Abstract

Permanent storage of carbon dioxide within sub-surface geological reservoirs is a key component of the greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy. The biggest and most easily available reservoirs occur within buried sedimentary rocks and consist of either depleted hydrocarbon fields or pristine saline aquifers. At present, the longest running and best monitored test site is the Sleipner carbon capture and storage project, located in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. At this offshore site, about one million tons of liquid carbon dioxide has been injected every year since 1996 into a sandstone layer at a depth of about one kilometre beneath the seabed. Regular seismic surveys are carried out with a view to imaging the migration of carbon dioxide as it displaces brine fluid within the pore spaces of sandstone rock. In this lecture, I will describe the background of this project and summarize the multi-disciplinary research that has been carried out with colleagues at Cambridge.