Global CO2 storage capacity: Modelling limitations of geography and injectivity

The project is aimed to address a major question at the nexus of energy production and climate change. Energy systems models analysed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have suggested that CO2 storage must achieve rates of 10's of Gt CO2 per year by 2050, implying energy infrastructure at a scale matching that of current oil and gas infrastructure. The use of CCS in these models is the leading control on the total costs of mitigating climate change. However, these models are lacking in realistic representations of CO2 storage. They do not constrain deployment rates, either with top down limitations on technological growth, or bottom up constraints from the physical limitations of the reservoir systems. This project offers an opportunity to implement existing models to identify the CO2 storage resources required to accommodate growth rates which are constrained by climate targets set by governmental bodies. Furthermore, a key uncertainty for Gt scale CO2 storage is the pressurisation of the reservoir in response to injection of CO2 and the associated risks of induced seismicity that might result in leakage. The development timescales are, therefore, further constrained by the geological conditions using analytical models developed by De Simone.