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by hn_throwaway_99 589 days ago
It the example you give, CO2 gas is not really a valuable commodity. Pressure is the valuable commodity in that example, and so it's kind of irrelevant when discussing carbon sequestration solutions.
2 comments

That's not correct. If pressure was all that mattered, we'd just run compressors on nitrogen (or formation gas). CO2 has properties that make it especially favorable for flooding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_flooding

Has to be both. A random gas might interact with the oil being pumped. Why don't they just use compressed air? There must be a reason why CO2 is desirable for that application.
It's the opposite actually; CO2 interacts with petroleum in controllable ways via pressure, so engineers can change the properties of the oil and end up extracting more oil more quickly.