Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
10/9/2015
Geoscientists and engineers specializing in carbon storage this week called for the consideration of carbon capture and storage as a mitigation option during the climate agreement negotiations to take place in Paris in December. In an Oct. 8 letter sent to Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the group said carbon storage is a well-understood process and should be recognized as such in future global climate agreements.
“The knowledge and techniques required to select secure storage sites are well established, being built upon decades of experience in hydrocarbon exploration and production. A global capacity of suitable CO2 storage sites has been estimated at several trillion tonnes. There is also extensive experience in CO2 injection and storage in a variety of situations and locations around the world,” the 41 experts asserted.
It is hoped that the negotiations taking place at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP21) in Paris will lead to a new global agreement on countering climate change.
The group supported its positions by providing evidence for a number of assertions, including the fact that naturally occurring CO2 has remained security stored in existing reservoirs for millions of years. Furthermore, reservoirs have various physical and chemical characteristics that can ensure the safe storage of CO2, such as impermeable cap rocks in storage reservoirs. The group also pointed to the ongoing injection of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery since the early 1970s and improvements in monitoring methods.
“Full-chain CCS, which integrates CO? capture, transport and storage technologies, is already being demonstrated at a growing number of facilities. The security of properly selected and regulated storage sites presents no barrier to its further deployment and enables its important contribution to climate change mitigation,” the group said.
