Dorthe Wildenschild

One challenge of OREGON STATE ADVANCE is that it must devise ways to draw from existing institutional systems, methods, and processes while acting as a catalyst to transform them. Rather than creating a new structure from the ground up, ADVANCE has developed ways to work within the institution it seeks to change.

Dorthe Wildenschild, ADVANCE Seminar graduate and Associate Dean of the College of Engineering, is no stranger to using ground-breaking techniques to create structural bridges that facilitate transformational advancements. As a professor of environmental engineering, and a Henry Darcy Distinguished Lecturer in Groundwater Science, Wildenschild uses cutting-edge techniques to transform fossil-fuel industry methods of oil extraction, which emit carbon dioxide (CO2), to re-trap the CO2 back underground. A Terra article titled, "Bury it Deep" states that, "Wildenschild admits that CO2 sequestration will not solve climate change, but it could slow it down and provide an important bridge as the world transitions from fossil fuels to renewables for energy generation. What’s needed most, she says, is national leadership and funding to speed the research." See excerpts from "Bury it Deep" below, and click the title for the full story.

Terra

Inspired stories from the edge of science

Bury It Deep

Storing carbon underground could buy time for a climate solution

Dorthe Wildenschild leads a study of efforts to capture the carbon dioxide (CO2) released from the burning of fossil fuels and inject it a mile or so deep into the Earth, where it would remain locked away. Ironically, the process stems from methods used by the fossil-fuel industry to extract harder-to-obtain oil trapped in small pores of geological formations near existing wells. Companies pump CO2 into oil fields where it mixes with and releases the black liquid from the pores in the formation, so the oil flows more freely toward the production wells. The process is known as CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery. 

“Many of the scientists working on this CCS technology are the same people who developed the technology for the extraction of fossil fuels,” says Wildenschild, a professor of environmental engineering at Oregon State. “Many of us used to work on getting oil out of the ground more effectively, both for oil recovery and to clean up groundwater reservoirs, but now we work on putting CO2 back where it came from.”

Taking center stage in her lab is a new, custom-made, $800,000 imaging system capable of “seeing inside” and “flying through” opaque materials.The imaging system is made possible by a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation. When installation is complete and the equipment is fully functional, it will be the most advanced system in the Pacific Northwest, Wildenschild says. The data generated, she adds, will be among the most accurate from any such facility in the nation.