10.05.2023
In order to confront climate challenges, we will need to store significant volumes of CO2. The North Sea has an immense theoretical storage capacity.
There are many technologies to monitor how CO2 flows within a storage site, and it is perfectly possible to implement remediation actions if CO2 start moving away. However, we need a tool that makes it possible to set up a cost-effective system that ensures accurate CO2 monitoring at a low cost.
Through an international R&D project, the University of Bergen created such a tool to monitor CO2 storage sites. Together with researchers from the Netherlands, the UK and the US, a tool has been developed, which could be useful for both the authorities and companies planning for large-scale CO2 storage.
Through the ACTOM project, researchers have studied marine monitoring for offshore CO2 storage projects. National and international regulations and guidelines for CO2 monitoring were also included, as well as societal challenges related to CO2 storage. This is an interdisciplinary project, and participants in the project have backgrounds in law, geology, marine chemistry, mathematics, modelling and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). The main delivery from this project is a simulation tool for designing monitoring programmes for offshore geological storage sites. Procedures for detecting weak signals from a leak in an extremely varied marine environment are central for this new tool. The tool could help operators during the planning phase to design monitoring programmes that are in line with national and international regulations.
Key data about the project
Title: Act on offshore monitoring (ACTOM)
Project manager: Guttorm Alendal, University of Bergen
Partners:
From the US: Los Alamos National Laboratory and University of Texas, Austin
From the UK: Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the University of Dundee
From the Netherlands: TNO
From Norway: University of Bergen, NORCE and OCTIO Environment.
Budget: EUR 2 million
Financing: ACT has contributed EUR 1.5 million, the remainder is own financing from project partners.
RRI is an approach to predict and assess implications and expectations of new technologies based in the humanities and social sciences, a framework which is being increasingly used in marine environmental studies, biotechnology and innovation. This is the first time this approach has been used for CO2 capture and storage. Potential legal conflicts between CO2 storage projects, and between storage projects and other marine environments, are addressed with regard to marine area planning. The simulation tool can also analyse uncertainties and strengths of the planned monitoring programmes. National and international regulations and guidelines and the requirements these set for CO2 monitoring have also been taken into account.
