Japan will launch a carbon capture and storage pilot project off the coast of Hokkaido at the northern tip of the nation, Bloomberg reported Sunday. The pilot will begin in April with carbon captured from a refinery operated by Idemitsu Kosan Co. and injected into deep saline aquifers. The project will be the first full-chain CCS project in the country.
The location of the storage site, not too far north of the location of the 2011 earthquake that triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster, has some concerned, however. “There is no guarantee that carbon dioxide can be stored in a stable way in Japan where there are many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions,” Kimiko Hirata, a researcher of coal-power projects for the Kyoto-based environmental group Kiko Network told Bloomberg.
According to the Japan CCS website, over the course of the project, approximately 100,000 – 200,000 metric tons per year of CO2 is to be stored each year in two separate reservoirs at depths of roughly 1,000 meters and 3,000 meters under the seabed offshore the Tomakomai Port. “A series of monitoring, consisting of time-lapse 2D and 3D seismic surveys, temperature and pressure measurements of the reservoirs, micro-seismicity and natural earthquakes observation in and around the reservoirs is planned before, during and after CO2 injection,” according to the website.
