Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK -- A major one-year collaborative study involving the Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage (SCCS), the Scottish Government, and a number of industry partners has revealed that 4,600 to 46,000 million metric tons (5,070 to 50,706 million tons) of industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, including power generation, can be stored deep beneath the Scottish area of the northern and central North Sea.
Storage capacity of 46,000 million metric tons (5,070 million tons) is more than enough for 100 years worth of the UK's total industrial CO2, with several sites having the possibility of storing the next 200 years of Scotland's total CO2 output alone, according to the report. The results from the study indicate that Scotland, and the UK as a whole, has a storage resource capacity much larger than its planned annual volume of industrial CO2 output.
The study identifies a shortlist of representative carbon dioxide storage sites in the North Sea, specifically looking at saline aquifers and depleted hydrocarbon fields.
More work will be done to evaluate the most promising of Scotland's offshore storage sites, with the study recommending a phased and integrated approach to CCS, according to the report's authors. This will mean undertaking a more detailed mapping and evaluation of specific saline aquifers.
For further information on "Opportunities for CO2 Storage Around Scotland" and to access the full report, please log on tohttp://www.erp.ac.uk/sccs.
05/01/2009
