Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Geological Storage of CO2

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Searching the literature in a new fieldCarbon
capture and storage
Martin J Blunt Department of Earth Science and
Engineering, Imperial College London
Imperial College Centre for Carbon Capture and
Storage
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Inconvenient truths
Rising population 6.7 billion now to 10 billion
in 2100. Energy shortage and security are we at
peak oil? Almost certainly beyond peak oil per
person. Desire for improved, or at least
maintained, standard of living. Climate change.
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Are we running out of oil?
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And what does this mean for CO2 concentration?
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Carbon capture and storage (CCS)
736 Gt in North Sea alone (DTI) CO2 produced
by all UK population for 100 years!!!
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Sleipner Project

• 1 million tonnes CO2 injected per year
• CO2 separated from produced gas
• Avoids Norwegian CO2 tax
• Gravity segregation and flow under shale layers
  controls CO2 movement

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Why literature review is difficult

• CCS is application-based, not discipline-based.
• There is expertise in different areas
• Petroleum engineering skills in multiphase
  flow underground and CO2 for enhanced oil
  recovery.
• Hydrology multiphase flow usually for
  contaminant transport applications.
• Capture typically in chemical engineering.
• Power plant design mechanical engineering.

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Important sources for basic information
Industry, IPCC

• Much work particularly on storage has been
  performed in oil companies. This may not be
  found in mainstream literature
• Sleipner (Statoil-Hydro)
• Miller/Peterhead project (BP).
• Can cause problems environmentalists
• attack on CO2 balance using mistakes on
• internal presentation slides.
• IPCC special report on CCS in 2005
• Very good introduction and reference.
• Some graphs now almost over-used.

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Resources

• Mainstream journals in relevant disciplines
• Transport in Porous Media
• Water Resources Research
• Advances in Water Resources
• Society of Petroleum Engineers Journal (Editorial
  Board discussion on carbon storage papers
  decided to allow them after initial automatic
  reject of some papers)
• Problems new researchers are often unaware of
  industrially-focussed literature, or do not have
  access (SPE).

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New resources
New journals International Journal of
Greenhouse Gas Control Conferences Again mix
of established Gordon Conference new
Greenhouse Gas Technologies and additions to
existing series SPE Forums and other meetings
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Literature searches

• Use Web of Science
• Danger of using keywords easily overwhelmed by
  papers and most not relevant.
• Carbon sequestration (5,895 WoS 651 SPE)
• Carbon storage (17,502 WoS 27,632 SPE)
• Carbon dioxide (92,406 WoS 3,838 SPE)
• Better approaches specific people and
  institutions (requires conference attendance to
  know who the players are)
• UT Austin, Stanford, Princeton, Edinburgh
• Also citation search is useful.
• Do look at industry papers (SPE etc)

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Conclusion
In this relatively new field, getting to know
people, attending conferences and knowing a few
key players is possibly more useful than using
web-based search tools alone these are useful
but cannot be used in isolation.
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Acknowledgements
Shell under the Grand Challenge on Clean Fossil
Fuels Qatar Petroleum, Shell and the Qatar
Science and Technology Park under the Qatar
Carbonates and Carbon Storage Research Centre
Imperial College Centre for Carbon Capture and
Storage