13 - Infrastructure and pipeline technology for carbon dioxide (CO2) transport

This Chapter focuses on technical issues related to the transport of carbon dioxide (CO2) in a transport infrastructure for CO2 capture and storage designed for climate change mitigation. Naturally occurring CO2 has been transported for enhanced oil recovery in the USA and canada for many years now and the practice is well understood. However, there are significant differences between established practice and the requirements of anthropogenic CO2 transport systems to be instituted in countries in other parts of the world in response to climate change. This Chapter concentrates on issues arising from those differences with particular reference to CO2 transport in the UK. Some of the issues, such as those relating to the specification of the CO2 quality for transport, have been introduced in Chapter 12 and will be developed further in the context of their implications for the design and operation of a CO2 transport infrastructure. The Chapter starts by identifying some of the differences between existing and future systems and goes on to describe the basic properties of CO2 relevant to the issues arising from them. it proceeds to discuss some of the technical aspects of the transport of CO2 by pipeline and ship followed by the development of a wider transport infrastructure. it concentrates on pipelines because in the early days of the development of large-scale CO2 capture and storage, it is anticipated that this will be the dominant mode of CO2 transport.