Chapter: Carbon-Negative Crude Oil
Steven Bryant IN: Sustainability in the Oil and Gas Sector, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51586-6_7
Every year in which targets for elimination and avoidance are not reached adds yet more carbon that must be removed from the atmosphere. The transportation sector is particularly challenged in this regard. It is impractical to avoid emissions from myriad vehicles, and difficult to eliminate emissions for some modes of transport. In this context, carbon-negative crude oil can play a valuable role. While nature-based solutions offer a route to CDR, engineered and natural/engineered hybrid NETs are likely to be necessary to accomplish CDR at scale. Unfortunately, few rapidly scalable options for NETs exist. Thus, the idea of coupling established, already scaled technologies for injecting and producing fluids in subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs, such as CO2 enhanced oil recovery, with rapidly growing technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, such as direct air capture, is timely. We describe how to operate this coupled process so that more carbon is removed from the atmosphere than is emitted during the production, processing, and combustion of oil. We discuss advantages and drawbacks of carbon-negative crude oil relative to other forms of CDR and to other paths to decarbonizing transportation, ranging from capital efficiency and speed of implementation to social desirability and technology lock-in.