work ... and in the case of the Permian Basin, it could be 'put to work' enhancing recovery in our older fields. And THAT is something that might have some impact on the cost of the process. It's definitely worth looking into ... just ask the folks in Fort Stockton, Pecos County and Sandridge Energy (and Oxy).