Every year billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) are released into the atmosphere, causing an unprecedented environmental damage. This requires an urgent action from the scientific community. One of the options to tackle CO2 emissions is storing it in geological repositories. This solution is widely considered as a promising tool to mitigate the effects of climate change. We need to develop new technologies and knowledge regarding CO2 injection to make it safe and applicable worldwide.
To date, there are 27 operational carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities around the world, 4 under construction, and 102 under development. These facilities are capable of sequestering 149.3 million tons of CO2 annually. Moreover, there is still a vast geological storage potential for future operations. Yet, CO2 storage projects face considerable challenges and risks that need to be addressed for a successful operation. Leaks and contaminations, landscape deformations, and enhanced seismic activity in the areas of CO2 injection are among the most common challenges. Leaks are associated with discontinuities in the reservoir or caprock. They either naturally occur or are man-made.
DISCO2 STORE participants are looking for viable long-term solutions to these challenges. We aim to develop methods to detect, predict, and quantify the behavior of the mechanical discontinuities to reduce the risks associated to the CO2 injection. The main goal is to thoughtfully analyze mechanical discontinuities (MD) from their origin to their distribution, exploring hydraulic and mechanical properties, and their respective evolution when fluids are injected in the formation. We use the most recent experience of the oil and gas industry, top-notch engineering knowledge, and pioneering laboratory and computational experimentation. We expect the project outputs to contribute to the development of technologies in the context of other fields of current interest, such as geothermal energy production, hydrogen and natural gas storage and waste disposal.
