Co2 Geological Sequestration: a Numerical Study of a Multi-compartment Reservoir in the Northern Adriatic Sea, Italy

It is widely recognized that fossil fuel power plants will continue to play an important role in the energy supply for a large number of countries in the decades to come. The implementation of suitable carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies is an essential task to meet the objective of reducing green house gas emissions into the atmosphere and obtaining a sustainable power generation from fossil fuels. At present, carbon dioxide sequestration in saline aquifers is indicated as one of the most promising techniques which, however, implies a complex multidisciplinary effort involving a number of hydrological, geomechanical and geochemical issues. The Italian energy provider Enel S.p.A. is committed to building a CCS demonstration facility in northern Italy, which will capture CO2 from the flue stream of the power plant, then compressing, transporting and storing it into a saline aquifer. This is a large-scale project which will demonstrate post-combustion CCS of 40% of the flue gas from one of the three 660×10 W units of the existing Delta power plant being converted from heavy oil fuel to coal. The post-combustion capture unit will separate about 1×10 ton/year of CO2, that will be transported off-shore and injected into a deep saline aquifer. The project aims at demonstrating the industrial application of CO2 capture and geological sequestration at a full commercial scale. The plant will be operated for an extended period on the order of 10 years, to fully demonstrate the feasibility of the CCS technology on an industrial scale, show the real CCS costs, and prove the retrofit option for high-efficiency coal fired units to be built or converted in the next 10-15 years. The CO2 disposal will take place in the Rimini