In the study published in Nature Communications, researchers from SCCS’s partner institutes, the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, compiled a worldwide database of information from natural carbon dioxide and methane accumulations and hydrocarbon industry experience – including engineered gas storage, decades of borehole injection, and laboratory experiments.
Computer simulations were used to combine all these factors and model storage of carbon dioxide for 10,000 years into the future. Previous research in this area had not fully accounted for the natural trapping of carbon dioxide in rock as microscopic bubbles, or the dissolving of carbon dioxide into the salty water already in the rocks.
The UN Paris agreement has committed the world to limiting climate warming to well below 2°C from pre-industrial levels. This requires huge reductions in the amount of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, which is released to the atmosphere from industry, electricity generation, heating and transport.
Capturing these emissions and ensuring that carbon dioxide can be safely trapped underground is crucial for the successful protection of the atmosphere.
The research was funded by the NERC Grant NE/M007251/1 on interpretational uncertainty.