Scaling Technologies To Enable Giga-Tonne/Year CO2 Storage

Abstract

Summary Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a key climate mitigation technology required to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming. Commercial-scale demonstration projects such as the Quest project in Alberta, Canada, or the Illinois Basin-Decatur project in Illinois, USA, have shown that the technology is feasible and safe. These projects demonstrate that existing technologies are sufficient for the successful implementation of CCS at the mega-tonne/year scale. However, scaling these technologies to meet the future need for giga-tonne/year storage remains a shared industry challenge. Responding to it demands addressing the low-probability, high-impact storage risks that cannot always be avoided within a large and diverse portfolio of CO2 storage projects. These include the risk of induced seismicity and fault reactivation, pressure management to improve storage security, exposure to legacy wells, and lowering the cost of large-scale containment monitoring. We propose four technology development pathways to address these giga-ton/year challenges, highlighting key focus areas.