Building Confidence in Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide

In recent years, carbon dioxide capture and its geological storage (CCS) has been recognized as one of the most effective tools to mitigate climate change with its vast potential and cost effectiveness. With this background, many countries around the world have started to study on its technical aspects as well as economic aspects. In some countries, several commercial or experimental plants are already implemented and operated. In addition, many international cooperation activities on CCS are being undertaken or planned. Like EU's new energy policy, governmental policies now also accelerate the introduction of CCS. In the meantime, many people still do not fully understand technical details of the CCS and may feel worry about its possible seepage of stored CO2 in the long-term future. Indeed, Decision 1/CMP.2 Further guidance relating to the clean development mechanism invite intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations to provide to the secretariat, by 31 May 2007, information addressing the following issues: (a) Long-term physical leakage (seepage) levels of risks and uncertainty; (b) Project boundary issues (such as reservoirs in international waters, several projects using one reservoir) and projects involving more than one country (projects that cross national boundaries); (c) Long-term responsibility for monitoring the reservoir and any remediation measures that may be necessary after the end of the crediting period; (d) Long-term liability for storage sites; (e) Accounting options for any long-term seepage from reservoirs; (f) Criteria and steps for the selection of suitable storage sites with respect to the potential for release of greenhouse gases; (g) Potential leakage paths and site characteristics and monitoring methodologies for physical leakage (seepage) from the storage site and related infrastructure for example, transportation; (h) Operation of reservoirs (for example, well-sealing and abandonment procedures), dynamics of carbon dioxide distribution within the reservoir and remediation issues; (i) Any other relevant matters, including environmental impacts; With this background, METI (Ministry of Economy, Technology and Industry) made significant efforts for confidence building in the past years. Firstly, NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) on behalf of METI presented a proposal on confidence building on CCS initiative at the 30 th Executive Committee Meeting of IEA GHG R&D Programme. Based on this proposal, a special session was prepared at the IEA GHG 2 nd Risk Assessment Network Meeting, Oct 5th-6th 2006 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in San Francisco U.S. and active discussion was made on methodologies, international cooperation and its implementation on …