What are the methods of CO2 transport?
Except when the source is located directly over the storage site, the CO2 needs to be transported to the storage site. There are several ways of doing this. Concentrated streams of CO2 can safely be transported through pipelines at high pressure. Such pipelines have been used in the USA since the early 1970s for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and are currently the main method for transporting CO2. Experience over the past decades, mainly with gas pipelines, has shown that very few accidents occur and that risks associated with appropriately designed pipelines are low. CO2 can also be transported as a liquid, in ships similar to those transporting liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). In liquid form, CO2 could technically also be transported on road tankers or railcars in insulated tanks at low temperature and at much lower pressure than in pipelines, but this option is not economical for large scale CO2 transport. More…
