While stumbling around the internet waiting for bed time so I can try to recalibrate my sleep schedule, I found what looked to be an absolutely amazing headline on my Reuters Environment feed…

Japan, China to join in $300 mln CO2 Project

It seemed amazing. Could it be that a mere two days after I attended Al Gore’s speech at Radio City, China was taking serious action on its enormous emissions rate? (China is currently either very near or past US emissions, depending on your sources, making it either the 2nd largest, or largest CO2 emitter on the planet.)

Sadly, a further read quickly dampened my enthusiasm. The plan affects China, and is sponsored by Japanese companies such as Toyota Motors and JGC Engineering. And I have serious doubts about whether or not it is all that friendly of a solution.

Nikkei said carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province in northeast China, will be transported to Daqing oil field, located about 100 kilometers west of the plant.

The plant emits more than 1 million tonnes of CO2 a year. Daqing produces about 40 million tonnes per year of crude oil, the daily said.

CO2 will be used to make crude oil more liquid and easier to extract, resulting in an increase in output in Daqing of about 1.5-2 million tonnes a year, Nikkei said.

Now, I’ll freely admit that I’m no expert on carbon dioxide. But if the CO2 is being injected into the oil to make it more liquid, won’t it have to eventually be removed from the oil to make it pure? Unless they plan to cycle the CO2 in and out of the ground, that CO2 will eventually be released into the atmosphere. I do not think it is going to be cycled, since China is looking at using the power plant’s CO2 continuously, not just once.

So while I am glad that China is stopping this CO2 from going straight into the atmosphere, I do not see how this really helps anything in the long run. China seems to be looking for ways to seem cleaner without actually investing any money in truly cleaning up. Now, if those Japanese companies were investing in bringing better cleaning and filtration equipment to that power plant, so it didn’t emit all that CO2 in the first place, I’d actually be impressed.

If anyone out there knows how this CO2 injection will affect the quality of the oil, and whether or not it will eventually be released in the atmosphere during the oil’s purification, please let me know. I’d love to do a more detailed follow up on this report.